I’m going to start on a bit of a technical note. Last fall when we were looking at the first half of Mark’s Gospel I pointed out several times the apparent inconsistencies in the chapter divisions that we find in the Bible. We have another example of that tonight as we start our look at the second half of the Gospel. Chapter 9 starts with the words, “And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” How do we interpret these words in context? Are they meant to be the end of the stories Mark had told in Chapter 8, or are they the lead-on to the stories he’s going to tell in Chapter 9? Or there are a couple of other options – this could just be a stand alone verse not directly related to either, or it could be a bridge verse moving us forward from one collection of stories to the next. What we do know about Mark 9:1 is that it’s caused some degree of discomfort for many Christians over the years. Many Christians have interpreted the idea of the kingdom of God coming with power as what’s often referred to as the end times, or the Second Coming of Jesus. It’s usually given an apocalyptic interpretation. But the problem such an interpretation creates is that the fulfilment of the words then becomes problematic, because the verse says that “some standing here will not taste death” until this happens – and obviously every person standing there at that moment (even Jesus!) has tasted death. Many generations have come and gone. This idea that Jesus would return and the end would come very soon caused problems early on in Christian history, and really ever since. How many apocalyptic quasi-Christian cults and false teachers have arisen over the centuries claiming to know when the world would end and when Jesus would return. How many (usually fundamentalist) Christians insist loudly that we are living in the “end times.” Christians have always had a fascination with the end times, and this verse both relates to that and causes some problems. But the real issue, for me, is how the verse functions in the Gospel and what’s meant by the kingdom of God coming “with power.”
The
verse starts with the words “and he said to
them.” You could paraphrase those words as “after he said that, then he said this.”
So to really get at what Jesus was talking about you need to remember these
words of Jesus from the end of Chapter 8: “He called the crowd with his
disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save
their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the
sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the
whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for
their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in
the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” So the point was that there
would be challenges involved in being a follower of Jesus; there would be
crosses to bear and Jesus would expect his disciples to bear them. Given that,
a promise of the kingdom of God coming with power would be comforting. So the
message is that whatever you face now, God has the power to set it right. It’s
interesting to speculate what Jesus meant (if it’s not the end times) when he
told the disciples that they would see the kingdom of God “coming with power.”
That’s been widely debated. Is it the resurrection, the ascension, Pentecost or
even something as simple as the expansion of the church in spite of persecution?
The point seems to be that the kingdom of God isn’t a specific place (it’s not
heaven); it’s seen really in any situation where God's sovereignty, authority,
power, and glory are seen. So, going back to how this one verse fits in to the
wider Gospel, I’d suggest that in this context it’s a kind of a bridge verse,
because what comes immediately after (the Transfiguration) demonstrates God’s
glory.
The Transfiguration is one of the more challenging
stories in the account of Jesus’ life – at least I find it that way. In some
ways it baffles me. I’m not a big fan of preaching from it to be honest, but
understanding the contextual flow from the end of Chapter 8 to the start of
Chapter 9 (moving from the struggles Jesus depicts in Chapter 8 to the power of
the glory of God in the Transfiguration, with the bridge verse in the middle of
the stories) does help me. The Transfiguration is a story of encouragement;
it’s the power of God made manifest – and the disciples have seen it, which
won’t only help them as they age and come closer to the end of their lives
perhaps disappointed that Jesus hasn’t returned and the kingdom of God hasn’t
been established, but will also help them overcome some of the hardships that
they’re going to experience in the very near future. So the Transfiguration is
a sign of divine power. It also bears witness to the identity and nature of
Jesus, because in an echo of what happened when Jesus was baptized, the
disciples heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved;
listen to him!” So the Transfiguration also helps the disciples come to a
deeper understanding of Jesus. Remember, again going back to Chapter 8, that
the highlight of the previous chapter (and what I call the hub of the Gospel)
was the confession of Peter about Jesus: “you are the Messiah.” In the
Transfiguration you see in a practical way how that’s played out. In the
Transfiguration, the disciples see Jesus standing on a mountain, with Moses on
one side of him and Elijah on the other. Why those two? There are other famous
figures from Israel’s history. Why not Abraham and Isaiah, for example? It’s
because Moses and Elijah have symbolic importance. Moses represents the law of
God – he’s the one who went up Mount Sinai and had the law revealed to him and
then gave the law to Israel. Elijah represents the prophets of God – the ones
who were sent to speak for God. The symbolic point being made is that Jesus
brings together the law and the prophets. Both what God expects from the people
and what God reveals to the people is brought together in Jesus; they find
their fulfilment in the flesh and blood of Jesus.
It's interesting that the lectionary ignores the next two
stories in the chapter, so they don’t get spoken about in church very often. Jesus
goes back into the secrecy mode we’ve seen so often, and the disciples are
ordered not to tell anyone about what they had just seen or experienced until
he had risen from the dead. It’s interesting that the disciples again (as has
happened before) don’t understand the reference to him rising from the dead and
they question it. I suppose you can’t really blame them, since it does sound a
bit over the top. But then they shift their focus to a teaching of the scribes
and they ask Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first”? Jesus
replies first that Elijah “is coming” (“to restore all things” – although he
doesn’t explain what that means) and then he says to the disciples that Elijah
“has come.” Neither the story (nor the point Jesus is making) is fleshed out
but we do know that John the Baptist has always been associated with Elijah –
remember that even King Herod thought that John the Baptist might be Elijah, so
the clear implication of Jesus’ statement that Elijah “has come” is that he had
come in John the Baptist, who bore witness to Jesus. The Gospel then jumps
somewhat abruptly to another of Mark’s favourite kinds of stories – Jesus
encounters a boy with a demon, and he performs an exorcism. The passage gives a
pretty detailed description of why the boy’s father believed him to be demon
possessed – he grinds his teeth, he foams at the mouth, he becomes rigid and
later as Jesus deals with him the boy cries out and convulses. Looked at from
the perspective of the 21st century it seems clear that the boy was
suffering some sort of seizure disorder – possibly epilepsy. We know that
diseases like that were often associated with demonic possession at that time.
But even if we choose a natural explanation for the boy’s condition over a
supernatural one, it makes Jesus’ authority over the situation no less dramatic
– Jesus heals the boy – and it makes a stark contrast by pointing out that
Jesus’ disciples hadn’t been able to help the boy. After Jesus heals the boy
(or performs an exorcism, depending on how you interpret the boy’s condition)
the disciples ask him why they couldn’t deal with the situation and Jesus
offers a somewhat enigmatic after: “This kind can come out only through
prayer.” Of some interest is that even though he said this, Jesus isn’t
recorded as having prayed for the demon to leave the boy; he commanded the
demon to leave the boy. But the clear point is that the disciples hadn’t
understood how to deal with the situation; they weren’t yet fully mature.
I think the disciples were embarrassed by their failure
to help the boy, and by their inability to understand what Jesus had meant by
rising from the dead – and the very next few verses tell us again that they
just can’t grasp this idea of Jesus dying and then being raised. What’s the
natural result when we see things seeming to spin out of control and we don’t
seem to be able to either do anything about them? Often, we start to turn on
each other. Strife and infighting break out – and that’s exactly what happened
to the disciples. The text tells us that they argued over who was the greatest
– but perhaps you have to think of it in the reverse way: an argument about who
is the greatest is also an argument about who isn’t; about who’s lower in the
pecking order; even about who’s least. Maybe the disciples’ argument wasn’t
over why they (collectively) couldn’t help the boy – but rather was about which
one of them was to blame for their failure. “It wasn’t my fault – it was
because you didn’t have enough faith.” That sort of thing. It’s possible that
the disciples thought they had kept their argument discreet, and that Jesus’
words - “What were you arguing about along the way?” – came as a surprise to
them, which might have even increased their embarrassment. The calling of the
child as an illustration of what true greatness is was clearly meant to humble
the disciples. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of
all.” Those are some of the most memorable words Jesus ever spoke, and just think
of how the history of the world (and, for that matter, the history of the
church) would be different if people who claimed to be Jesus’ disciples could
actually live like that? If instead of desperately trying to get my way, I could
simply serve. If instead of worrying about being seen as right, I could simply
serve. If instead of trying to be in control, I could simply serve. You can see
the difference between the world and God’s kingdom right there. In the world
people strive for power; in God’s kingdom, God’s people strive to serve. Too
often, though, the way of the world takes precedence.
Certainly, one of the key points being made in Chapter 9
is that the disciples of Jesus were concerned about status. We go right from
Mark’s description of the argument among the disciples about who was the
greatest – after which they were chastised by Jesus and reminded that service
rather than power was the way of discipleship – to the story about someone who
was casting out demons in Jesus’ name but who wasn’t one of the disciples. The
disciples seemed envious or jealous – probably mostly because this unnamed
exorcist was successfully casting out demons, whereas the disciples had been
unable to cast out the demon from the boy in the earlier story. Their response
in a sense was to close ranks; they sought to turn the “Jesus movement” into a
closed group.” We stopped him because he wasn’t one of us,” was the message the
disciples relayed to Jesus. This is a danger that always confronts the church –
the temptation to become a closed group; welcoming only those who fall in line
with our way of doing things; being closed to new or different ways of doing
things; insisting on tight control of the movement by a small group of people; the
entrenchment of hierarchy. Jesus makes a radical statement in this Gospel –
“whoever is not against us is for us.” One doesn’t have to be a so-called
insider to be a follower of Jesus, in other words. It’s good to study the Bible
but it’s bad to start to assume that only we know how the Bible should be
interpreted and applied. It’s good to learn about God but it’s bad to assume
that no one else knows God. It's good to discuss issues with people who have
different views but it’s bad to vilify anyone who differs in their beliefs. If
we follow Christ, we should encourage any work that’s consistent with Jesus’
works; our goal should be to build His kingdom and not our own.
The chapter ends with a warning that appears to be
directly related to the disciples’ attempt to create a closed shop out of the
Jesus movement. He basically tells them that if they think so highly of
themselves that they prevent others from taking their place as followers of
Jesus or treat them as less then they will face consequences. Some of the most
meaningful words about sin that you will ever find in the Bible are in Mark 9:
“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter
life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to
enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your
eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the
kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell
...” None of that is meant to be taken literally, of course. But the symbolism
combined with the context is powerful – let go of anything in your life that causes
sin, and ultimately what causes sin is our desire to be in control. If we can
cut that desire out of our life, only then are we really being faithful
disciples of Jesus. I’ve seen bumper stickers that say “Let Go And Let God.” It’s
perhaps a bit simplistic, but it makes its point. The ultimate result of no
longer seeking power and control and of no longer striving to be better than
others and above others is that we will be, in the closing words of the
chapter, “at peace with one another.”
Isn’t that what we should want and yearn for – four ourselves,
for the church and for the entire world; the whole creation? That’s where this
Chapter takes us. It starts by talking about the challenges we’re going to face,
then it depicts the power and glory of Jesus but then immediately shows us the
movement beginning to fall apart as the disciples fall into petty jealousies. This
is a pretty good summary of human existence – and it leaves us with a solution.
If we can cut away this need to be in control, then we can be “at peace with one
another.”
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