Wise people (Mark 14)

She did what she could when she could - she pre-anointed my body before burial.

 

Wise people do their best in the right place at the right time. They humbly accept the results, but sometimes their actions may not be logical. A nameless woman poured 300 denarius-worth of expensive perfume on Jesus' head, which was obviously not logical according to the people looking at the situation. She could help the poor by selling the perfume, which was equivalent to a year's wages at those times. However, Jesus cherished the woman's contribution, which have been praised everywhere with gospel. 

 

Foolish people pursue their own profits like opportunists. Judas Iscariot did not find anything like Messiah from Jesus, so he decided to sell Jesus to the high priests in exchange for reward. Judas Iscariot took part in the great place of the Last Supper where the God's new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31) was fulfilled by Jesus, but could not recognize that Jesus is the Messiah.

 

Wicked people pervert the truth. They intentionally sanctify themselves with lies and hypocrisy, condemns others and are not afraid to testify falsely. The law, regarded as important as life by the high priests and religious leaders, was merely means to keep their superior social position and honor, and was no longer commandments of God's great love. They accused the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for blasphemy and ultimately crucified him. 

 

              "The road to the life of faith is never a straight line"

 

Wise people embrace God's values ​​and live obediently depending on God's good power. Their lives are sometimes illogical and challenges against the fallen culture of the world. The road to the life of faith is never a straight line, as it requires conviction and courage. Even Jesus confronted the life with fear and deep sorrow (Mark 14:32-34). We should only ask for what God wants by prayer.

The place of life (Mark 13)

 

Stay with it to the end. You're placed there as sentinels to truth.

 

Tribulation, natural disaster, and chaos come to us in an instant. Jesus prophesied that the magnificent temple eventually be destroyed by the Romans Empire. He also said that false prophets would confuse people everywhere in the time of the tribulation to come. Disaster may overtake people unrecognizably. Because of the pandemic caused by a microscopic virus not even visible, normal daily lives have stopped with fear of death all over the world for the past three years. 

 

The signs of the end of the age are always repeated in history. They may appear in the form of disaster, political issues, religious conflicts, inter-ethnic wars, environmental pollution, or economic inequality. People always confront the situations and struggle for survival to overcome. After one disaster passes away, another conflict begins. What do these situations mean to me and how should I take? Do I have to live in the world that is swept away by this chaos?  

 

       "-- to confess that Jesus is our only hope".

 

The Scripture is warning to us that these hard times have been in the past, are in present time, and will be repeated in the future. What we need is to keep our own place in life and endure it to the end. To keep and endure in that daily life, which is always a series of chaos, is to confess that Jesus is our only hope. We should be satisfied with the repeated daily life. We should stand in that place of life as sentinels to truth. Just as the watchman waits for the morning, we live in hope of the day of the Lord, Jesus.

People do not know GOD (Mark 12)

You don't know the Bibles, you don't know how God works.

 

Religious scholars, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees asked questions hard to answer to get Jesus into troubles. Jesus caught their evil intentions and clearly answered based on the Bible. The Jews wanted to live in their own greed and understood the Scriptures as they wished.

 The peasants in charge of the vineyard were interested in money only, so they even killed their lord's son to take over the vineyard. People tried to trap Jesus into a snare in terms of paying tax to Caesars. The Sadducees misunderstood marriage because they said there is no resurrection. Ignorance of the Word distorted the grace of the God, with which religious scholars exploited the weak and the helpless. 

       "Ignorance of the word distorted the grace of GOD"

Foolish people mistakenly believe that they know the God very well. However, they still do not know the God at all. To become the God's people is to know the way the God works. In God we should continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling for the rest of our lives (Philippians 2:12).

Prayer (Mark 11)

 

 

Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for you.

 

Prayer is the act of embracing the life of God. Prayer is our breath and is our sustaining strength. Just as the energy of body is obtained through breathing, the energy of the soul is supplied through prayer.

 

Jesus prayed all the time, and in him is the life of God. Those who have the life of God are bold. The courage of Jesus, who could not bear the defilement of the temple and cast out all the evil, was come from the fullness of life. Those who embrace the life of God must forgive others, and then God also cleanly forgives our sins.

 

When we pray in the name of Jesus, we receive the right to become children of God (John 1:12). Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25-26), and that life gives us the blessing of eternal life.

Eyes of the soul (Mark 10-2)

 

 

Your faith has saved and healed you. In that instant he recovered his sight and followed Jesus down the road.

 

Jesus healed a blind man named Bartimaeus in Jericho. It was a miracle. Also, the fact that he recognized Jesus as soon as he recovered his sight and acted like a normal person while following Jesus down the road, was beyond a miracle.

Modern medical science has advanced to the point where even the blind can have normal vision through surgery. However, the advanced technology cannot make them instantly adapt to the changes in the numerous visionary information coming through the eyes. A lot of visual experience and cognitive education are needed before the vision, which did not exist, can be accepted as one of the sensory organs.

                         "Christianity is an encounter with God"

Jesus not only opened Bartimaeus's physical eyes, but he also restored the awareness through sight, that is, the eyes of the soul. Even normal people may be insensitive to the environment surrounding them. They have eyes to see but do not see properly, and ears to hear but do not hear properly. Christianity is not a religion, but it is an encounter with God (Dietrich von Hoeffer), and a new life that accepts that Jesus is the Christ. 

Therefore, we must use all the senses of our body and soul to get to know Jesus. It is necessary to train the sense of recognizing God, not the sense of recognizing only the objects of the simple phenomenal world.

Means and logic (Mark 10-1)

 

Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.

 

People make means to achieve a goal, and then build up logic to justify those means. A rich man ran up to Jesus to ask how to inherit eternal life. He was taught that he had to obey the commandments unconditionally to obtain eternal life, so he had kept those since he was a boy. He had the logic that eternal life could be given by means of the commandments. 

 

 However, it is impossible for anyone in this world to keep the commandments perfectly, and nowhere in the Bible does say that. He came to Jesus troubled because of the absurdity of the logic, but he did not follow Jesus' suggestion and went away sad. He said that he had kept all the laws, but he ironically could not obey the greatest commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. Those two great things are the essential purpose and calling of our lives. We do not need to produce any means or logic to achieve those. Only humility and obedience are the way. 

 

              "Good conscience lead us in the knowledge of God"

 

At the same time, it is important for us to have a rational judgment controlling our own desire. The judgement honorably goes together with the good conscience guided by the Holy Spirit, which lead us grow in the knowledge of God and bear fruits in every good work (Colossians 1:10).

Children (Mark 9)

 

Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me - God who sent me.

 

Jesus took Peter, James, and John to a high mountain, where they saw Elijah and Moses come into view in conversation with Jesus. They really did see the Kingdom of God to come upon the earth. After this happened, an argument broke out among the disciples over who was the greatest.

 

People showing off self-righteousness discredit the faith of others and want to take superior position in church. They should understand other's weaknesses and work together to grow their faith. Church leaders intentionally exploit this childish competition for church expansion. That causes unnecessary disputes in churches and sometimes they would break into several factions. 

 

                   "Embracing children is embracing God"

 

Jesus said that embracing children is embracing God. Children are not interested in the material values ​​of the world. Children always have fun and candidly talk about their feelings. Children can also create new games that are not governed by existing rules. Even though they don't know each other, they easily become friends and play together. Children never have childish competitions.

 

 Friedrich Nietzsche, an atheistic existentialist, described the lives of children as the final stage of becoming a Super-man. He expressed the characteristics of children as a new beginning, life as a play, creativity, a holy affirmation for the future, and an affirmation of the natural order.  We, who accustomed to the culture of competing for the limited resources, should be able to see the image of the Kingdom of God in the lives of children.

 

           "God's grace is a well of water spring up to eternal life"

 

God is the first and the last, and He gives the spring of the water of life to those who are thirsty without cost (Rev 21:6). His grace is a well of water springing up to eternal life (John 4:14), and Jesus invites us right now to the sea of the riches of God's grace.

Self-sacrifice (Mark 8)

 

Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help in no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self.

 

No one can keep away from suffering in life. God allows us go through the hardship such as conflict, illness, and anxiety. We try to overcome those by ourselves, but hard to take. 

 

Whenever our efforts reach the end of the line, we should pull a step back, calm down and wait for hope to appear. Realizing we are not alone, we should pray and request in the Holy Spirit, who will lead us to look at other people suffering the same difficulties. And it makes us apprehend that my sacrifice for others is needed to go through that hardship. 

 

The conflicts between 'I' and 'you' usually bring out a lot of problems in life. No one wants to sacrifice and serve for others. Jesus set us the example of serving as a suffering servant of LORD (Isaiah 53). Jesus went straight into the suffering without any hesitation. 

 

 We were already saved with the sacrifice and service of Jesus Christ, our Lord.