Month: June 2008

Just When We Think We’ve Got it all Together – Mark 14:27-42

Rob Woodrum5 Comments

Hey everybody.  First off, I want to mention that Sabet Kuj called me yesterday to thank our church for praying for Suzy and he.  In case you don’t know, they are missionaries to the Sudan that we have been supporting as a church, and who stayed in our area and hung out with our church for a year.  She had filed for citizenship in the U.S. (Suzy is from the U.K.), and last week she received it.  The whole family will be united in Sudan by September.  God is good.

Our text this week is going to be Mark 14:27-42 – read it here.

Verse 26 provided the larger context of the events recorded in this part of chapter 14.  Even though we have the account of Jesus praying in the garden, that event is surrounded by accounts of self confidence and failure.

Have you ever made a commitment to something verbally, but failed to follow through because it was more difficult than you thought?  How did it make you feel?  What did you learn from something like that?

In all the gospel accounts, Peter is always quick with his tongue…and his own account (if that’s what Mark is) is no different.  He makes bold claims and promises, but later on in the chapter, we’ll find out just how he keeps those promises.

As Jesus goes off to pray, what do the disciples do?  In His humanity, as best we can tell, Jesus had the same struggles with surrendering His will to survive.  This is, in part, what is making Him “exceedingly sorrowful to death…”  It is in the context of laying aside His own will that Jesus utters the rally cry the church has echoed for 2,000 years – “not what I will, but what YOU will.”.

When He gets back to His disciples, he awakens them.  What do you make of that?  How would you apply that to your life as a disciple now?  His warning is about the weakness of our flesh when it comes to fulfiling our spiritual desires and goals.  Obviously, this has application to prayer, because that’s the immediate context, but what do we learn from His warning as we try to apply it to other areas of our spiritual journey.

In v 40, we’re given a reason why the disciples were sleeping.  In your own times of struggle or heart pain, when you just don’t know what to do, what has been your response?  Escaping is a natural human tendency.  What things do we try to escape to, instead of resolving to entrust our situations to God?

This whole scene gets repeated three times.  As you read it, how do you imagine Jesus’ facial expressions?  How do you imagine His tone of voice?  Does Jesus give up on them?  What is His final word to them in V 42?  What does that mean to your life? 

Well…I hope that sparks some good conversation.  Thanks for reading this, and being willing to dig a little during the week.  This is time WELL SPENT.  See yer’ Sundee!

 

Come to the Table – Mark 14:12-26

Rob Woodrum10 Comments

Wow, we had a great discussion going last week!  Thank you to all who participated.  I might need to mention that I may be lifting some of this conversation and using it in our teaching time, I hope that’s OK.  I think this is a great way to expand the exploration and make it interactive to some degree.  This is putting the technology we have to good use, IMO.

OK…so our passage this week will be Mark 14:12-26.

As we read this passage, we can see the unifying theme to these verses.  What is it?  What is happening all through this section?

If you were to take this section, and break it into chunks, you would have v12-16, v17-21 and v 22-26.  It’s interesting that each of these vignettes tell a different sub-story, yet all together, they describe the whole event.

In v12-16, Jesus sends His disciples to get a room prepared for them all to celebrate the Passover.  Mark spends a lot of time on this detail.  One thing that interests me is that they waited so long to get this room.  Jerusalem is swollen with pilgrims from all over the country…it’s like spring break on the beach.  I wonder how easy it is to come down to the beach the night before spring break starts and just get a room?  As we read this…what is this sub-story telling us?  How do we apply what we learn from this story to our own lives?

In v17-21 Jesus breaks the news that not all of the disciples are who they seem to be.  There is a traitor in their midst.  It’s a dire warning, and certainly not what the disciples were expecting for diner conversation.  What is their reaction to this news?  How do they feel, what do they say?  How do we apply this to our own lives?

Finally, in v 22-26 Jesus takes the Passover meal in a whole new direction.  Jesus took portions of the meal and applied them symbolically to Himself, and the events that were about to unfold.  In v24-25, there is a word that gets repeated.  What word is it?  What does it tell us about the effect of Jesus’ death on us?  What is the lesson we learn from the Lord’s Table?

Stuff to think about.  Have a great week, see yer’ Sundee!

 

She Has Done a Good Work for Me – Mark 14:1-11

Rob Woodrum7 Comments

 Our study this Sunday will start chapter 14 in Mark.  We’ll be reading the first 11 verses.  We are now just a few days out from Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.  The religious leadership want Jesus out of the way, but in their reasoning, they’ll have to wait until Passover is finished, because they don’t want to cause an uproar.  Interesting that despite their planning…Jesus is still crucified over the Passover weekend.  What does that tell us about who’s really in charge here?

The text tells us that Jesus is staying at the house of a guy named Simon the Leper.  Talk about sorry nick-names.  Many believe this was a man who had been healed from leprosy by Jesus, and was now a follower of Him.  I think that’s reasonable, but we do want to keep in mind that some scholars question the translation, and there is a possibility that it should read Simon the “potter”.  I’m not a language scholar, so I’ll stay out of that debate.

John’s parallel accountof this event tells us that the woman who comes to Jesus is Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead just before He came into Jerusalem.  She lived in Bethany too.  Both accounts say that Mary broke open an alabaster flask, or jar of very expensive perfume, and poured it on his head and feet.

John’s account has Judas doing some quick calculations about the cost, which equates to about a year’s wages in that time.  Judas did this quick economics lesson to accuse her, but I’m glad he did it because it gives us a good point of reference to understand what this gesture meant.

When she was accused, she was accused (by Judas, according to John 12) of being wasteful.  Yet Jesus says she “did a good work for ME”….what do you suppose Jesus means by that?  The description of what she does isn’t always what comes to mind when I think of work.   Jesus also says “She has done what she could.”  Jesus is very pleased with her actions.  He defends her, and promises that what she has done will be immortalized, taught synonymously with the gospel.  Wow. 

Obviously, we live in a different culture, so some things are hard to understand in this.  Pouring oil on a guy’s head wouldn’t go over quite so well in our culture (at least since the 1950’s).  In that day and place, taking baths wasn’t something a person had the opportunity to do as often as we do.  People would quickly develop a certain odoriferousness (funk) about them.  So, this sort of thing was a welcome way to put a sheen on the hair and diffuse the funk.

But, Jesus associated it with his burial.  All along Jesus has been warning His disciples that He’s going to be betrayed, handed over to the gentiles, and murdered.  Do you think Mary is the only one who really heard HIm?  Is it possible she is anticipating His death, or is Jesus steering this somewhere?  What would Jesus be doing, if He were tying her activity here to His approaching death?

What other observations do you draw from this passage?  What do we learn from her “work” about our daily lives that we live here and now?

What contrasts do we draw from Judas’ behavior immediately following this event? 

See yer’ Sundee.