SUFFERING KING: THE BOOK OF MARK:
Tears, Death, Mourning, Crying & Pain: Mark 9:30-32
Pastor John Weathersby
Sunday September 20, 2020
How much was available to distract Jesus from his mission.
I think a lot about tactics and strategy and the subtle differences between the two.
Tactics are those things you do, to accomplish your strategy, the strategy is your approach to satisfying some vision.
Vision, sets strategy, which determines tactics.
Jesus’ vision was given to him by God: John 6:38
God’s vision for Jesus – be the messiah and crush Satan’s accusations power over man, Genesis 3:15
Jesus’ tactics:
- Live a full life in a human body in all ways as a total human, without sin – die accepting the full measured wrath of God against sin as the guiltless offering for others.
- Leave behind a model for extending the gospel’s message and growing God’s temporary kingdom on earth, of permanent members of His true kingdom, new heaven and new earth
- Demonstrate through meek/humble living, up-and-against a differentiated world, the grace and mercy of God in a unified Christian kingdom
How aligned are we to Jesus’ own tactics?
For most of us, we buy the Godly vision; redeem a world of people far from him and bring about peace and justice.
It’s His strategy we struggle with. Through a meek living Messiah and death on a cross – pave a way for future peace while being patient and steadfast until the completion of time.
And so we’ll see that Chasing perfection here, will crush you. And then we’ll ask: Are we living out God’s gospel vision through Jesus tactics or fighting, like these confused and afraid disciples?
Mark 9:30–32 (ESV)
Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection
30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know,
Jesus vision was God given. Make way to bring about the ultimate reconciliation, peace, and righting of all the worlds wrongs.
Read this with me, turn here if you will:
Revelation 21:4 (ESV)
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
“for the former things have passed away”. Let me ask you something – do you believe that scripture is God’s infallible word? If you do, look to these words again: “for the former things have passed away”. The word “for” links the passing away of what preceded it, so if this is an account of the ending of old earth and ushering in of new earth, then what was ushered out was “tears, death, mourning, crying and pain”…
Sound about right?
This life is tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain.
That’s all this world has to offer, yet we try to usher in perfect harmony, like that’s the mission God gave. Like the vision of God is a perfectly aligned earth that is full of Biblical justice. And so we fight. We fight politically, we fight in the streets, and we fight in the most important places of all – on the internet, because we must be heard, we must align everyone to the truth as we see it, and people must be corrected/correct.
John 18:36 (ESV)
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Life on earth must be just!
Christianity Today – and outreach magazine would have us believe that keep ones self from being polluted by the world, means fix the world. Or that the wicked have no such concern, means we must change their mind – and where those things don’t happen, we’ll fight.
Were there any issues that Jesus could have stepped into regarding the justice of the government? Could he have focused on social issues, were there any in His day? Why not plan a rally, why come to town and teach scripture.
Was his silence on issues, agreement with them? Was he violent?
Jesus is aligned to God’s vision for the gospel. He is aligned by strategy, make a way for redemption to God through sinless living. He is not on earth to re-align earth, he is on earth to make a way to realign hearts to God and create a future kingdom, that is then and there as well as here and now.
- Live a full life in a human frame- die accepting the full measured wrath of God against sin as the guiltless offering for others.
- Leave behind a model for extending the gospel’s message and growing God’s temporary kingdom on earth,
- Demonstrate through meek/humble living, up-and-against a differentiated world, the grace and mercy of God in a unified Christian kingdom
This is why he “passed through, Jesus mission was his passion, he would go to the cross – nothing would distract Him, no single thing was more important.
Suffering and pain are something that we see as unnecessary inconveniences. We demand a great life on a platter. Netflix movies at our finger tips, food at a drive through fast and right for once… the more you look at your expectations the more we seems like toddlers.
Jesus wanted to teach the disciples on the way to let them now what would be happening He wanted them to see the necessity of the pain. Think about that, a painless life would incapacitate us, we’d do damage without warning, we’d be covered in burns and breaks and die – where is your treasure?
Chasing perfection here, will crush you because here is made of tears, death, mourning, crying and pain
Is your treasure, in the future after this life? If it truly is, you can be freer here.
Look at what Jesus says:
31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
Jesus taught them this message because they needed to sink it in. It’s part of the vision and mission of His life to bring about salvation and build God’s kingdom. Jesus was willing do to it.
He is teaching them, because they don’t fully see Him yet, they don’t fully understand Gods vision, and He is working to explain to them this tactic – meek sinless living, willingly submitting himself to God’s plan of redemption through Jesus’ murderous death.
Jesus refers to himself as the “son of man”. We talked about this in 8:31, reaching back to Daniel 7, Jesus uses prophetic langue about himself and his own coming. The book of Hebrews referencing from Psalms on this same phrase, Son of Man says:
Hebrews 2:4–9 (ESV)
4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
The Founder of Salvation
5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere,
Psalm 8:4
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
The son of man, steps down from deity for a “little while” lower than the angles – making Jesus in the type of Adam, enfleshed, representing all of humanity and extending down his character – the Son of Man is a title that speaks to Jesus headship of humanity when we turn from trusting our selves and our own understanding (did God really say) back to God, relying on Jesus as our savior AND Lord – He remains our truth and our way.
The son of man had authority even on earth – to forgive sins (Matthew 9:3)
The son of man is going to be delivered be delivered would mean, the object was delivered by some subject. by what or whom?
The words here are perhaps hinting at Isaiah 53:6
Isaiah 53:6 (ESV)
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Jesus, the son of man, and messiah representative of the second Adam would bring about redemption, because it was the will of God being accomplished.
32 But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.
For these disciples the pain of loss will come. Jesus won’t shield them from it. The pain of the loss and separation will grow their faith, strange but true. They didn’t understand what Jesus was saying – it doesn’t measure up that this guy we’ve left everything to follow would die. He should be victor.
But the success of God’s kingdom and the measure of His blessings aren’t found in this life.
Chasing perfection here, will crush you because here is made of tears, death, mourning, crying and pain
These verses come on the heels of Jesus question in 8:27: who do you say that I am. Peter seemed so insightful. Then, 9:1-13 the transformation where they then seemed so confused, then again here – they’re “afraid to ask Him”.
Maybe they’re afraid to ask for simple reasons because they don’t want to be seen as not knowing, but I think it’s deeper than that. They’ve been told “get behind me satan”, I’m pretty sure they’re comfortable with Jesus knowing more than them at this point. I think they were afraid to ask, because they wanted to allegorize what Jesus was saying. They wanted “suffer and die” to mean something else, and asking for clarification would crush their vision.
But Jesus was on God’s vision, and God’s strategy, and tactfully – the cross was next in accomplishing those.
- Live a full life in a human frame in all ways as a total human, without sin – die accepting the full measured wrath of God against sin as the guiltless offering for others.
- Leave behind a model for extending the gospel’s message and growing God’s temporary kingdom on earth, of permanent members of His true kingdom, new heaven and new earth
- Demonstrate through meek/humble living, up-and-against a differentiated world, the grace and mercy of God in a unified Christian kingdom
Jesus heals a blind man, who briefly sees in a cloudy way – then his sight develops. I see that in the disciples here. They’re seeing cloudily, but soon – more fully? What about you? What about us?
Are we living out God’s gospel vision through Jesus’ tactics or fighting, like these confused and afraid disciples?
Pray, Observe, Apply.
