The Hypocritical Christian

Read Mark 14:12-31

When I was in High School I took Chemistry 2 because the State of Texas said I needed 4 sciences.  I had done well in Chemistry and sort of liked it, but I was too afraid of Physics to give it a shot.  So Chem 2 it was.  This was the first year it was offered at my High School and while our teacher was a seasoned veteran of many high school chemistry campaigns this was new ground for everybody.  It did not go well.  As a class we were some of the brightest my small east Texas town had to offer.  We were all failing during the first six weeks. I don’t mean floundering, I mean straight-up failing with grades well below 70.  More than one of us feared our GPA would plummet like the stock market following a terrorist attack on Silicon Valley.  One day our teacher—who had a reputation for being one of the strictest in school- announced to us the greatest thing that any of us had ever heard: “There is going to be a curve on our six week final.”  We stared at one another in genuine disbelief unable to fathom our good fortune.  And at the end of the six weeks, most everyone had passed.

There are times in our lives when we really want to hear someone say a certain thing.

“Will you marry me?”

“The results are negative.”

“You are hired.”

“Go ahead, take off early, no problem.”

Some are life-changing while some just effect the immediate future, but we all know the feeling of hearing longed-for words.

That fateful night when Jesus sat with his disciples (including Judas) to celebrate Passover he said words that they did not expect, but once he said them, I know that their hearts were filled with joy.

What words? “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this in remembrance of me.”

It is difficult for us so many centuries later to hear those words the way the disciples would have, still I think it is worth the effort for us to try.  If you have been following this blog you know that in the Gospel of Mark there is a lot of kingdom stuff. At the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles (stay with me now) those gathered ask Jesus if this is the moment that he is going to restore the Kingdom to Israel.  Because as good Jews, they were all anxious to see Israel’s fortunes renewed and a few of them were looking forward to being in good with the new King.  I am looking at you John and James, sons of Zebedee.

Their collective focus was somewhat limited compared to what the LORD was actually up to; but we can forgive them of that.  After all, we think God blessed us with an up-front parking space sometimes so they are not the only ones who can be a bit myopic. Spoiler alert: Jesus reminds them that it is not theirs to know the times and circumstances that God has ordained for the big-ticket items. I bring this up to point out that the disciples would have been thinking kingdom thoughts a lot during their time with Jesus.

Kingdom thoughts for them would mean the relationship of God to Israel. Now we need to look more closely at three words so the full import of them can wash over us as they would have those lucky enough to share Passover with Jesus.   The words are blood, covenant, and new.

First, the setting. Passover as a meal is filled with symbolism.  At the risk of being over-simplistic, Passover is a ritual meal meant to remind the Jewish people how God weakened Pharaoh’s resolve to keep them as slaves in Egypt through a series of plagues. The culminating plague was the death of all first-born children in Egypt from “Pharaoh on the throne to the slave girl (see Exodus)”.  The Israelites were instructed to save their own children by sacrificing a lamb for dinner and sprinkling its blood on the mantle of the door.  That’s the Biblical story that is at the heart of Passover (where the blood was death passed-over); yet, the ritual of Passover remembers not just this specific moment but also the broader truth that God had kept his covenant with Abraham and established an additional covenant through Moses and the Law (Ten Commandments) carved in stone. The disciples would be reminded of all of this that night.

Blood represents life in the Old Testament.  Passover lambs, all sacrificial animals really, give their life in exchange for the lives of the spared. When Moses consecrates the behavioral covenant of the Ten Commandments  between God and the people he sprinkles the blood of a sacrifice on the people saying, “See the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”  A covenant is a binding, solemn agreement between two parties.  The significant difference of a covenant is that the parties agree to perform their actions regardless of the actions of the other party.  This is what makes it different from a contract.  The Mosaic covenant establishes the Israelites as the people of God with God as their King.  The covenant is that God will be the King and lead them; the people will set themselves apart from their neighbors by living the commandments.

Alright, if you are still with me it is about to get real!

Passover understood (check).

Blood even if icky understood (check).

Covenant understood (check).

Years pass, Israel goes back in forth in their commitment to God and the covenant.  Eventually, they ask for an earthly King.  They again vacillate between being a faithful people and being a hard-necked people. The Kingdom divides.  Then the prophets show up to help call them back to their roots and the requirements of the covenant.  Amidst those prophets was young man named Jeremiah through whom God brought a very distinct message.

“Behold days are coming declares the LORD, when I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah… I will put my law within them, and on their hearts I will write it; and I will be their God and they shall be my people… they shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.” (obviously there are things that are said in the ellipsis above.  You can read the whole passage here)

Jeremiah goes on to assure his listeners that God is faithful to this promise.  That the arrival of this new covenant will also mark the restoration of the Kingdom of David and a perpetual presence before God of a priest to prepare sacrifices continually.  God offers as assurance the certainty that there exists a perpetual cycle of day and night that cannot be broken.  (side note: last I checked day and night still happening with regularity)

And now it all comes together.  Imagine you are Mary or Martha; Peter or John.  Having grown up hearing the scroll of Jeremiah read and the promise above being highlighted.  So you are sitting their experiencing the normal elements of Passover: unleavened bread, bitter herbs, etc.  No doubt there is whispered conversation because Jesus says he will be betrayed.  Maybe you weren’t looking when he poured the wine.  Maybe you were half listening.

What did he say?  Did I hear correctly?

If you have read this far, you know enough about every word to get the meaning.  Like them you would have heard “new covenant in my blood.”   The long-awaited new covenant that God promised through Jeremiah.  Finally, it was there.  How your heart would have soared.  Like me and my fellow Chem 2 students, you may not have realized how badly you wanted to hear those words until they happened.

Together, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and what came to be known as the Last Supper explain everything you need to know about Jesus.  Together they fulfill everything that the prophets promised about the Messiah and the only thing that remains is for Christ to return and effectively put the period on the sentence.

Jesus is the Passover lamb, the one whose life was laid down for others at the crucifixion.

With Resurrection, Jesus demonstrated God’s power over death and he became both the eternal king and the perpetual priest.

The New Covenant is sealed with His blood and delivered by Him to us.  With it, those who trust in God have their sins forgiven and the ways of God are written on their hearts though the Holy Spirit. They become the children of God.

Every time communion /eucharist is celebrated (as Jesus commanded that we do at that Last Supper) believers are remembering what Jesus did and who He is until He comes.

Are you a believer?  Perhaps as you read this you are thinking that you need to learn more about this whole Jesus thing?  If this is so, the Holy Spirit is scribbling on your heart right now trying to get your attention. Lean into it and respond!  Above all else, do not be afraid; after all, one thing we can trust is that God grades us on the curve!

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Thank you for reading.

Read Mark 13:1-37

As I type this, the USA leads the world in total deaths due to the Novel Coronavirus, Covid-19.  The virus having erupted all over the world since last fall has led to a nearly world-wide shutdown, killed nearly a half-million people world-wide, and as restrictions are lifting throughout the states is surging once again.

Many Christians will be quick to add this pandemic to an ever growing list of proofs that we are in the end times and that the return of Christ is imminent.  I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are some erstwhile Christians who are missing car payments right now because they figure rapture will make their indebtedness moot.

Anyone looking for signs of the end times, just this year, could add to their list of proofs any article they want about climate change and its effect on agriculture, race riots in countless US cities, the future world of hyper-sonic missile attacks, murder hornets, election year commentary about US politics (the Left: Trump revealed as Antichrist; the Right: Trump to usher in last days), and my own personal sign of the Apocalypse, peanut butter flavored Whiskey!

Scholars refer to the 13th chapter of Mark as the “little apocalypse”.   Apocalypse means uncover, or to pull back the curtain.   Apocalypse means to reveal.  Now you know how Revelation got its name.  Notice I said scholars call it the little apocalypse.  Jesus doesn’t call it that he is just making chit chat as he leaves the Temple with his disciples. That is a little glib on my part.  The bulk of Chapter 13 consists of Jesus sharing with Peter, James, John, and Andrew the answer to their question of “what will be the sign when all these things are going to be fulfilled.”

I admit that I am always a little glib about end of times conversations, because they so often miss the point because the people asking the questions and the people giving the answers almost always have agendas.  All concerned, in my experience, miss the forest of the Kingdom of God as they look for each individual tree.

In just my life time, which daily isn’t as short as it once was, there have already been countless predictions of the end of the World.  Some of the predictions have come from extremist cults like those poor folks who committed suicide expecting to wake up on the Hale Bop Comet in the late 1990s, some from  religious teachers like Hal Lindsay (Late Great Planet Earth) and Jerry Falwell predicting with specifics, still more from novelists like (LaHaye and Jenkins) who bought into the Y2K worries and extrapolated the effect it would have on the arrival of the Anti-Christ, and even those who were convinced that somehow the fact that the Mayan Calendar only worked in 12 year cycles meant that it would all end for us in 2012.  Wikipedia, conveniently, maintains a list of such predictions in one of its articles.  The list can be found here.

I am reminded of the wit of one of my seminary professors who posted on Facebook several years ago following the coming and going of one of these predicted dates for the Second Coming of Christ: the mistake that all of these guys make is assuming that God uses base 10 math!  Ha! Priceless.  Of course, we are told in 2 Peter that 1 day is like a 1000 years to God meaning I suppose the corollary is also true (although geometric theory has never been a strong suit for me) that a 1000 years is like 1 day.  With that in mind, everybody needs to chill out because Jesus has only been “gone” for a little over 2 days.  Can’t a God get any rest?

And allow me for a second to cast a little shade on James and John asking Jesus these questions.  These are the same 2 disciples who wanted to be seated at the left and right hand of Jesus when he inaugurates the Kingdom of God; so, I have a hard time thinking that they have given up that desire when they start asking what signs will show them that the whole shebang is underway.

But Christ is returning, some day, that is a certainty, although even He is unaware (vs 32) of when that day comes!  So, what are we to do? What can we know?  How are we to engage with this prophetic material about the Kingdom of God whether it is here in a gospel, one of the New Testament letters, or Old Testament prophets?  Roll of your sleeves with me for a moment and rush in like the fools we all are.  I respectfully submit 3 principles and a Jesus given truth to help us better understand the End of Days, alleviate some of our anxieties, and show us how to live.

The End of the World is inseparable from the Kingdom of God.  At the end of times, Jesus will return and initiate the reign of God on the Earth.  This is the New Jerusalem of Revelation, the “every knee bowing and tongue confessing”of Philippians, and what the Apostles’ Creed refers to with “thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.”

And yet, the Kingdom of God is the reign of God and the presence of God in the world.  Recall the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is now”.

The Kingdom of God is then, now, and on-going.  Yes, at the end, the Kingdom of God will be seen in its fullest expression when Christ returns and the reign of God (the eternal renewal and reunion of God and His Creation) exists in its entirety; but, it is also right now every where in the world, even the universe, that the Spirit of God is present.  So, even though the Kingdom comes, according to Jesus it was present with him, then, and it is present eternally in every believer today and all that will follow.  True faith is having eyes to see and hearts to accept the Kingdom in the now, not just in the future, or the past. So, the Kingdom is always then and just now! 

If both of the preceding is true, then the Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is.  The Kingdom is most certainly amidst the heavenly hosts as John the Revelator sees the lamb sitting on the Throne.  The Kingdom is also in the New Jerusalem described at the end of the Revelation where the Tree of Life is planted and the nations are healed from its fruit all-year round.  The Kingdom is also present when Jesus preaches the gospel declaring the need to repent because it is “at hand” and in the home of Zaccheus when Jesus comes for lunch and declares that “today, salvation has come to this house!”.  All that is most certainly true, but if the Kingdom of God is where ever Jesus is then it is also wherever two or more are gathered in His name as He promised He would be also.  Not only there, but also in the hearts of every believer who has been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Kingdom of God is everywhere and just there!

{hint: the bolded statements are the 3 principles}

So, how are we to live then?  Well for one thing, if you are a believer, then you should live as though the Kingdom of God is now, because it is, and hope for the future return of Christ and the Kingdom, because it is that, too!

To do this, let me suggest that we not spend a lot of time worrying about every little earthquake, war, pandemic, stock market crash, wrong candidate elected, stubbed toe, and lost parking space as a potential sign of the imminent return of Jesus.  Remember, we don’t know the when which means looking for it we will never find it. Since we have no way of knowing when Jesus suggests that we be alert! (vs 37) This does mean to be looking for it so much as to be doing the right things when it happens.  The parable that he tells says that it is like a man who goes on a journey and leaves his servants in charge assigning to each one his task.

Perhaps, each of us, daily, have a charge from the Lord to have eyes to see his Spirit at work around us, so we can join in and get to work doing our assigned tasks.  The charge, is deceptively simple and wicked hard all at once: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

When we spend time worrying about the when we become “clock watchers” and miss the assigned God-work; opportunities we have to love and share and be blessed while blessing others.  Given that I do know this, the delay of Christ’s return (if that is even a thing) is the ongoing expression of the mercy of God.

If you have been enjoying these reflections consider subscribing so that they appear in your email conveniently for you.  Also consider sharing the site or a reflection with just one friend.  Remember that if you wish to use one for a bible study or meditation at the start of a meeting or for any other purpose all I ask is that you let people know from where you got it in the first place.

Thank you for reading.