Reflections — Pastor’s Blog

Mark has told you that his book is the good news about Jesus Christ. After describing briefly the work of John the Baptist preparing the way for him, Jesus himself is introduced in Mark 1:9–11 as he is baptized by John and then has the Spirit descend on him. Mark, who has not given you a birth narrative, considers this crucial to your coming to know Jesus.

Jesus was baptized for you by John. Jesus came into the wilderness to submit to John’s baptism. John had spoken of the coming of the one who is more powerful than he. But when that powerful One makes his appearance, it is Jesus, coming from the insignificant, even despised town of Natareth. Compare the coming of Jesus with the coming of the crowds to John. In common are: come / to John / for baptism / in the wilderness. But there are significant differences. Jesus comes from Nazareth, and he comes as the sinless One with no confession of sin. As we saw last week, John’s baptism was one of repentance, closer to the ceremonial cleansings in the Old Testament, than to baptism into the name of the triune God. Mark’s brevity invites you to reflect on the implied problem that Matthew spells out. Why should the Messiah, the Redeemer need to be baptized like the sinners who came to John?

Continue reading “Baptism by John and by the Spirit”

When s the last time you heard the word Repent? Is it used only by weird people holding up signs with that word? How often do you hear it in church circles? As the writer describes the beginning of he gospel of Jesus Christ he focuses in Mark 1:4–8 on John the Baptist’s call to repent. That missing word is what you need in order to meet God.

John’s baptism summons you to repent. The wilderness location calls you to the obedience of sonship. In the Old Testament the wilderness was a sign of separation to sonship. The Exodus was to be the release of the Lord’s firstborn son, Exodus 4:22, 23. In Hosea 2:14 the desert is the location for the call to renewed fellowship with the Lord. John’s location, dress, and diet, remind you of Elijah — the prophet who summoned Israel and King Ahab to repent. John’s baptism indicated a similar purification from sin. Its roots lay in the ceremonies of purification. Going out into the wilderness was a reminder of the 40 years of exile. It was more than just a reminder. It was part of the process of repenting.

Continue reading “What Do You Need to Meet God?”

I want to introduce you to someone today. Or to put it more accurately, the Holy Spirit, who inspired Mark to write his Gospel, wants to introduce someone to you. Perhaps you are thinking, well, I met that person a long time ago. I know Jesus. He’s my Savior. The same could be said of many of those who first heard Mark’s Gospel. But Mark 1:1–3 is good news, not only for those who have never met Jesus, but also for those of us who have known him for a longer or shorter time.

Listen to the beginning of the Gospel. Hear what Mark tells you. The name of Mark (or John Mark) has been associated with this Gospel from its earliest days. His mother was well to do enough to host a late night prayer meeting for large group of Christians praying for Peter’s release (Acts 12:12). That home might have been the location of the last supper. Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas as they started their missionary journey (Acts 12:25; 13:13; 15:36–41). He is mentioned in Colossians 4:10,\; 2 Timothy 4:11 and 1 Peter 5:13. Papias (c. 140) quotes “the elder” as saying that “Mark became Peter’s interpreter, and wrote accurately, though not in order, all that he remembered of the things said or done by the Lord…. His one concern was to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to make no false statements in reporting them.” Understanding that likely origin does not undermine the inspiration or the authority of the Gospel. Mark wrote his Gospel, but he wrote it to be listened to by his audience. We have an advantage in being able to read (much more widely than in the first century), but we still need to listen—and to keep in mind that Mark wrote it to be heard. You can divide the Gospel into three scenes (not that Mark though of himself a writing a three-act play) identified by geography. After the introduction, Mark 1:14–8:21 takes place in Galilee, Mark 8:22–Mark 10 is a journey to Jerusalem, and Mark 11–16 takes place in Jerusalem. In any case, Mark structures his material differently than the other Gospels–but for his own inspired purpose.

“Who is Jesus of Nazareth? What is the good news (gospel) about him?

“We all have our own answer to that question. This book presents us with Mark’s answer. It is full of important information which will help us to understand what Jesus said and did, what his life was really like, and who he claimed to be. It is the earliest reliable record we have about him. For that reason, understanding Mark’s Gospel is a major step in coming to know, understand and believe in Jesus himself.”

Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Mark, p. xiii

Continue reading “Have You Met Jesus?”

Imagine a sterile scalpel falling on the floor during a surgery. Would the surgeon simply say, “Well, the instrument was sterile, therefore the floor must also be. Pick it up and hand it to me”? That ridiculous illustration puts in modern terms, the illustration the Lord uses in Haggai 2:10–23.

Beware of sin’s defiling power. Sin pollutes, corrupts, and impacts your life. God says, “Ask the priests.” The priests had the responsibility of instructing the people, including in matters of ritual purity, Leviticus 10:10,11. In the Old Testament ceremonial laws, certain things and certain people were holy, set apart to God in a special way. There were elaborate ceremonies for consecrating priests for their role of handling the holy things. This holiness reflected the character of God. Thus Uzzah was punished with death for touching the ark in David’s day. Haggai asks the priests to rule on the question as to whether ritual holiness, ritual purification, could be transferred and their response is negative. Haggai addresses the people as they have been rebuilding for a couple of months. He is interested, not only in their progress in construction, but even more in their seeing their relationship with their God. The ceremonial cleansings were not primarily about modern sanitation (though they may have had some benefits in that direction). Haggai’s second question focuses on the ceremonial defilement that came from contact with a dead body. Not only did the person who had touched the body become ceremonially unclean, anything or anyone he touched became unclean. Anyone who was ceremonially unclean was prohibited from entering the Temple or participating in public worship. The point of the second question was a strong reminder of just how easy it was to become ceremonially unclean. (You see this reflected in the practice in Jesus’ day of Jews refusing to enter the home of a Gentile.) The message behind the ceremonies was a lesson in the corrupting effects of sin. The attitude of the people, though outwardly religious, had been one of neglect of the Lord and his Temple. This attitude of heart had affected their entire lives with its corruption, verse 14. Remember that you can’t isolate sin to one area of your life and tolerate it there. Sin, wherever it exists, has a corrupting, defiling effect.

Continue reading “Defilement Reversed”

What is the most overwhelming task you have faced? Those who had returned to Jerusalem from exile had heard Haggai’s admonition to resume rebuilding the temple. Haggai’s second prophecy, Haggai 2:1:9, came just seven weeks after his first, and rebuilding was going on. But it seemed discouraging. What Israel needed and what you need is to see the earth-shaking glory of the Lord!

Be strong! Listen to God’s command to be strong and work. The former glory of the temple was discouraging. Some of the older remnant had seen Solomon’s temple, stripped of some of its glory, but still a most impressive building. The prospects of replacing it were grim. As Zechariah indicated (4:10), there were those who despised the day of small things. The task of the church in a rebellious and apostate world seems equally discouraging. The temptation is to get discouraged or simply give up. Haggai has to encourage the people after they have been building for almost two months. The command to “be strong and work” echoes David’s admonition to Solomon (1 Chronicles 28:20), and the earlier word to Joshua (Joshua 1:6–18). The very fact that this admonition is the word of the Lord was an encouragement. God had not abandoned his people. He was speaking to them and nurturing them through his prophet. God does not want you to use adversity as an excuse for disobedience or slackness. Friends may look down on you if you refuse to compromise your faith. Pressures can make obedience difficult. Instead of giving in, continue to serve God.

God assures you of his presence. “I am with you” is a theme that runs throughout Scripture. It comes to its clearest expression in the coming of Immanuel. In your baptism the Lord declares that you belong to him. In the Lord’s Supper he is with you as your host. The relationship is so close that you feed upon your Lord. As the Lord Almighty, the commander of the hosts of heaven, he is with you, strengthening you in your work. The Spirit of the Lord remains with you. That Spirit was evident in the cloud of glory. The Spirit came upon Moses and the elders, Numbers11:16, 17. The same Spirit would enable his people to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding, see Zechariah 4:6. The Spirit has been poured out on you in even greater fullness, for you live on this side of Pentecost. You experience that Spirit, not just as the One who guided Israel through the wilderness, but as the One whose sovereign power was involved in raising Christ from the dead.

The Lord of glory shakes all things. Pay attention to the Lord’s shaking! Previously the Lord had shaken the earth during his theophanic appearance at Sinai. Grasp the wonder of what was happening. The infinite, powerful, sovereign, holy God came down to earth and said, I am with you. I am your God, you are my people. But Haggai is talking to people who have lost the wonder of that sense of the presence of God. As you take your eyes off of God and focus on yourself, you become much more measured in your response to him. A caution sets in that blunts your obedience. Don’t lose that wonder. Another shaking is coming. The Lord would shake the nations and bring their precious things into the temple, Ezra 6; Ezra 7:15. Desired can refer to a person, or to precious substances. The Lord builds his temple. The second temple, like the first, is specifically the temple of the covenant people. The best the nations can offer, however, is brought into its construction. The silver and the gold are ultimately his. You might expect the construction of the temple (or its reconstruction) to involve only Israel. But the bringing in the best of what the nations have indicates the breadth of God’s work. God would bless his people, and not only them, but through them the nations as well. The glory of the true temple that Hebrews tells you about is not cedar imported from Lebanon or gold from Arabia, Africa (or wherever Ophir was), but people. Catch the vision of that — and look for ways to bring the good news of the Savior into conversations–even in response to politically correct greetings. A cosmic shaking is coming. Not only will the earth shake, but the seas, and even the heavens. The author of Hebrews in 12:25–29 quotes Haggai as he points to the final renewing work of God. This universe-shaking event began to happen with the coming of the Messiah. Just as the initial steps of temple construction seemed puny, so God’s greatest work includes a young woman in Nazareth, who gives birth in a stable in Bethlehem. It takes the eye of faith of Simeon and Anna to recognize in this Child the fulfillment of God’s promises. The beginning looks forward to completion of his work, the renewal of all things. The things which God shakes are temporary. They will be replaced with a permanent order. This is the final, the eschatological shaking. The Lord shakes the old to replace it with the new and permanent. Because that shaking is coming, pay attention! Hebrews 12:25. Look at who God is, look at what he has done for you, and pay attention to him.

Live as the glory-filled house of the Lord. This house will be more glorious. The humble beginnings, mourned by those who had seen the glory of the former temple, would result in a glorious building. But the glory of the new temple would not lie primarily in gold and silver. In a sense the second never matched Solomon’s original. The silver and the gold were not the core of the glory of the place of worship. What impressed those at the dedication of Solomon’s temple was not the precious metals, but the weight of the glory of the Lord which filled the temple. That glory would become evident in the building under construction, not in a theophanic cloud, but in a person. God himself would become man, and in that temple he would conduct the preaching of his kingdom. Do you see the church the way God sees it? Or do you start by focusing on your short comings, or those of your neighbor? Is your first question, what can I get out of church? Try seeing it the way God sees it in Hebrews 12, which is the way the church really is. You have come, God tells you.

Why is a building so important? It is not the building itself. God’s people worshiped prior to the tabernacle or temple. In a real sense, the idea of a temple as a place where God meets with his people extends from Genesis to Revelation. Eden, apparently high ground from which rivers flowed, is described in Ezekiel 28:13–14 as a mountain. Following the Fall, an altar for sacrifice becomes a crucial part of the temple. Your sins have to be covered for you to enter God’s presence.You have Sinai and the replica in the tabernacle and later the temple. But, not only does Jesus proclaim the good news in the rebuilt temple, he describes his body as the temple. And, after his death and resurrection, the temple becomes, not a building of stone, cedar, gold, and silver, but temple made of living stones. Finally, in the new heavens, John is taken to a high mountain (Revelation 21:5) to see the bride, the wife of the Lamb. It is a holy city, more magnificent than Solomon’s temple. But in it there is no temple, (Revelation 21:22, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. The holy city, the new heavens and earth, the glorified creation renewed and perfected, is the place where God meets with his people.

“The substantial essence of the new temple is still the glory of God; however, that glory is no longer confined within a material building but instead is revealed openly to the world in Christ and his subsequent dwelling through the Spirit in the worldwide church as the temple. The progress of God’s revelation has made the fulfillment of apparent prophecies of an architectural temple even greater than originally conceived by finite minds. That is what Hag. 2:9 appears to express: ‘the latter glory of this house will be greater than the former.’ Such an escalation from an architecturally conceived temple to a nonarchitectural one is also pointed to by some OT precedents that already understood that a temple could exist without there being an architectural reality. Two examples are the garden of Eden, called a ‘sanctuary’ (Ezek. 28:13–18), and Mount Sinai, understood to be a mountain temple, after which the tabernacle was modeled.”

G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, p. 643

The temple functioned as a place of peace. The horns of the altar functioned as a place of refuge. The sacrifices offered daily in the temple served to maintain peace between a holy God and a sinful people. The new temple would witness a greater sacrifice. At the heart of the work of establishing his kingdom would be the death of the King. The blood of Jesus has spoken something far better than the blood of Abel did. God has incorporated you into his glorious temple. The Lord’s Supper is a meal which is an assurance of peace. The holy God invites you to table fellowship. Take hold of what God has accomplished for you, of the peace which he as brought. And then reflect that as you talk to your family, your co-workers. The redemptive work of the Messiah has cosmic implications. The completion of his work involves renovating and replacing this temporary world with the glory of the new creation. You observe the Lord’s Supper “until he comes.” Your participation today is a confession that you really belong to the unshakeable kingdom which your Savior is establishing.

Prepare for the final, great shaking of all things. And you prepare by placing your trust in the One whose coming was the beginning of shaking, the One to whose voice you continue to listen.