The prophet Isaiah had been overwhelmed when he saw the glory of God and heard the angels calling to one one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). The sound of their voices had caused the doorposts and the thresholds of the temple to shake and be filled with smoke. Isaiah responded by saying, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). Having experienced the holiness of God, he searched carefully and tried to understand what the Spirit of Christ had revealed to him concerning the messianic sufferings. It was Isaiah who had prophesied that the messiah would be “despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:3).
The angels had been present when the Christ created all things that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they were thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers. They knew that all things had been created by Him and for Him. They knew what it was to worship Him! These same angels passionately desired to stoop down and gaze at their Lord who had come to earth to give sinful mankind the right to become the children of God. They desired to look down at the One they adored giving Himself as a ransom for mankind, so that He could rescue them from the dominion of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.
Jesus had assured His disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God come in power. Jesus led Peter, James and John up on a high mountain by themselves to be alone. It was on this mountain that Jesus was transformed in front of them. Their eyes were dazzled by the brilliance of His appearance, and their minds were dazed by the presence of Moses and Elijah. Had the kingdom come at last? Peter, as always, was ready to do his part by setting up three tabernacles. With his physical eyes he had seen Jesus transfigured before him, but his spiritual eyes were still blinded. “A cloud appeared, overshadowing them, and a voice came from the cloud: This is my beloved Son; listen to Him!” (Mark 9:7). Now they had not only seen Jesus transformed, but had also heard the voice of God! But could they understand what was said?
As they made their way back down the mountain, still awestruck by what they had seen and heard, Jesus said something that brought even more confusion to their baffled minds. He told them that they were to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They seized upon this statement and kept discussing what rising from the dead meant. Isaiah had searched intently and with the greatest care to understand about the sufferings of the Messiah, but unlike Isaiah, the disciples were going to see prophecy fulfilled before their very eyes! But would they be able to understand what they saw and heard?
Throughout Jesus’ ministry He made blind eyes see and deaf ears hear. These miracles brightened the lives of all He touched. But there is a greater miracle than receiving physical sight and physical hearing. It is the miracle of receiving spiritual sight and spiritual hearing. After Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, He sent His Spirit. Here is the gospel into which the prophets searched and the angels longed to gaze: the Lamb of God has come to take away the sins of the world! By His stripes we have been healed! Can you see? Can you hear? If not ask Jesus to give spiritual sight and the ability to hear spiritual truths. He will, He will!
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Rebuke (Mark 8:31-38)
I remember “The Jesus Movement” of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. I was a teenager, and hearing that Jesus loved me and had a wonderful plan for my life filled me with excitement. I held tightly to the promise in Proverbs 3:6 that if I acknowledged God in all my ways that He would direct my path. When I put the promise of a wonderful plan that He would direct me in together with the Psalm 37:4 that said if I delighted in the Lord He would give me my heart’s desires, I felt that I’d found the perfect formula for a happy life. I think my assumptions of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus lined up with Peter’s. I understand why he rebuked Jesus.
It was a climactic moment when at last what everyone had been thinking was out in the open. Jesus had asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter had said what all the disciples felt, “You are the Messiah!” What was the unspoken expectation? Their understanding of Messiah was someone who would purge Jerusalem from those who trampled her. He would come in might and destroy the godless nations. But instead Jesus began to talk about suffering. Peter’s response was take Jesus aside to rebuke Him.
In the Greek the word used for rebuke has a fundamental sense of “warning to prevent something from going wrong.”* Peter had to rebuke Jesus, because the suffering, rejection and death that Jesus was describing did not fit into his understanding of the Messiah. He was desperately trying to redirect what Jesus was saying and to keep Jesus on mission.
Peter had tried to rebuke Jesus in private, but when Jesus rebuked Peter He turned around and looked at His disciples and said, “Get behind Me, Satan, because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but man’s!” (Mark 8:33). They all needed to hear the rebuke and to have their thinking redirected. Jesus then summoned the crowd and explained what it meant to be His follower. “If anyone wants to be My follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).
When I was a teenager I was in some ways like Peter and the disciples. I was looking at Jesus as a way to have a happy life. I was thinking in temporal terms and not in eternal terms. We can hear the results of how Jesus redirected Peter’s understanding in the conclusion to his first epistle. “Now the God of all grace,who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little. To Him be the dominion forever” (Mark 8:31-37). By rebuking Peter Jesus redirected his attention from earthly glory to eternal glory. It was such a greater gift than Peter or I could have ever imagined.
*HELPS Word-studies epitimao (“to warn by instructing”) correct (re-direct) “warning to prevent something from going wrong.”
Friday, September 6, 2019
The Magnitude of the Situation (Mark 8:27-33)
My youngest brother was just beginning to get a handle on language so that he could use it to express himself. My older brother taught him the phrase, “You cannot comprehend the magnitude of the situation!” Since my little brother was too young to mentally grasp what the phrase meant, his older siblings had a lot of fun listening to him talk about the magnitude of the situation.
This memory came back to me when I thought of how Jesus asked His followers, “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:29) Peter didn’t hesitate, “You are the Messiah!” Others might be confused thinking that Jesus was John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets, but Peter spoke for all the disciples. They had followed Him, they knew that Jesus was the Christ.
This conversation took place on the road as they traveled to Caesarea Philippi. I have a vivid memory of being in this area when I visited Israel. It was beautiful! Caesarea Philippi was the center of the worship for Baal, then the Greek god Pan. Pan is considered to be one of the oldest of the Greek gods. He is associated with nature, wooded areas and pasture lands. The worship of Pan centered on nature. Pan was a mythological creature, a satyr with the legs of a goat and the body of a man. He was a god who claimed to be a man.
Herod the Great was given this beautiful area by Caesar Augustus. Herod then built Caesar three temples. One of these beautiful temples built to Caesar, a man who claimed to be a god, was placed beside Pan’s temple, the god who claimed to be a man. What a setting for Jesus' question, “Who do men say that I am?”
Peter and the disciples knew who He was--or did they? Could they truly understand that Jesus was the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation? Could they begin to comprehend that the one that they had been traveling with was the same one who had created all things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible? But even if they could begin to comprehend Jesus in this way, it was incomprehensible that the Christ, the Messiah, would suffer at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. How could it be that the one Israel had waited so long for would be rejected and killed? What did He mean when He said that He would be raised in three days? Peter and the disciples could not understand the magnitude of the situation!
This memory came back to me when I thought of how Jesus asked His followers, “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:29) Peter didn’t hesitate, “You are the Messiah!” Others might be confused thinking that Jesus was John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets, but Peter spoke for all the disciples. They had followed Him, they knew that Jesus was the Christ.
This conversation took place on the road as they traveled to Caesarea Philippi. I have a vivid memory of being in this area when I visited Israel. It was beautiful! Caesarea Philippi was the center of the worship for Baal, then the Greek god Pan. Pan is considered to be one of the oldest of the Greek gods. He is associated with nature, wooded areas and pasture lands. The worship of Pan centered on nature. Pan was a mythological creature, a satyr with the legs of a goat and the body of a man. He was a god who claimed to be a man.
Herod the Great was given this beautiful area by Caesar Augustus. Herod then built Caesar three temples. One of these beautiful temples built to Caesar, a man who claimed to be a god, was placed beside Pan’s temple, the god who claimed to be a man. What a setting for Jesus' question, “Who do men say that I am?”
Peter and the disciples knew who He was--or did they? Could they truly understand that Jesus was the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation? Could they begin to comprehend that the one that they had been traveling with was the same one who had created all things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible? But even if they could begin to comprehend Jesus in this way, it was incomprehensible that the Christ, the Messiah, would suffer at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. How could it be that the one Israel had waited so long for would be rejected and killed? What did He mean when He said that He would be raised in three days? Peter and the disciples could not understand the magnitude of the situation!
Monday, September 2, 2019
Jesus’ Response to Desperate Prayer (Mark 8:22-26)
“They brought a blind man to Him and begged Him to touch him” (Mark 8:22). “They brought to Him a deaf man who also had a speech difficulty, and begged Jesus to lay His hand on him” (Mark 7:32). Have you ever brought someone to Jesus in prayer and begged Him to lay His hand on him, to touch him?
There are those I love who are deaf to spiritual things. There are people who cannot see anything but the temporal reality that they are living in. When I try to share my beliefs with them, I realize that they cannot understand what I am saying, and cannot see what I’m trying to show them. I have finally realized the solution lies not only in what I say to them about God, but instead what I say to God about them. Not casual prayers, but the kind I see represented in the Gospels, passionate prayer pleading with God that He would open both eyes and ears to spiritual truths.
With both the deaf man and the blind man, Jesus led them to a private place. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village. We are called to be faithful in prayer. The definition of faith is to be sure of what you hope for and confident about what you don’t see. But I’ll be honest. I struggle with this. Sometimes I simply become discouraged by what I see, and I stop praying. Both of these miracles were performed in private, not in the presence of those who begged Jesus to touch the ones they loved.
Both of these miracles involved the very DNA of Jesus. In other words, spit. Yes, spit! Today many people are using their own spit to find out genetic information about themselves. There are many businesses that have cropped up to help people interpret the information revealed by their spit. This is something I marvel about, and don’t completely understand that Jesus used His own DNA to give both sight and hearing.
The gift of sight was a process. Again, this causes me to pause, because I realize that I want immediate results. However, this gift of sight came slowly and in stages. I feel a deep conviction concerning the admonition to be faithful in prayer as I read this story. First, I see the urgency of the people who begged Jesus to touch their loved one. Second, I recognize that the miracle was done in private. Third, it took time.
Jesus, please help me to be faithful in prayer!
There are those I love who are deaf to spiritual things. There are people who cannot see anything but the temporal reality that they are living in. When I try to share my beliefs with them, I realize that they cannot understand what I am saying, and cannot see what I’m trying to show them. I have finally realized the solution lies not only in what I say to them about God, but instead what I say to God about them. Not casual prayers, but the kind I see represented in the Gospels, passionate prayer pleading with God that He would open both eyes and ears to spiritual truths.
With both the deaf man and the blind man, Jesus led them to a private place. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village. We are called to be faithful in prayer. The definition of faith is to be sure of what you hope for and confident about what you don’t see. But I’ll be honest. I struggle with this. Sometimes I simply become discouraged by what I see, and I stop praying. Both of these miracles were performed in private, not in the presence of those who begged Jesus to touch the ones they loved.
Both of these miracles involved the very DNA of Jesus. In other words, spit. Yes, spit! Today many people are using their own spit to find out genetic information about themselves. There are many businesses that have cropped up to help people interpret the information revealed by their spit. This is something I marvel about, and don’t completely understand that Jesus used His own DNA to give both sight and hearing.
The gift of sight was a process. Again, this causes me to pause, because I realize that I want immediate results. However, this gift of sight came slowly and in stages. I feel a deep conviction concerning the admonition to be faithful in prayer as I read this story. First, I see the urgency of the people who begged Jesus to touch their loved one. Second, I recognize that the miracle was done in private. Third, it took time.
Jesus, please help me to be faithful in prayer!
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