Jesus and the Temple…

… a guest post from Joshua Gibbs at thecedarroom.org

Joshua is a Traditio teacher at the Greatest Christian School in Pensacola.  He teaches my daughter Alice and encourages thoughts that pull at her brain.  Enjoy the first of:

This will be the first of a series of posts on Mark 11. The Traditio class at Trinitas Christian School in Pensacola, FL has devoted the first quarter of the year to studying St. Mark’s gospel, and this series of posts flows out of discussions I’ve enjoyed during our time thus far in study of the book. Many of the observations included in these posts have been identified by my students. Often, I feel as though I’m only moderating a heady theological discussion they’re leading. Even after reading half a dozen commentaries on Mark this year, I find their observations startling and beautiful.  

While St. Mark’s doesn’t recount Peter walking on water, suffering doubt, slipping into the Sea of Galilee and being pulled out by Christ, it does recount the leader of the apostles slipping into the sea of the nations.

In Mark 11, come the notoriously misnamed “cleansing” of the temple, Peter witnesses Jesus cast the Jews/temple/heaven/mountain into the sea. A Jew himself, it takes Peter a day to find his bearings, but he does so brilliantly when he finds the withered fig tree and discerns the sign. It is here that Peter understands the import of the temple. He knows that he is sinking into the sea.

Peter cries out, “Rabbi look!” directing Jesus’ attention to the withered tree. It’s important to remember Peter has seen Jesus walk on water, calm storms, raise the dead. He has seen Christ transfigured and knows He is the Son of God, the Messiah. He has seen Jesus display His power in far more spectacular ways than this. His alarm, then, is not over the fact that Jesus has cursed a fig tree. Rather, he recognizes the meaning behind the cursing. Heaven has been cast into the sea. The same heaven where he formerly stood.

Jesus responds to Peter’s exclamation here in a manner similar to His response when Peter began to sink into Galilee. “Have faith in God!” Jesus responds, as though Peter’s exclamation about the fig tree was an identical sign of weak faith. Jesus then explains to Peter that the man who believes will say to the mountain, “Be cast into the sea,” and it will be done. At this point, the third day of Holy Week, Jesus returns back into Jerusalem and encounters the Pharisees who ask Him by what authority He “does these things” (a reference to shutting down temple operations on the previous day). Jesus’ response is one of His craftiest in all of St. Mark’s. He says that He will only tell them by what authority He “does these things” if they will tell Him whose authority John Baptist worked. Realizing that either answer doomed them, the Pharisees responded they didn’t know.

Of all the means Jesus could have used to refute the question of the Pharisees, why bring up John? One of my students suggested that Jesus uses John’s baptism as a refutation to the Pharisee’s question because the Pharisees were <i>already</i> disputing a baptism- the baptism of the temple, which Jesus had just cast into the sea.

Jesus teaching on casting a mountain into the sea is easily misread as some kind of platitude about how neat faith is, but such exegesis is naive and sells the complexity of Jesus’ teaching very short. While pitching the temple of the Jews into the sea of Gentiles, Jesus instructs on the true purpose of the temple. The temple was meant to be a “house of prayer for all nations.” That the temple has failed to mature so as to become a house of prayer for all nations, Jesus is irate. When Jesus casts the temple into the sea, we might say that He forces the temple to become a house of prayer for all nations.

The judgment of Jesus at the temple on the second day of Holy Week is something far more than an angry tirade against the corruptions of the temple system. If not, Jesus isn’t doing anything that your average impoverished Jew wouldn’t have longed to do for decades. Instead, Jesus is maturing the temple and the people of the temple, who have long refused the otherness of the nations. In closing the temple down forever, Jesus opens the temple forever, and to everyone. Christ is the destroyed-rebuilt Temple, the Fig Tree forever in season, from which all the nations can eat.

Tiger’s Karma Hit Brit’s Dogma…

… and Dharma gets left out.

In a striking bit of irony Buddhists, who are big on not getting upset, got upset when Brit Hume urged Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity.    Brit Hume said this on Fox News:

“I don’t think that faith (Buddhism) offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. “So my message to Tiger would be, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’”

While there is nothing here of the cross and resurrection I am pleased as punch to see Mr. Hume put himself out there.  Did he give a full  gospel presentation?  No, but I liked it just the same.  Here is why…  It gives you (and me) an opportunity to preach Christ, filling out what Brit meant when he delivered his short-hand gospel. 

Jesus Christ, born of a woman, born under the law, came to redeem those under the law so that we might receive the adoption as sons.  To receive that adoption urge those engaged in the kind of behavior that destroyed Tiger’s life,  to repent of their sin and trust that Jesus Christ died for them and rose for their justification. 

It also gives you the opportunity to point to clear examples of lives that have been changed by Christ in the very way Brit was talking about.  Dr. Mike Adams, who inspired the title of this post, does just that here. 

al sends

Derek Webb on the Gospel and Community

Derek Webb, on the CD The House Show talks about community and the gospel as he introduces the song Nobody Loves Me. He talks about the risk that we run as we enter into community with each other…

…which we necessarily are. We are called into community together. If you divorce the people of God, the local community, from the gospel, then it ceases to be the gospel. There is no other context for your faith as a Christian than to be in community with other people. I’ve heard a lot of people say to me over the years, “It’s just me and Jesus, and that’s all I need.” Well, that’s not the gospel in Scripture. If you’re going to be those who claim to love Jesus, then you’ll be compelled, and I’ll be compelled to love the things that he loved. And he not only loved, but came and gave himself up for the church. And that makes it our concern as well.

New Commandment Thursday…

Maundy Thursday, from the Latin of John 13:34: mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos ut et vos diligatis invicem.

John 13:31-35

So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.  32 If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.  33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.  34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This is the day in Holy Week in which we remember, among other things, that Jesus called us to a new commandment – That we love one another as He has loved us, we should love one another.

He said this in the context of service and sacrifice.  He washed their feet and we should take up the slaves position amongst our friends.  He said we cannot follow Him to the actual cross, a confrontation with the wrath of God, but we can and must love one another in the same manner.

Later in the same discourse Jesus explains what it is love one another:

John 15:9-15

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.  10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.  12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”

Be a friend of Jesus today.  Die today. May your joy be full.

al sends

More Insignificance…

 … proven by the significant.

Yesterday, while at work for the Navy in Pensacola, Florida a heart… suddenly… ceased… beating…

It was in the chest of a friend and co-worker who did computer work here at Corry.  

There is nothing to be done for him anymore.  The time is past for words of grace and peace.  He is now and forever in the presence of the Lord.  In mercy or judgment, my friend is before God.

He woke up yesterday with the expectation that he would be home with his wife that evening.  He didn’t.  He spoke to his co-workers as though the next day’s labors would continue as they had before.  They did, only without him.  His thoughts of “tomorrow” have been consumed by an enemy, the last enemy.  Those thoughts went unfulfilled; ravaged by death.

Here is the thing…  The enemy is pressing to our gates as well.  It is not satisfied with the heart of my friend.  It is an open maw and it hovers over us.  It will consume us – without deference.  No negotiation, no peace treaty, no declaration of neutrality can appease it.  It is relentless. It is merciless.  It is pressing.

Now, this enemy is no rogue agent, operating without a master.  It bows before the Lord of the Universe and ushers everyone into His presence.  It is there, before God, that peace treaties are considered and friendships weighed.  Whose friend are we?  Whose anger burns against us?  What do we say to a God who knows our every idle word, thought and deed? 

If Jesus Christ is not our friend… If the covenant He established does not include us… we are hopelessly cut off.  Oh, how I plead with you to consider this and turn to Your only hope in this life and the next.  Look on Jesus Christ, despise death and live.

As relentless as death is, Jesus Christ is more so, setting His face like a flint toward a place of death that He might offer you life.  Death is merciless; Jesus Christ is full of mercy and grace.

Confess your sin and confess Christ.  Believe that your death is deserved and then run to Jesus for the breath of Life, who is the Holy Spirit.  If you confess Him before the world He will confess you before His Father.  Death presses, but Christ presses closer still.  Death is a maw, but Jesus is a kiss.  Trust him.

Romans 10:9- 13 “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

al sends

The Gospel of Life in a Culture of Death

This past Thursday marked the 36^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion on demand legal in the United States.

Some interesting statistics:

·         1,314,451 is the number of all American combat deaths since the Revolutionary War

·         655,692 is the number of all American war deaths (combat and civilian)since the Civil War

Since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision 50,000,000 pregnancies have ended in abortion. Fifty million.

The number of abortions performed each year is about 1.2 million. That means that every year almost as many babies die by abortion than all the American soldiers of all the wars Americans have ever fought.

At 1.2 million deaths, abortion is the leading cause of death in the United States – more than heart disease and cancer combined.

The Point of the Cross

Jesus was not just one more character in history, however important – rather, He was and is the founder of a new history, a new humanity, a new way of being human. He was the last and true Adam. But before this new humanity in Christ could be established and begin its task of filling the earth, the old way of being human had to die. Before the meek could inherit the earth, the proud had to be evicted and sent away empty. That is the meaning of the Cross, the whole point of it. The Cross is God’s merciful provision that executes autonomous pride and exalts humility. The first Adam received the fruit of death and disobedience from Eve in the garden of life: the true Adam bestowed the fruit of His life and resurrection on Mary Magdalene in the garden of death, a cemetery. The first Adam was put into the death of deep sleep and his wife was taken from his side; the true Adam died on the cross, a spear was thrust into His side, and His bride came forth in blood and water. The first Adam disobeyed at a tree; the true Adam obeyed on a Tree. And everything is necessarily different.

       – Douglas WIlson, Is Christianity Good for the World?, p.67

Gloriously Duped and Swindled

I loved this article by Anthony Esolen called “The Tale of Two Kings: The difference between God and the gods.” Esolen is a Professor of English at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, and an editor of Touchstone magazine. He is also one of the smart guys over at Merecomments. 

Taste and see:

That story of David and Bathsheba reveals the workings of a God whose ways are not our ways, whose thoughts are not our thoughts, but who made us to walk in his ways, and to be fulfilled in the intellectual vision of his glory. If it is not irreverent to say so, he is a God who swindles man into his restoration. He dupes man into truth. He becomes flesh, to raise man to himself.

Now digest.

A Menagerie of Post-Election Observations

1. Best post-election line, voiced over pictures of Gov. Palin on the tarmac preparing to fly back to Alaska: “Sarah Palin was tagged and released back into the wild.” (Jon Stewart)
2. Barack Obama’s election as the 44th president would not have been possible without the economic woes that so gripped the media, the political establishment, and the nerves of the electorate. There were a lot of reasons he won the election, but the crisis du jour was that-without-which-he-could-not-have-won.
3. I praise God for a wise and balanced form of government that guards a peaceful transfer of authority time and time again and thus provides peace for its citizens despite who the officeholders happen to be.
4. Joe Biden was right: there will be some major test of President Obama’s leadership coming from the international front in the first year or so. I don’t see how that can’t happen.
5. I wish I could be more joyful about the election of the first African-American president (and, of course, I am very joyful in principle), but, try as I might, I can’t be.
6. Watching Bill Maher and Michael Moore on Larry King Live, both goofy with schoolboyish giddiness over the election of Barack Obama, I thought to myself, This can’t be good.
7. I grieve for the unborn innocents whose lives are in graver danger than ever.
8. When Rome fell the church rose. The story of history is the story of the rise of the kingdom of Christ. Years later, we will see how the kingdom rose and prospered and what forces were at work to further the kingdom during the presidency of Barack Obama. That is the real story of this historic election.

Same as It Ever Was

Shortly after the events of September 11, 2001 I recall saying to someone, “Nothing can be the same again. Everything is different now.” In some very real ways that’s true (have you flown lately?). But in the main life has gone on pretty much as it did. We wake up, we go to work, we come home, we watch mind-numbing inanity on television, we drink a couple of beers on Saturday, we go to church on Sunday.

In the minds of many this morning, the world has effectively come to an end. The already of the rise of the Antichrist has happened, all that’s left is the not-yet of the horror of his reign. In four (or eight) years, however, it is likely that we’ll not feel like much has changed. This does not mean that things won’t be different – doubtless they will. But our capacity for adaptation will cause us to perceive the days to come as completely normal. Even if it looks nothing like today, we’ll redefine normal so that we’ll hardly remember what it used to be like.