snapshots from the hard road

In the first half of the gospel, many people come to Jesus with what appears comparatively easy faith. They touch him and are healed; it seems as simple as that. But for this man, in this situation, faith is hard. Not for nothing are his words regularly quoted as an ideal prayer for someone caught in the middle between faith and doubt, living in the shadowy world of half-belief where one is never sure whether one can see properly or not…(N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone)

His voice trembled on the phone, filled with anguish, flushed with angst. This was no newbie, but an seasoned believer suddenly facing a sheer wall as the path curved precariously, unexpectedly. The ultrasound showed potential deformities in his unborn grandchild leaving foreboding options in every direction. So unfair. So hard. Why this...why now…

Another man sits on his couch. Diagnosis. Colon cancer. Major surgery scheduled the next day — but even with the surgery he’s given only a 30% chance of surviving — but no more than three years. And those are the good odds. He is not new to life or to faith; he has been around and seen much. He comments that a good friend of his died just last year after a hard battle with pancreatic cancer. He has visited this place with others, but now it’s different, it’s intensely personal. “This life is such a hard place...such an incredibly hard place,” he says as we bow together.

Another man, another mature believer, sits on a bench as if waiting for a bus to take him away from the “funk” he feels he’s in. A year and a half and more of seemingly endless medical procedures have drained the life out of him. He knows God is sovereign, he believes in and has seen God’s healing hand. But here he sits. Every day that passes only moves him closer to the next examination, the next procedure. “It’s such a long, hard road...I just get weary with walking it.”

And these are three interactions just from this past week — all sharing that common thread that Wright comments upon so aptly. This isn’t a summer holiday we’re in; and this sure isn’t a pleasure cruise, as John Eldredge observes in Waking the Dead. It’s more like a landing craft headed towards a hostile beach.

Why do we think differently? Are we still affected by the lingering aftertaste of a gospel that promises easier, richer, healthier times? Has it always been this hard, it’s just that now that our senses are more engaged as believers we feel it more? Or does the road really get harder, steeper, more lonely as we move along?

Perhaps it’s all of the above. But as Jesus stood in that valley with his own cross vividly before him, he seems struck by the hardness of the ground, angered by how difficult faith seems to be rising even among his own, sensing how short his time to be present to instill it. The demon-possessed boy presents a seemingly hopeless case — a looming shadow of a darker day near on the horizon that would confront them all with the hard places of Gethsemane and Gabbatha and Golgotha.

But prayer does prevail. Faith wins.

...In the story overall, Mark has told us that things are now going to be much harder, but that Jesus, and with him God’s whole saving project, is going to get there in the end. It will take all his resources of spiritual and physical endurance, but he will indeed climb the rock and complete the walk, right to the summit. He will take up his own cross, be faithful to the end, and bring in the kingdom. The question, though, for us must be: are we going with him? Are we left muddled, unable to do even what we used to be able to?  (N.T. Wright, ibid.)

a well worn path

Following are some musings from reflecting on Mark 9:2-13...

"We heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain...we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

So says Peter.

At least that explains a few things.

Can you imagine being Peter or James or John — James and John who were called “Thunderheads” by Jesus and Peter whose name roughly translates to “Bloke with foot firmly wedged in mouth” — and not saying something about this to the rest of the guys when you rejoined them in the valley below?

“Tell the vision to no man.”

And they didn’t. Luke reports that “they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.” They may not have said anything, but I wonder how else this spilled out of them.

I can just hear the three disciples coming down the mountain behind Jesus and quietly asking each other, “So, is my face glowing, just a little bit?” It’s hard to imagine them not dropping some hints. “Bet you can’t guess what we just saw…”

Something. Anything.

Of course, considering the track record of the disciples when it came to drawing sound conclusions from the things Jesus said and did, the three probably could have all but said, “SHEKINAH GLORY! VOICE OF GOD! WE JUST SAW JESUS GLORIFIED ON THE MOUNTAIN — AND HE WAS TALKING WITH MOSES AND ELIJAH!” and they still wouldn’t have picked up on it.

But though they kept silent, the spectacle they witnessed (whatever it meant) no doubt reinforced at least a subconscious feeling that they had a preeminent position among the twelve. That potential feeling of smugness was no doubt fed by the blatant failure of the other disciples who had been “left behind” in the valley below as they had been trying to cast out a demon.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s after all this, on the way back to Capernaum, that the first recorded debate takes place over “who is the greatest”? And not too long after that James and John take the subtle approach of asking Jesus directly for the two greatest seats of honor in the kingdom.

No sooner had Jesus answered this argument by placing a child in their midst, identifying anyone like a child as greatest in the kingdom, than John blurts out, “We saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.”

How deep our propensity towards comparison! Spiritual experiences that should humble us, that should fill us with wonder and awe and reverence, with a lasting “Who am I?” glow on our face, instead leave us pompous and snarky and smug.

Epiphanies that should reinforce our great need for one another, that should remind us of our essential unity, our common ties, lead us instead to a biting and dismissing sectarian smartness as we “measure ourselves by one another and compare ourselves to each other” (see 2 Corinthians 10:12).

It’s a well worn path we still walk quite nicely — with each step only demonstrating our personal need for “transfiguration”; that no matter how firm we imagine our grasp of the Word, we have missed the whole point of his coming and of the revelation on the mountain.

Do you see anything?

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. Psalm 146:8

And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” Mark 8:22-26

It’s not just another healing.

This rather odd healing encounter of Jesus and the blind man serves as a significant bridge between “Act 1” of Mark (the early Galilean ministry of Jesus) and “Act 2” (preparing the disciples for the final journey to Jerusalem). On one side it connects with what we have just read, starting with the healing of the deaf/mute man in Mark 7:31-37 and the increasingly apparent dull and dimwittedness of the disciples and on the other side with a “first touch” of spiritual perception in Peter’s confession in 8:27-30. But no sooner has Peter confessed “You are the Christ” than it becomes clear that when it comes to Jesus and his mission and the kingdom of God, he still only “sees men, but they look like trees, walking.”

He needs another touch.

“Why does Jesus have to touch the blind man’s eyes twice? Why the ‘partial’ healing?” We might ask the bigger question about our own spiritual eyes and vision.

The fact is, generally speaking, when it comes to our spiritual perception, to our “getting it,” one touch won’t do. It takes the repeated touch of Jesus on “the eyes of our heart” to remove the distortions that accumulate all too easily as we continue to “look through a glass, darkly.”

Perhaps that’s why Paul continues to pray over the Ephesian believers “that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened” — and that’s after spending two full years among them. We’re just as much in need of his repeated touch as was the blind man — and the twelve.

It takes a repeated touch. And evidently it takes Jesus’ spit, too.

What is this with Jesus and his spit? With the deaf/mute man Jesus spat (on the ground? into his hand?) and then touched the man’s tongue (and of course he also thrust his fingers into the man’s ears — it would probably go viral on YouTube). Now in this case Mark says that Jesus spat into his eyes and then touched them (rubbing it in?). Then there’s the case of the man born blind in John 9. There Jesus spits into the dirt and makes his own little mud pile which he then applies to the blind man’s eyes (thankfully then telling him to go wash his eyes).

Jesus and his spit.

There may be many who try to emulate Paul by sending healing hankies in the mail, but curiously they’re aren't any (at least that I’m aware of) that send out vials of spit. Or that have spitting services. The Church of the Holy Spittle. But as head-scratching as this all can be, there’s something wonderfully wild and off-putting about it. The kingdom of God is wonderfully wild and off-putting and unconventional and uncategorizable and uncontainable and unpredictable and undefinable. It defies pat formulations and neat explanations. Now it’s a word, then it’s a wordless touch; now it’s spit in the eyes, then it’s mud; now it’s instantaneous, then it’s in stages; now it’s “I will come and heal him,” then it’s “I won’t come now”; now it’s healing, then it’s suffering; now it’s release from prison, then it’s death.

And in the midst of all these seemingly random and arbitrary rhythms Jesus still leans close and asks us:

“Do you see anything?”

walking or talking

Warm-up: read Mark 6:53-7:13

As for you, son of man, you've become quite the talk of the town. Your people meet on street corners and in front of their houses and say, 'Let's go hear the latest news from God.' They show up, as people tend to do, and sit in your company. They listen to you speak, but don't do a thing you say. They flatter you with compliments, but all they care about is making money and getting ahead. To them you're merely entertainment — a country singer of sad love songs, playing a guitar. They love to hear you talk, but nothing comes of it. Ezekiel 33:30-32 MSG

We have such a propensity to talk.

We can be much like the Athenians who enjoyed nothing more than to hear the latest philosophical/
theological/political trends and talk talk talk about it (or in our case, blog blog blog, post post post). And most of them missed the Lord who didn’t fit into their oh so smart intellectual boxes.

Or perhaps we can be like the Pharisees of old who enjoyed nothing more than to recount and regurgitate the ancient teachings and traditions of their faith. They ended up seeing dirty hands instead of desperate souls in need of God’s hand and healing and pointed fingers of accusation at the Healer who came to touch them.

Jesus called them posers.

Both groups remind me of Ezekiel’s crowd, this crowd of fellow exiles who came out to hear what the eccentric prophet would say this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was selling tickets. Ezekiel poured out the Message and then they would applaud and like Idol judges hold up their scorecards, perhaps wiping away tears if that last tune had been especially touching.

And nothing ever came of anything.

Walking or talking. When it comes right down to it, it really isn’t a matter of one or the other the way some are inclined to emphasize deeds rather than creeds. The fact is the creed (what we believe) produces the deeds (what we do). So they are linked. Both are crucial.

Too much talking and we generally end up in the proverbial paralysis of analysis – or worse still stuck in the dead end of pointless debates. Paul vividly describes this dead end as he repeatedly warns Timothy to avoid the “infantile indulgence” (youthful lusts) of instigating or getting sucked into religious debates that don’t move us to the goal of “love that comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”:

Repeat these basic essentials over and over to God's people. Warn them before God against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out. Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won't be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple. Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they're not backed by a godly life, they accumulate as poison in the soul. 2 Timothy 2:14-17 MSG

Having been part of a fellowship in the past that majored in religious debate in which virtually everyone was condemned (besides us) while we ourselves did very little, I can smell it a mile away. Adding insult to injury we regularly belittled other churches who were actually trying to serve the needy (Social gospelers! Show-offs! Do-gooders trying to earn their way into heaven! Ad nauseum). As Ecclesiastes says, it’s a bad business. Just another section of the Ezekiel crowd.

On the other hand if it’s all walking with little or no talking we generally forget just where it is we are going and why – not to mention who we are in the first place.

The challenge is developing a healthy rhythm and balance of each, our talking leading to much walking, our walking spurring on yet more vigrous talking. The challenge is avoiding the twin pitfalls of too little talk that leaves us clueless about just where it is we are headed and that of getting bogged down in excessive and pointless talk while He patiently waits for us to get moving again.

you give them something to eat

Think back through the story Mark has just told us. Herod is off in his palace, probably far to the south of the Sea of Galilee, carousing with his cronies, winking at pretty girls, beheading prophets. His henchmen on the ground are grasping bullies. Here are his people, desperate for leadership. And here is a young prophet to whom they flock. Is he the king-in-waiting? That’s the echo we must hear behind this story. N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone

Restorers respond to brokenness as if they see right through the moment into a future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past. Then they work to create that future. Their unique vision enables them to face some of the greatest problems in our world without even a flinch. Gabe Lyons, The Next Christians

I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolution of the slave trade, or prison reform or factory acts or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice or health or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can. C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory

Five thousand men.

Five loaves and two fish.

Everyone eats. Everyone is satisfied. Twelve baskets of leftovers.

It’s a can-do story brimming with optimism, with vision of infinite possibilities.

Up to this point it’s an unparalleled divine miracle. Elisha of old had fed 100 men with twenty barley loaves and some fresh ears of grain — and had some left. Jesus takes a mob of 5,000 men (no doubt plus women and children), organizes them nicely into groups of 50s and 100s (sitting on the green grass no doubt like sections of ripened harvest in the field), and he feeds the equivalent of a small city.

The three quotes above help orient me towards this story and its application. The first by reminding me of the context: the backdrop of the story we’ve just read about the beheading of John at the hands of Herod. This was a leaderless people that to the “leaders” in the land were at best a resource to be utilized and managed, at worst a mob avoided and feared, oppressed and exploited.

 And now Jesus shows up on the shore and he neither avoids nor uses nor abuses them. He has compassion on them. He spends the day with them. He feeds them. First with the living Bread and then with their daily bread. And just how did he manage to get 5,000 men (men!) to actually form themselves into groups of fifties and hundreds? Perhaps that was the greater miracle that day!

The disciples, as is frequently the case, are clueless. They see only the little they have. Jesus sees right through the numbers and the present limitations to that “future that bears a mystical resemblance to the pristine state of the past,” what the New Testament calls the Kingdom of God. And, in what in many ways functions as the first true “communion,” he takes bread. He blesses. He breaks. He gives.

But unfortunately they did not understand about the loaves. John tells us they all showed up the next day looking for more  — of the wrong kind of bread.

It is said that in a triumphal procession, conquering Roman generals were accompanied by a slave who whispered in their ear that “all glory is fleeting.” The rest of this story functions as that servant for us, if we are listening for the whisper.

They want to make Jesus their king — the wrong kind of king — and even plotted to take him by force and begin the revolution. Jesus evades them, retreats up the hill while sending the twelve back across the lake. On the next day, as John tells the tale, that same crowd and more would be waiting for him back across the lake, napkins tucked into their collars, empty plates at the ready for the next feeding. It became what some call “the Galilean Crisis.” As he literally held forth his arms he told them to eat his flesh and drink his blood...they abandoned him in droves. Even the twelve started looking over their shoulders.

The lesson for us, for Jesus “restorers” in a world still filled with too many oppressing Herods and oppressed peoples? Let yourself feel compassion for the crowd. See beyond the numbers and the present limitations around you to the limitless possibilities of the kingdom of God.

Take and bless and break and give.

And don’t expect most to get it.

Upside down Christmas

My friend across the street has an upside down tree.

I must confess it’s the first one I’ve ever seen. I had to go over and look up close. He says he’s had many interesting discussions, including those from folks concerned about an upside down tree being sacrilegious. (I asked if it's a holiday distress signal.)

The upside down tree became a parable of sorts, a kingdom metaphor.

Oh yes, it’s easy to slam Christmas in our culture – the consumerism, the greed, the shop and shop and shop and shop, the overeating, the rush rush rush, etc. etc. etc., skating on the edge of Scroogedom ourselves, with a dash of smug self-righteousness thrown in for good measure.

But it was working with our own “lectionary” – the teaching schedule through Mark in our church – that converged with this upside down tree. You see, on the Sunday when we potentially would want to have our Christmas sermon the reading is Mark 6:14-29. John the Baptist loses his head.

Naturally the story of the godless king and his inbred family and the decadent birthday party (a debacle of debauchery!) with the lurid request for the Baptist’s head seems as unfitting for a yuletide text as the proverbial gold ring in a pig’s snout (the gold ring being Christmas, of course, and the pig’s snout being, well, Herod, I guess). But seeing them together suddenly Christmas was turned upside down, or really rightside up and some congruities emerged.

Herod beheads John even as his father murdered the Bethlehem babies & toddlers.

The murder of the innocents doesn't make it’s way into our manger scenes, generally. Perhaps it’s there as an explanatory footnote if we tell the rest of the story about the flight to Egypt  by Joseph and Mary with the Christ child. It’s the darker side of Christmas,  the cries of the infants and the falling of the executioner’s axe lost in our noisy festivities.

But being taken to Herod’s posh party, witnessing the play and frolic and dancing suddenly interrupted by the arrival of the head on a holiday platter, Herod suddenly sobered and pensive, I likewise was sobered a bit and reminded of the true cost of this day. Reminded that the gift of Jesus was a gift given in blood. A gift that when fully unwrapped revealed a bloody swordlike cross piercing the mother’s heart.

So let’s party on and enjoy the season with one another – but always be mindful of the cost.

Oh the beauty of the limited mission

“Framing” our weekly devotions for next week on Mark 6:1-13 (which you probably want to read before continuing) and what we often call the “limited commission,” I was left with some extra thoughts bouncing around my head that I simply didn’t have enough room to explore on paper. And since I don’t get to preach on it, this blog of a tablet will have to give me the space…

Limited.

The very thing we call this commission is the first thing that strikes me. This was a limited mission. The most detailed report of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve as he sent them out on this “limited” mission (they only went to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel") definitely confirms the label "limited.” Needed items for this mission? Uh, nothing. In fact, you need to lose a few things. Yes, the Lord would tell me to keep my book bag at home. No bread (food, that is; that’s right, no snacks or granola bars or even dinner coupons). No bag (leave the briefcase and backpack at home, thank you). No cash (paper or plastic). And no extra clothes. Although Mark does say you can take your walking stick (Matthew and Luke disagree – no stick for you!).

Peterson in the Message catches the spirit of all this quite well (except for any of you Massage pooh-poohers out there, God love you) in his rendition of Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 10:

"Don't think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don't need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.”

Yes this is indeed a limited mission.

I’ve often wondered why we have these detailed instructions left more or less for us three times in the New Testament if they really only applied to the Twelve on this occasion. Perhaps it’s just so we can be inspired by their faith...as we then turn around and do the opposite with all of our many bags, our cash reserve, our hotel reservations and car rentals in advance (after all, we must be practical! I mean, no bag, no cash, no clothes, and no stick [so say Matt and Luke]? Really now!). One thing’s for sure, don’t put Jesus in charge of our mission’s programs. I so would not have been a good disciple in that group...

But more seriously, perhaps these instructions were preserved for us very simply because, for the most part, disciples of Jesus throughout the ages would primarily be making these kinds of “mission trips.” The limited ones. Most would not be globe-trotting like the twelve eventually did. Most would be doing what the twelve did this time around – or even less. The limited commission of ministering in your own backyard – or better, your front yard, better still your living room, and then your neighborhood, your school, your workplace. And perhaps what the twelve did for their limited commission is what we need to do for ours.

Don’t load up, read up, and certainly don’t try to measure up. You don’t need lots of equipment. You are the equipment. So turn around, and behold your limited commission in that next face you meet.

It’s just that this is all so, so, well, limited. So counterculture to we sophiscated, driven Americans. There’s little that we won’t turn into a spectacle; if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing BIG. And here’s Jesus talking about a cup of cold water given in his name. The American Jesus would talk about providing water for the entire population of Palestine. Now that would be ministry. And indeed it would be. It’s just that, let’s be real here, for the most part through all of history, that’s the sort of massive thing that a king would do (okay, most kings take the water, but let’s not quibble here); peasants can give the cup of water in their hand. It’s limited. But it’s seen. It’s valued. And if all the peasants with a cup of water in their hands shared it, soon all the population of the land would be refreshed, wouldn’t it? Behold the power of operating well within our holy limitations. A growing mass of peasants so operating, empowered by the King…imagine the possibilities!

One of the suggestions I came across in my reading this morning paralleled this commission and its stripping them of all their stuff to what was required before entering the temple grounds. They didn’t just leave their weapons at the door of the temple, they left all their stuff before entering the holy precincts. I hadn’t heard that before, but I love the picture. The twelve drop all their stuff and empty their pockets before hitting the road just like they were entering the Holy Temple. The dusty streets of Palestine all become holy ground. No wonder even the demons were subject to them! What might God accomplish through us in our own streets if we walked around seeing that? With that air of faith and vision and expectation surrounding us… Sure we’d still have plenty of dust to wipe off our feet with a shrug. That’s the lesson of Jesus’ trip to Nazareth. But imagine the possibilities!

And I love that on this limited commission Jesus put no limits on what they could do kingdom-wise (heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons); it pretty much runs the whole gamut, doesn’t it? But he did limit the words. He told them to say, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Seven words in English. A mere five words in the Greek. Three words in Hebrew (Qarbah malkut shemayim!). Funny how my evangelical nature tends to reverse this; how I tend to limit the kingdom activities (or dismiss them altogether – whether miraculous because of my Cessationist inclinations, or whether benevolent because of my “that’s just social gospel antics taking care of the body but not the soul” routine) and then I multiply the words beyond limit. And so we talk, talk, talk (he wrote in his blog, blog, blog) to and at the world around us, and then have so very precious little time and energy for the doing.

Of course this involves balance. We bear the King’s mercy and his message. It’s both/and not either/or. It’s just perhaps, just maybe we should take to heart these detailed instructions to the twelve before we head out our door and try this balance on for size: Do, do, do, do, do and (wait for it) speak (three words will do). The message accompanies the mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy of Jesus, not vice versa; not a wee deed thrown in on occasion to try to make the message credible or edible (which rather than mercy borders on manipulation and shtick; remember, this is a challenge to engage in the limited commission, and Matthew and Luke tell us to leave our shtick behind). Let your deeds (mitzvot – keeping of the commands aka acts of lovingkindness) be many and your words few. Not a bad balance – it was His idea, after all. Perhaps I should actually try it.

Okay, one last thing in this joyful little rant of mine. Mark includes one detail unique to his account of their limited mission. He says “they anointed with oil many that were sick and they were healed.” The disciples probably didn’t pack lots of oil, but most households had it; in conformity with the rest of this stripped down and simple mission, they probably just used whatever was at hand wherever they happened to be. According to one source I read today, among its other properties and uses, olive oil was seen as something of a panacea, an all purpose medication for anyone with any malady. Maybe it would be like taking an aspirin in our culture. But God took that everyday item existing in everyone’s home and made it sacramental – made it kingdomish. The common and ordinary becomes a holy instrument in the hands of newbie disciples.

And that’s the limited commission…and the great commission too, for that matter. And whether small or great, how well, how freely, how kingdomly am I operating within my own holy limitations?

crossing the Rubicon

Like a stubborn heifer,
     Israel is stubborn;
can the LORD now feed them
    like a lamb in a broad pasture?

Ephraim is joined to idols;
   leave him alone.
When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring;
   their rulers dearly love shame.

A wind has wrapped them in its wings.   Hosea 4:16-19

Warm-up: read Mark 3:20-35

The Rubicon.

The Rubicon is a shallow river in northeastern Italy that marked the boundary between the province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy proper to the south. In order to protect the republic from internal military threat, Roman law forbade any Roman general to cross the Rubicon southward with his army. In fact, any Roman soldier south of the Rubicon by law automatically became a civilian with no obligation to obey any military orders. To cross the river without disbanding your army was considered an act of high treason and even sacrilege — and was an offense punishable by death.

The Roman historian Suetonius tells the tale of Julius Caesar and his decisive move in his quest for power in
49 BC crossing the Rubicon on January 10th, breaking that law, and making armed conflict with his rivals inevitable. Caesar’s swift and bold move forced his key rival, Pompey, the lawful consul, along with a large part of the Roman senate, to flee Rome in fear.

According to Suetonius, Caesar was undecided as he approached the river, but after a supernatural apparition, he plunged across, uttering the phrase alea iacta est— “the die is cast.” Ever since, whenever any individual or group commits itself irrevocably to a risky or revolutionary cause, we say they have “crossed the Rubicon.” They have passed the point of no return.

The Pharisees in their growing opposition to Jesus clearly seem to have crossed their own Rubicon. It started off with questions. “Who is this that would forgive sins?” But the questions were unexpressed whispers in their own minds. Then came the verbal challenges to those around Jesus. “Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners like that?” Next came the direct challenge to Jesus himself. “Why do your disciples feast and not fast like the rest of us?” “Why do your disciples do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Finally came the plotting and scheming that led them to go out the door and plot secretly how to destroy Jesus.

This distance in Mark is covered in only a few paragraphs, but it reflects a momentous internal crossing in which they spill out of the river on the other side, dripping with snide insinuation of satanic possession.

We aren’t talking about something done or said carelessly or some technical violation of divine protocols. Blaspheming the Spirit is not something bad you say about or to God in anger or frustration or even under the influence. It is simply Rubicon water pouring out from our hearts revealing eyes that no longer see and ears that no longer hear. The mind is set. The die is cast.

It’s difficult to know looking at others — or even at ourselves — when this line has been crossed. I would have surmised that a certain Saul of Tarsus had crossed that line and would have written him off as “sinning unto death.” But Jesus knows. Such a chilling pronouncement is perhaps best left in his mouth.

For us it remains that we are all in the process of becoming something. We all have questions and stirrings and leanings that are propelling us forward. They may be questions shared and openly discussed and prayed, or held with increasingly closed hands and minds and hearts.

All of us in this life ultimately cross the river.

The question is which way.

Jesus Mad!

To snort with anger.


That’s literally what Jesus did when he warned the leper not to say anything to anyone before sending him away.

So why the anger?

And what’s even more interesting is the fact that an alternate reading in some manuscripts has “he was angry” rather than “he was moved with compassion” in verse 41. Scholars are always trying to figure out the reason(s) for different readings in the various manuscripts, and in this case it just doesn’t make any sense. The words aren’t even close in spelling, and it’s much easier to see how “moved with compassion” would be substituted for “he was angry” than the other way around. Nevertheless, most translations stick with “moved with compassion” because, well, why would he have been angry?

It’s clearly not that he was interrupted or that the leper violated etiquette (please!). Some suggest that perhaps (regardless of what the original word was) what we have is a glimpse at the two sides of the same “kingdom” coin: anger and angst at such suffering, at such treatment of leper exiles and the consequent movement of compassion as the hand is stretched out to touch the exile.

I like that and the connection it makes — compassion is offline when we’re unable to get angry at the mess.

Regardless, the anger that seems to bracket this encounter with the leper perhaps hinges on the fact that this does function as a hinge, and Jesus knows it.

The Galilean party was coming to an end.

It was the most popular party on the block — you couldn’t even fit all the partygoers in (next thing you know they’ll be tearing a hole through the roof or something!). If they could just keep it down! And then this partygoer with all the issues gets liberated, and does he quietly exit to get himself a pronouncement of a clean bill of health at the local priestly clinic? No! He goes banging on every door in the apartment complex. He texts all his friends. He posts before and after pictures on Facebook, for crying out loud! Jesus didn’t release those images—not for that. And now there are so many partygoers that Jesus can’t even get into the room.

And worse, now it’s not just partygoers. All the ruckus and commotion has attracted the authorities. The religious police are mixing in the room, looking for code violations, quietly interviewing partygoers, carefully watching what happens next, ready to read the riot act and break out the cuffs.

I’m guessing Jesus became privy to all this as he beheld that leper kneeling before him. As he helped him up, he didn’t just warn, he didn’t just counsel or caution. His face grew flushed. I see him grabbing the former leper by his unclean tunic. I see him breathing hard and hot as he spat out the words, “DON’T...SAY... A WORD!” —knowing that that is exactly what he was going to do. The first “Christ evangelist.” Jerk.

And now he was between the Scylla of popularity and the Charybdis of official opposition. (Forgive me, I've always wanted to include Scylla and Charybdis in a sentence!)

And the party was over.

touching exiles

Just wrote this little ditty for next week's devotions...

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.” And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp; as the LORD said to Moses, so the people of Israel did. Numbers 5:1-4 ESV

Leprosy.

Whatever this condition was (and there is debate about that), it was judged to be a cursed blight removing the sufferer from community and fellowship and favor. HIV/AIDS would come closest in our culture — particularly considering how many Christians have responded to it as some sort of “divine retribution” and curse.

Only a handful of instances are recorded of diagnosed, malignant leprosy being cured. There was Moses’ sister Miriam in Numbers 12 and the Assyrian Captain, Naaman, in 2 Kings 5 (and then there was also Moses in Exodus 4 when he put his hand into his tunic and it came out leprous, and then putting it back in under divine direction brought it out whole and healthy. Yikes!).

The fact is the Law could only diagnose after a somewhat tedious process and then pronounce you clean or unclean.

The Law cannot change the leper’s spots.

Some suggest that lepers in biblical culture were not necessarily forced to live in their own “colonies” - that they could live in unwalled villages and even attend the synagogue (behind a screen).

But regardless they were still exiles.

They still had to stay away.

They still had to cover their mouths even as they shouted their own shame, “Unclean, unclean.”

This encounter with a leper wasn’t on Jesus’ itinerary. It wasn’t part of what he’d planned, more than likely, for that day. But there he was, flouting procedure and taboo and running to Jesus, and Jesus, by extending his hand, demonstrated what the kingdom he preached was all about: touching the exile, embracing the unembraceable, and cleansing what the Law can only point to as a malignant spot.