As we said last time: One of the most faith-destroying, soul-destroying things is the way bad things happen to good people. Another is the way they happen to us…
Rereading Mark, it’s struck me (there are so many ways we can learn from this great biography of Jesus) how helpfully it speaks to this issue. I’d been through it several times before, as of course most of us have. But this time a question arose that was fresh to me. (Which is what we trust the Spirit to do, if we’re alert; to highlight new issues, to turn even the `old’ passages into fresh fields for us.)
What struck me was Mark 1:14-15. Mark’s gospel begins with Jesus advancing dramatically into Galilee, `proclaiming the good news of God… The kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe [ie, really put your faith in] the good news!’
Of course it’s good to see here that what Jesus focuses on is those same issues we’ve learned to make central; that we didn’t `lose the plot’, that the authentic gospel as preached by Jesus centres on that same pairing of `double-doors` into God’s kingdom, repentance and faith, as Paul proclaims in Acts 20:21. (If we’re talking about what leads people to heaven or hell, it matters that we get it right!) But as I reread those verses I found myself asking: Yes, but believe what `good news’ in particular?
If someone asked the same question of us today, the answers would be obvious. Good news of salvation through the cross: forgiveness, peace with God; new birth; the gift of the empowering Holy Spirit; ongoing new life with Jesus. And so much more. But this is before Calvary. So what exactly is the `good news’ in which Jesus summons his hearers to trust, and that he demonstrates in the events that follow?
Let’s read on. As we do so, surely the answer becomes plain: that the kingdom is right at hand (1:15). That God has visited his people (as implied in 1:2-3). That he is here. That the Son of Man is actually doing things now on earth (2:10). That God’s reign has come, that he will work in triumphant loving power for goodness and healing and forgiveness and hope, right now, right here. (Relevant for us!)
If now we speed-read the next few sections and write down their themes (often a good thing to do as we start on a Bible book), we’ll start to grasp the nature of this reign, this kingdom. Mark 1:21-45 chronicles that first astonishing advance, where Jesus reveals his power to put things right in the face of ignorance, sickness, and demons. A key point in the healing of the paralytic is precisely that Christ demonstrates his power for goodness this side of death, that the kingdom is come here (2:10). The next section expresses the joyous positiveness of this power (2:19,22,23-28,3:4-6), the way its love has strength to draw in the excluded (2:16-17) (a contrast to the fears we might have, that the coming of God’s kingdom could mean final exclusion for us). Again, it is power for good, here, now.
Then, after the kingdom’s rejection in ch.3 and Jesus’ comments on that in ch.4, there comes a further section revealing its power in action, triumphant over destructive nature, demonic evil, even death itself (4:35-5:43). Jesus’ challenge to Jairus – infuriatedly impatient, we may imagine, when Jesus pauses to care for the woman with the flow of blood when he should be coming to heal Jairus’ daughter, and then in agonized despair when the daughter dies in the meantime – is: `Don’t be afraid: just believe’ (5:36); God is in control, he cares, now, and his power knows no limits, even death. (I praise you, Lord!)
The feeding of the five thousand (6:35-44) is a further sign of that loving care from God. And it isn’t something that functions only in life-threatening situations. Let’s think about this incident: the crowds surely weren’t facing actual starvation – it’s unlikely that so many would have put themselves in serious danger, and it was clearly possible for them to `go to the surrounding villages to buy themselves something to eat’ (v36). Indeed, the disciples themselves had set off for this place with no food at all (even the five loaves and two fishes were borrowed, John 6:9). So starvation wasn’t a danger. So what this central sign (it’s selected for record by all four gospels) shows us isn’t that we have some minimal supernatural safety-net, where God will step in, but only when life itself is at risk. Rather, what it reveals is the enormous love of our King, his generous affection and his delight in providing, day by day, for his children.
Thankyou for your great kindness, Lord! These chapters also present Christ giving purpose to individuals (1:16-20,2:13-17), astonishing the villagers with huge new vistas of truth (1:27,38), and bringing joyous liberation (`new wine’) from the constrictions of false religion (`old wineskins’, 2:21-28). The `good news’ is firstly about forgiveness of sins (2:5), because dealing with that blockage is (then and now) the gateway to everything else; but, through this gateway a whole glorious new order floods in. Where Christ comes, the kingdom comes, and the kingdom reveals the heart of God: bringing truth where there was falsehood, love where there was hate, healing where there was pain, wholeness where there was brokenness. Above all what Jesus brings is good. (Reading how the new creation bursts into our world in these chapters, aren’t we reminded of the repeated refrain describing God’s handiwork in Genesis 1: `And God saw that it was good‘? And the `first sign’ Jesus does over in John’s gospel, the rescuing of the wedding in Cana, is also primarily a manifestation of God’s goodness in answer to prayer (John 2:1-11).) `The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’, he said elsewhere around the same time, `…to preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour!’ (Luke 4:18-19). This is what our God is like! I worship you for all your goodness, Father!
(Incidentally – totally off topic, but just in case it might be useful to somebody – I wonder whether, just possibly, missing out on all of this, missing out on the `kingdom` things God is doing by his blessing and power on earth, rather than missing out on eternal heaven, is what’s meant by people `not inheriting the kingdom` in the key verses about homosexual practice in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Maybe.)
But we also notice something else. This revelation of the `powers of the age to come’ is not given just for us to watch as spectators. We are summoned to `believe’ the good news. From Mark 1:17 onwards, those who see are called to follow: to step out into a life of faith in the good provision of the kingdom; by that faith to (1:20) leave boats if necessary and (2:4-5) knock holes in ceilings. In 6:5-6 we learn that lack of such faith in Christ’s hometown created a situation where he `could not do any miracles’. Two verses later he sends his disciples out with instructions designed precisely to demonstrate the effectiveness of living by faith in God’s caring power: `Take nothing for the journey – no bread, no bag, no money’ (6:8; cf 10:21).
If our minds turn to Matthew’s account of the same period, we’ll recall that Jesus’ challenge to a lifestyle of consistent faith was central there too. He both announces (Matt 4:17) and demonstrates (4:23-24) that God’s kingdom has come near; that a different order bringing his goodness and wholeness has broken into our world of tragedy. He heals the sick, extinguishes pain, liberates the demon-possessed, restores the paralysed. And the crowds love it (4:25). Whereupon he sits them down and explains unmistakably that, if we want to be part of the new kingdom, it will involve total, trusting, obedient commitment to the kingdom’s radically alternative lifestyle. `Blessed are the poor in spirit… those who mourn… the meek… the pure’ – all the things the old system would never say. Go for radical purity, demands Jesus; shun divorce; give to the one who demands from you; love your enemies; forgive those who wrong you; don’t store up treasure on earth; don’t worry about tomorrow, but in faith seek first the kingdom and trust the Father to see to the consequences (6:32-33). You’ve seen the kingdom, says Jesus; it’s right here to hand; but now you must, in the deepest sense of all that that word embodies, believe. Mark doesn’t set out all these details, but in Mark too we notice how often Jesus begins to raise a hard question about their faith: Don’t you trust me to care for you? Mark 4:35-41 is crucial: the disciples are in the boat in a furious storm, Jesus is asleep; the boat is nearly swamped, they wake him up: `Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ His response is: `Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ (Ouch. Lord, do I?)
But now comes one very important thing, very important for the questions with which we began this series. Don’t we find Mark breaking into two halves (expanding our understanding with two very different themes) in the middle of the book, around the confession of Christ and the climax of kingdom-revelation (9:1) at the transfiguration (8:27-9:8)? (Luke certainly seems to, at Luke 9:51; see David Gooding’s brilliant According to Luke (downloadable free from https://www.myrtlefieldhouse.com/online-books/according-to-luke#read ), pp.179ff.) In that case Mark begins both halves by speaking of the gospel (1:14-15, 8:35), God’s confirmatory `You are my Son’ (1:11, 9:7), and the challenge to respond to the gospel by following and leaving all (1:17-20, 8:34-36).
And then, here’s the big thing. In that case, there’s a big change between the two halves, and we’ll see how it speaks to those questions with which we began. Whereas Mark’s first half begins by proclaiming the kingdom come (1:14-15), emphasizing Christ’s power, goodness, and identity (cf Acts 2:22) (even if still partially-hidden, 8:30, as the first half has so often said) — this second half begins by announcing the cross (8:31-32, and this is `plainly`). And it emphasises throughout how committing to the way God’s kingdom is brought in does involve suffering, the way of the cross, where things may not always go as we wish. The repeated announcements of the cross and resurrection (8:31-32, 9:9,12,31, 10:33-34,45) make clear that this, rather than (other expressions of) God’s caring power, is now the primary theme, the fullest `good news`. And chapters 9 and 10 will still have a lot to say about how we enter the kingdom (9:47,10:15,10:23-25), but again, here the `following’ that expresses kingdom-faith is (8:34) about the way of the cross and resurrection, moving and growing through suffering (rather than only through continually released divine power) to glory (10:28-30).
It’s still true that even here in the second half with its changed theme, the emphasis is still on the kingdom’s ethos as a simplicity of faith (10:14-15, and indeed 17-34,46-52). (Faith so trustful of and committed to God’s fatherly care that for example it has no need to hold onto security through possessions (10:21-25,28-30,50, 12:44, 14:3).) And that emphasis has to be because our growth in connecting with God in relational faith, even through very tough times, is so massively valuable – valuable to God who wants lovingly to relate with us, but also to us for the millions upon millions of years to come – it is so massively valuable that he sometimes lets us go through these things. Otherwise, however could he permit them?
But that `big picture` is running ahead. 6:45-8:30 next time…
