Mark 12:1-17. Hopefully you have been reading along in this at some time other than when I originally wrote it.  The writing got interrupted for several weeks and that interrupted my focus.  In other words I started to forget the big picture.  Two posts ago (5/29/13) I talked about how Mark can be divided into five sections, an introduction, three main sections, and a conclusion.  The first main section was a bout the power or authority of Jesus, his miracles proved his claim to be God.  The second main sectin was about the path he was on.  His path was toward Jerusalem and the cross but it also involved producing followers who would continue to tell the world about him after he was gone.  The final section, which started in Mark 11:1 is about the purpose or passion of Jesus.

We want to remember, too, that the book of Mark was written to the believers in Rome around 62 AD.  It was a time of growing hostility toward those believer.  A new Caesar would soon be in power, one who hated the Christian, Caesar Nero.  The way Mark presents Jesus’ story would have been helpful to those Roman believers, especially the way the book ends (but that is for another post).  Throughout the book though we see ideas that would have been important to the Roman believers because of the culture they lived in.  The fact that Jesus was the perfect God-Man is one of these ideas.  That is why Jesus is called both the “Son of Man” and the “Son of God” by Mark.

Another feature of Mark that I have mentioned before is how everything seems to happen “immediately” at least in the first main section.  The pace slowed down in the second main section and even more so in this third one.  To a troubled group of believers I think it would have been important to see that Jesus had the power and was willing to use it quickly.  Over the years I have had several times when I needed help or was in trouble.  It is very easy to get anxious waiting for help, even when you know it’s coming.  But remember that the word “immediately” means “straightaway”.  As I said I think the idea of the right path, not just the quickest, is part of that word.  Jesus’ path was the best and most appropriate path for him and for us.

With respect to his physical life on earth, our reading today has Jesus pretty far along that path.  He is in Jerusalem for the last time before his crucifixion (at least in the area since he comes and goes from the actual city several times during that last week of his earthly life).  In yesterday’s reading we saw conflict between the religious leaders and Jesus.  They were upset that he had thrown the money-changers out of the temple.  (Remember that the money-changers were using the “Court of the Gentiles” as a place to do business.  It must have been encouraging to the believers in Rome, many of whom were Gentiles or non-Jews, to see Jesus “defending” their territory.)  They challenged his authority.  To test their sincerity Jesus asked them a question before he answered their question about his authority.  Their response showed that they were “posing” or “posturing”; being “politically correct” we might say today.  The first part of today’s reading is a direct confrontation of their attitude and Jesus uses a parable to do it.

A parable uses something we know to help us understand something we don’t know.  Many people think that parables are supposed to confuse but that is not their purpose.  The word “parable” means to lay something along side of something else; to compare.  In this case Jesus is comparing the leaders to a group of guys renting a vineyard.  At harvest time the owner sent several representatives to collect his rent; part of the produce.  The vine-growers beat up the first few men that the owner sent and then killed at leas one.  After sending several employees the owner eventually sent his son, expecting that they might show some respect to the son.  But the vine-growers were so twisted that they thought that if they killed the son that they would inherit the vineyard.  It was possible that they could “inherit” the land if no one was living to claim it, but remember the father was still alive, but still their logic was quite twisted.  Remember though that this is an example, a story, and not necessarily true.  The parable is about the idea.  Jesus gets to his point when he asks the leaders what they think the land owner will do when he finds out that they have killed his son.  He doesn’t wait for them to come up with some “politically  correct” answer though.  He tells them that the land owner will destroy the wicked vine-growers and give the land to someone else (By the way in the ancient world it was perfectly legal for family to avenge a murder).  Jesus then quotes Psalm 118:22.

Psalm 118 is about how God faithfulness to all his promises (the word “lovingkindness” means that) is a comfort to the people of Israel during times of trouble.  Israel had plenty of trouble in thier history especially with surrounding nations.  The Israelites understood the “rejected stone” to be their nation, rejected by the world.  Here in our reading today Jeus is applying the metaphor of the stone to himself and the religious leaders are the ones doing the rejecting.  So the leaders are the evil vine-growers in the parable, God is the land owner, Jesus is the son, and the servants are earlier prophets in the nation of Israel, many of whom were rejected by the people of their time.  The leaders were furious because they got the message, Jesus was confronting them.  Their response wasn’t to turn back from their evil (repent) but to plot a way to get rid of him.  They were in a dilemma though,the very people they wanted to control had a lot of respect for Jesus.  So the leaders went away.

That wasn’t the end of the conflict though.  The leaders were just in a huddle looking for some other way to get rid of Jesus.  If they couldn’t get rid of him themselves (because that would make them look like the people of the past who had mistreated and killed the earlier prophets from God) then they needed someone else to do it for them.  The Roman government pretty much left the people they ruled to themselves but they would not tolerate rebellion.  The slightest hint of revolution brought down the weight of the Roman army and it was a formidable weight.  One form of rebellion would have been refusal to pay taxes.

The religious leaders decided that they might be able to get the Roman government to deal with Jesus if they could get him to sound like a revolutionary.  So they sent some of the leaders to try to trap Jesus by asking him a question about taxes.  The tax in question was a tax on each citizen and amounted to the amount a farm worker would be paid for a day’s worth of work, less thatn $100 in today’s terms.  The Jewish people hated the tax because it was a sign of Roman domination.  Also the coin used had a picture of Caesar on it with the inscription “Caesar the son of god” on one side and the words ”high priest” on the other.   The coin was offensive to most Jews.

Jesus’ answer is amazing.  He asks them to look at one of the coins.  Interestingly one of them had one.  He asked them who’s picture and inscription was on it.  “Caesar’s” they answered.  He then told them to gove to Caesar what was his and to God what was his.  Under Roman law the coin belonged to Caesar even though they were circulated for use.  If Caesar wanted it back then it was his.

The bigger part of Jesus’ answer was the part about God.  According to Genesis 1 each person is made in the “image” of God.  God’s likeness and inscription is on each of our lives so we belong to him.  Jesus told them to give back to God what belongs to Him; their very lives.  By the way in verse 13 we are told that they were trying to “trap” Jesus, in verse 15 Jesus recognizes that they are testing him and calls them hypocrites, a word that was used of actors pretending to be something that they are not.  Jesus wasn’t surprised by their trickery and he wasn’t tripped up or trapped by it either.

To the believers in Rome some 30 years later this all would have been helpful.  First of all the story shows that Jesus followers are not revolutionaries they are good citizens.  Also it shows that Jesus isn’t surprised by what is going on in the world, he isn’t fooled or tricked, or caught off guard.  That would be comforting to a group of people being hunted by the government.  But most important it shows that we must remember who we belong to and let God have control of our lives.  One last though, although Jesus was blunt with the leaders it is interesting that he didn’t just curse them like the fig tree and let them wither too.  He continues to appeal to them to give their lives to God.  That is awesome, I don’t think I would keep giving my enemies a chance to turn around.  But that is what Jesus was about, saving lives; bring people back to God.  In the words of Psalm 118:29 we need to thank Yahweh (the personal name of God) because he is good and his faithfulness to us is everlasting.  What an awesome God.

God thank you that you are aware of the things we go through.  Thank you that you are aware of the way we struggle with living in this world.  Thank you that you are willing to use your power for us.  Thank you that you made the ultimate sacrifice to solve our biggest problem; offending you.  Help me not be one who rejects the foundation of your forever kingdom-Jesus.  Let me give my life to you each day.  Thank you for promising to help us and for following thorough on that promise. 

Mark 11:15-33. I actually started writing this the day following the last post.  I returned to it six weeks later in the middle of July but didn’t finish then either.  Now it’s the last day of August, it’s been twelve weeks and for that I apologize.  Life has been very complicated lately.  Extra teaching, a new project demanding extra time at work, and I’m getting older and feeling the effects of such a physical job (I work on houses), and then there have been several birthdays and graduation parties as well as beginning a new quarter in Delta Force.  Please pray that I can return to writing this blog regularly since it is a passion of mine and I am pretty upset when I get swept away from it.  I am so glad that this post was partially written since it gives me the momentum to get going again.  And one last thing, this does not mean that my relationship with God hasn’t been there for the past twelve weeks, we still talk, me to Him through prayer and him to me through church, other believers, and his word on the radio through preachers and Christian music.  Praise God for Christian radio.

Yesterday (OK May 29^th) we ended with Jesus cursing a fig tree on his way into Jerusalem.  The tree was a symbol of Israel, although it was not the right time for the physical tree to have fruit it was the right time for Israel to be doing what God created her for, teaching the world about him.  The next day Jesus returned to the temple and found money changers in the temple.  In Jesus’ day people would use Roman coins, Staters, but the Jewish leaders demanded temple taxes to be paid in local money, Shekels.  People visiting Jerusalem could go to the temple and exchange Roman money for Shekels but the “money changers” would cheat them in the exchange.  The place that they ran their business was in a part of the temple called, “The Court (think patio) of the Gentiles (non-Jews)”.  Only Jewish people were allowed into the Temple and anyone else who came had to stay out on the “Gentile Patio”.  Clearly the Jewish leadership didn’t care about the Gentiles because they had businesses set up in their area.  On his visit the first evening Jesus probably saw all of their tables set up in an area that should have been available for non-Jews to come and pray and honor God.  Since the area was filled with other stuff clearly the Jewish people were not doing what God wanted them to do, they were being “unfruitful” spiritually.

In today’s reading Jesus and his followers return to the temple.  Jesus went in and started throwing the money changers out of the area, tipping over their tables and their chairs.  He wouldn’t even let people carry stuff through the temple area.  Then he started teaching.  The temple was to be a place to talk to God.  One thing that Jesus wanted them to talk to God about was the non-Jews, Gentiles, and he didn’t mean to complain about them but to ask God to help the Gentiles come to him.  The leader became very angry about what he was doing, if he kept teaching this way their whole way of living and getting money would be affected, the people wouldn’t listen to them any more.  They were afraid so they plotted to destroy Jesus.

On the way out of town that night they noticed that the tree Jesus had cursed had died.  When they pointed it out to Jesus His response was basically, “Well what did you expect?  Don’t you trust God?  That same power that I have is going to help you guys too.”  He then told them that if they were trusting God and honoring Him with their lives that they could ask God to do things for them and they would be done.  Part of what Jesus told them was that hey needed to forgive others just like God had forgiven them.  That instruction probably ties together all the ideas so far in the reading.  In a way Jesus was telling them to see people the same way that God sees them.  God wants to forgive and have a relationship with each person, Jew or Gentile.  In contrast the money changers and the religious leaders of Jesus’ time saw these people (really all people) as someone that could be taken advantage of.

The next day Jesus and his followers returned to the temple and he was confronted by the religious leaders.  They questioned his authority to be dealing with people in the temple.  Instead of answering them he asked them a question which they were unwilling to answer because of their hypocrisy.  Although Jesus does not call them hypocrites in this section he did on many other occasions.  The word hypocrite was used in the Greek language for someone who was acting; pretending to be someone they were not.  Theses leaders should have been interested in the truth but instead they were playing games; being “politically correct”.  A second time in today’s reading we see the leaders “afraid”, this time about the reaction of the crowd.

I think in today’s reading we see a contrast, the leaders were afraid and that fear controlled their actions, they were all about their power and their comfort; they were filled with pride and were selfish.  On the other hand Jesus showed real power to his followers the fig tree died just because he told it to.  If his followers would admit that they needed to be forgiven by God and would live God honoring lives by seeing other people as important and worthy of forgiveness by them, then they would have real power.  We need to be careful to treat others the way we want God to treat us; we need to see others through God’s eyes and not according to our won selfishness.

God thank you for helping me get back to this blog.  I hope I can keep doing it.  I hope it helps others understand their relationship with you better.  I know it helps me keep you in focus in my life.  Give me wisdom and strength and let me help the world see you better.  Give me your eyes for others.