Tag: Mark

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Jesus the Healer – Sight to the Blind: Mark 8:22-26

The biggest question around this passage is “why did Jesus heal the blind man in two parts?” Was Jesus’ power limited in some way? Was the man’s faith lacking (like Mark describes in Nazareth elsewhere)? There is clearly a connection between the faith of people and Jesus’ willingness or ability to heal them. Those is a key theme across the gospels, especially in Mark. But elsewhere Jesus seems like he can and will heal without faith on the other side at all.

So there is some kind of relationship between our faith and God’s healing, but at the same time, God can do what He wants. So in this case, was it about faith. Was Jesus tired? Did he need to retap his Mana? Is there something special about sight? Is there something Jesus wanted to demonstrate?

We may get some clues by looking at the context. Jesus has just fed 4,000 people with a few loaves of bread with 12 baskets left over, then confronted the Pharisees over their lack of faith and demands for a sign. From there they left in the boat – but they forgot the bread. Jesus tries to address the failings of the Pharisees but the disciples are distracted by the bread fiasco. And so Jesus addresses blindness three ways – the blindness of the Pharisees, the blindness of the disciples, and then the physical blindness of this man.

Then the next section is the center-point of Mark, when Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ. In the midst of all this blindness, Jesus as Messiah emerges as the light in that darkness, the one with the power and authority to heal.

The blindness Jesus heals here is like our own blindness. The sight the man receives is the sight of people, the precious creations of God that Jesus came for. C. S. Lewis writes “you have never met a mere mortal.” Jesus wants us to see people as He sees them, not merely as “trees walking around.” And even if we are not there yet, we can be confident that Jesus will ultimately heal our sight fully and we will see the world and people the way he does.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, September 15, 2024

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Healing Unlooked For – Mark 3:1-6

At this point in Jesus’ ministry he is beginning to become well known in the area, and that means he is beginning to gain the attention of the religious authorities. They see him as a threat and so in this story set out to trap him.

Jesus, though, cannot be tripped or trapped. He knows the hearts of everyone involved, and is specifically ready to go address the misuse and abuse of scripture especially around the nature of the sabbath.

This story of Jesus’ healing is very different than the most of them. They typically are very personal situations, but this one is very public and almost political.

One way it is different is that unlike most other people Jesus had healed is that the man with the withered hand never actually asks for healing. He does not appear to be in desperate straits the way most do in these stories. But this story gives no indication that this man, who tradition holds was a stonemason, actually needed healing in the way most people healed by Jesus did.

Instead, it appears that this man was simply going to synagogue like an the others, possibly there specifically to see and learn from Jesus. When he arrives, though, he and his disability are being used by Jesus’ enemies to further their own ends.

But Jesus ends up flipping things around – he calls the man to stand forth, this man who had not asked for any of this, who was just there for synagogue. And the man obeys, despite what was very likely deep discomfort. He stretches out his withered hand, even though it was likely embarrassing and a source of shame in that culture.

And when he obeys, he receives a gift unlocked for, while Jesus challenges the preconceptions, the authority and abusive nature of those who had tried to trap.

So when we come to sit at the feet of Jesus, can we also do so without any expectation? Can we go simply to be taught and live in His presence, whether at church or throughout our daily life? If we do, we may find healing we did not expect or even realize we needed.

— Sermon Notes, Alison Robison, Renew Church Lynnwood, WA, August 11, 2024

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Lavish Love – Mark 14:1-9

This is a story of someone unafraid of demonstrating her love lavishly and publicly. It comes on the heels of strenuous questioning from both the left (Saducees) and the right (Pharisees). That section wraps with a positive discussion of the two greatest commandments – love God and love others, the vertical and the horizontal.

That’s the context of this story. It’s something, that, if it happened today, we would likely respond in similar ways. “That’s too much,” “that’s scandalous,” “that’s a lot of money.”

Both the teachers of the law and the disciples find problems with this, and in some ways it’s hard to blame them. They are, in some ways, trying to love horizontally. We certainly judge how other people spend their time and money, and we often could use our resources more wisely. But what all this misses is that Jesus is a person, and He does not call us into an efficient transaction that maximizes resource allocation – He calls us to a relationship with Him.

The whole chapter previous is about people challenging Jesus around rationality and doctrine. This woman steps into this and unashamedly demonstrates a single-minded purpose to lavish her love for Jesus, publicly and without calculation. The disciples are crunching the numbers, but she is overwhelmed with a desire to actively and abundantly love.

It ties back to the widow who gave all she had at the temple – born women gave all they had, and Jesus lifts up both women as exemplars of what we all should be (both men and women).

What does this look like for us? How do we move from a transactionally-based relationship to a love-based relationship? One way is worship, praising Jesus whether or not you are feeling it at any one moment. While our own personal styles will vary, we should worship in a way that takes its cue from this woman, unashamed and unworried about how others will see us.

Likewise in our private personal prayer and spiritual discipline, we can still be restrained, and the example of this woman calls us to a more open and lavish love for Christ in those moments as well.

And our love here should spring from the same well as this woman’s did – gratitude for all Jesus has done for us.

–Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, March 10, 2024

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The Stone Rejected – Mark 12:1-12

Jesus is getting into some heated discussions with the religious leaders – as he gets closer to the cross he begins saying less and less, but at this stage he is being very vocal.

He is, however, still using parables. This less him use simple things to talk about big issues. It lets him be subversive without actually riling his opposition up too early. It also enables selective revelation – those who do not want to engage with the message will not learn from it, but for those who do there are truths to be learned. Likewise, it sets that choice in front of people, whether to receive or reject the message based on the person of Christ more than the specifics of the message.

This parable was directly referencing the people he was telling the story to, but the leaders did not realize this until late, and then when they did realize it they were too afraid of how the people would react to do anything about it.

The cast of characters here is fairly straightforward. The landowner is God the Father, and his son is Jesus. The tenants are the leaders of Israel, those in power over the people. The servants sent are the many prophets, right up to John the Baptist. The vineyard itself is Israel, which is a metaphor used throughout the Old Testament in both positive and negative contexts. The imagery of a place where people have a responsibility to steward creation and mold it in productive ways goes all the way back to Eden.

Then Jesus brings in another metaphor, that of the temple building and the rejected stone that becomes the cornerstone. This comes in the context of Mark’s mentions of the temple building and Jesus promise that it would be destroyed and rebuilt within his person. Ultimately this body of Christ, Paul tells us, is we who are his members, his body parts as part of the church.

This means we are the vineyard, we are the workers who must steward what we have been given, and working to turn it back to the ultimate owner of the vineyard. And how do we do that? Elsewhere, Jesus tells us – the broken, the imprisoned, the needy, the oppressed.

That also means that when we put barriers in front of people and prevent them from coming to partake in the fruits of the vineyard, that is functionally the same as the leaders of ancient Israel who murdered the prophets to stop their testimony.

We see this concept in the Old Testament through concepts like leaning and jubilee.

Another thing to glean from this passage is the patience of God. How many servants did He send to be beaten and killed before His final retribution?

And for us, who are the prophets and voices at have ignored, beaten and even killed? As a nation, as a church, as individuals?

But we are placed right here in this particular place in our own vineyard. Let us welcome people into the vinyard to partake of the fruits that God has been growing, that we have been tending. We are the new temple building, we are the new vinyard – let us live and serve like we know it.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, March 3, 2024

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The Kid-Hearted Life – Mark 10:17-30

Do you suffer from PYD Syndrome? “Perfect Yet Dissatisfied” – where you have what you want but not what you need? The young man in this story has achieved everything a human being could want – wealth, power, youth, moral rectitude – and yet still knows there is something missing. So he comes to Jesus, which is a good start.

Anytime you see a one-on-one conversation with Jesus, pay attention, because those are the moments Jesus pushes deeply into how to live out his general teachings. In this case He pushes into the missing piece of the young man’s life.

There is a clue in the language to the problem. He asks “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What does anyone have to do to inherit something? Nothing, because it is about the relationship – the young man is conflating two very different things.

So Jesus rolls with it – He lays out commandments, but not all 10. Specifically, he lists the commandments that have to do with our horizontal relationships with others. The young man objects that he is good to go there and has checked all those boxes.

Jesus responds in two ways. First, he looks at him and loves him. This is vital context – discipleship is not about our own wisdom or capability to fix people. It begins and ends with love for other people.

Then He cuts to the heart of the matter – sell what you have, give to the poor, follow me. And that hits him where he lives, and he goes away sad. Mark leaves the question open, ending this story (like he does the whole gospel) with a cliffhanger. We don’t know what he chooses – in some ways this puts us in the able position, with the same choice.

Jesus generalizes from this story for the disciples – it is hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples are startled, living in a culture where wealth and morality were seen as related. If the ultimate man can’t do it, who can?

We all have our own “many possessions” that we put at the center instead of our relationship with Christ, both as individuals and as churches. We put wealth, church growth, material success, patriotism, all kinds of things, even good things, at the center of our lives, as the things we can’t give up.

Ultimately, it’s impossible to do enough. But Jesus tells us that He makes all things possible. Peter objects that, hey, I’ve been doing lots, giving up lots. But Jesus makes it clear that it’s not about the doing, but it’s about the relationship with God, the relationship that turns all our power structures upside down.

The story just before this one gives us the context. Jesus tells us “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” The rich young ruler was trying to enter as an adult, the disciples were making their case as adults. We see this again in the following story, where James and John jostle for position: “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.”

Eternal life is a gift of being, not earning. We receive it, we don’t obtain it.

Follow Jesus to the cross, and give up what hinders you from following.

Remember that God can do anything – he can save the wealthy, the powerful, the prideful and the self-righteous.

If we are the rich young ruler, hanging on to something that gets between us and God our us and those around us, let’s not end on a cliffhanger. Let’s not go away sad, but engage in relationship with the Christ who makes all things possible.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 25, 2024

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In Awe – Mark 9:2-9

Mark’s story of Jesus is now on the downhill side – it reached its center with Peter’s acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah, but also with Jesus’ rebuke of Peter as he drives towards the moral and spiritual goals of his mission, not the secular, material goals that are expected by Peter and others. Then in the part right before this, Jesus tells them that the cross is not just his destiny but the very nature of following Him.

This section puts more context around this, giving the disciples a glimpse of Christ’s glory, as a counterpoint or even result of that suffering.

All of scripture is coming to a point here – Moses representing the Law, Elijah the prophets, and Jesus as the culmination and fulfillment of them both.

In the midst of this incredible, supernatural, symbolic awe-inspiring event, Peter’s immediate, natural reaction is to get very material (even if not particularly practical). Let’s build some tents! The idea may have had its roots in the Tabernacle carried by the people of Israel through the desert – but ultimately, this is not the point. Jesus’ goal is not pointing back to the time of Moses, but rather Moses and Elijah point to and lead to the new thing that Jesus is doing.

Like us, Peter wants to do something active in order to capture this moment of awe, to stake it down in our reality and make something material out of it. But that is not what Jesus wants – the goal here is almost entirely just awe. Sometimes that is all we are called to.

So what was the purpose of the transfiguration? First, to help the disciples (and us) understand who Jesus is. This is the question he asked at the centerpoint of the gospel of Mark. He is the Son of God, the divine Christ, the second person of the Trinity, even if not all of that was clear yet.

Second, it helps us understand what Jesus is about. He is the culmination of the Law and Prophets. He is there like Moses to lead His people to the promised land, and like Elijah to proclaim the truth of God.

And third, helped along by the voice of God the Father, it helps us understand that we are called to listen and follow Jesus. Just as the Jewish people of the day looked to the words and instruction of Moses and Elijah, we now look to the instructions of Jesus, we now follow Him and His example.

But as Moses and Elijah return to heaven, Jesus remains with His disciples and walks alongside them, just as He walks alongside us. The glory of God as revealed on that mountaintop is right by our side every day.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 11, 2024

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The Center of it All – Mark 8:27-33

“Who do you say I am?” This question from Jesus is the exact center of the Gospel of Mark. It’s the question that the whole book pivots on – and, in fact, all of reality. Peter is the first person in history to explicity acknowledge this truth, though what comes next isn’t really what we would expect.

First, he charges them to keep it quiet, as he has done earlier in the book. Second, he begins to warn them about what was coming – the suffering and death that was on the horizon. Peter, even having made this confession of faith, takes hold of him and scolds him. After all, everyone knows the messiah is there to throw off the oppression of Rome, to lead the Jewish people to military victory and secular power.

Jesus’ response is as harsh as any we see from him in the gospels. Peter goes from being the start pupil and the first to name Jesus the Christ to being the embodiment of Satan. Why is this?

It’s not that Jesus feels disrespected, but it’s because the direction Peter wants Jesus to go is in direct opposition to the Gospel Jesus came to bring.

The word gospel, or euangelion, was historically used to refer to royal decrees or reports from battles (famously, the report from the battle of Marathon would fall into this category). We even see it used to describe the birth of Augustus in inscriptions. The Gospel of Caesar was a known and understood thing, a thing of the Empire and a thing of worldly power. The Gospel of Christ was a new thing, a subversion of the concept that wins by losing, that succeeds by failing, that rules by serving. But the temptation to reverse this paradigm back into what is natural and normal is strong. This is what Satan’s final temptation of Jesus was – all the kingdoms of the earth. This was the option open to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and its power made him sweat blood.

The American church has often fallen into Peter’s mistake, framing the gospel of Christ into no more than the gospel of Caesar, one where secular power is the mode and victory over our earthly enemies is the end goal, where the world is divided into us and them rather than the teeming mass of sinners all in desperate need of the true Gospel.

This would not be the last failure of a disciple. As the cross approached, even with many warnings, they would abandon him and Peter would deny him. We have the same calling down hard paths. How will we respond?

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, February 4, 2024

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On the Inside- Mark 7:14-23

The laws and precepts of God point His people to love, hospitality and peacemaking. We live in an era of divisiveness, where each election seems like an existential crisis and these things seem far off. In reality, though, our hope and faith are not in any political party, but rather in the Great Party, the wedding feast of the Lamb at the culmination of all things.

Even so, it is easy for us to find our identity in reaction to others. That’s how polarization happens, as we align ourselves with one team or another and then all our positions, beliefs and actions become about supporting Us and opposing Them.

Jesus here, though, is saying that the outside is unimportant, that what people consume is not their identity but rather what they produce. We are tempted to see the source of our sin as something external but in fact it comes from within our own hearts. Likewise, we try to solve our sin from the outside in, when in reality the only solution is within us, namely an inward surrender to the grace Christ offers.

Jesus makes it clear here that sin is real, and He lists a clear set of diverse sins that come from the heart. But they are all inward out, but outward in, which frees us up and even directs us to join in fellowship with those who are different from us externally.

That is what we are trying to do at Renew, in a diverse mosaic of peoples and backgrounds and opinions, to create an inward-out renewal of each other and our communities through this big glob of worship and fellowship that we do here.

Back to the passage, Mark talks a lot about Jesus going back and forth across Israel and the Sea of Galilee. In the west it’s mostly Jewish, while in the east there are more gentiles. In this passage he’s more westward and the Pharisees are going after Jesus for not following the ceremonial traditions like the ritualistic washing before meals. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pure and impure, have become more about cultural markers than they are about the universal Law of God. Just before this part, he chastises the Pharisees specifically for how they specifically use their traditions in order to enrich themselves even at the expense of their own parents. Then here he moves on to making it clear that it is that kind of thing that matters far more than the rituals or ceremonial rules. This gets extended in Acts when Peter has a vision that makes it clear that all foods are ultimately clean, and notably, by extension, so too are all peoples and cultures.

We can extend this further. The beauty and even sexuality of a woman isn’t what causes sin, but the lust and objectification from within men. Money and economic systems don’t cause greed, but it comes from within. Politicians and media do not cause hatred and division, rather it comes from within.

This then means we must continue to live lives that demonstrate the truths Jesus speak here. The outsides are not material, and we are to live in community and fellowship across cultures, ethnicities, parties and opinions. We are to remember that it is the inward parts that matter, and whatever happens externally, the Church of Christ endures within our hearts and within the hearts of all who earnestly seek Him.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 28, 2024

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Rejection – Mark 6:1-13

This passage is a bit of a surprise because it seems to indicate that Jesus was incapable of doing something. In reality, of course, Jesus is capable to do anything, but the environment in Nazareth was not conducive to Jesus found miracles. The people were not open to the work of Jesus, they were not vulnerable to his truths. That’s something our society should consider. We both look for the work of God and remain hostile to it and cynical about it.

A lot of us have had the experience of going back to a hometown or a class reunion or just running into an old flame. It is in our nature to put labels on people and sort them into categories, and it’s also in our nature to kick against those especially when put back into an old environment or old relationships.

That’s the experience of Jesus here. He has coming off of wild success in other cities, as people have been amazed at his authority and wisdom. In Nazareth, though, the amazement was in reverse. They knew him, they had him in a box in their minds and what he was doing did not comport with that, so they rejected it.

We see this ourselves – people often do not let you change. If they knew you once, they will expect you still to be the same person that you were when they knew you. Sometimes it can be like crabs in a bucket. People resent self-improvement or success in others because of how it reflects on them, and seek to pull them back down. Sometimes we do the same thing.

So we get this apparent power outage, with only a few people healed (which is still amazing). And Jesus is in awe of their lack of faith, the polar opposite of other stories where we see him amazed by someone’s faith.

And Jesus is a gentleman – He does not force His love on us. If we are not open to God’s help, He will not help us. That’s one way to see Hell, the eternal rejection of God. It’s a way to see the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the rejection of the saving power that God offers.

We see that here where the people of Nazareth were so repulsed by Jesus in this new context that they feel into sin. When we lack trust in Jesus, we have the same thing happen.

A lack of trust or faith in Jesus can make us misunderstand and misappropriate Jesus. It makes us dishonor Jesus, even. And perhaps worst of all, it makes us miss out on real change, as we stay in the bucket of our own misery and fail to see or experience the miracles He is doing.

Then we come to the second part of this passage, where Jesus sends out His disciples, whose success stands in sharp contrast to Jesus’ failure in His hometown. He sends them out stripped down to the bare necessities and made to rely on the gifts of God.

This ties back to the story of rejection, because it is that fear of rejection that keeps us from doing new things,. It keeps us from sharing the truth of Jesus. The biggest obstacle for you daring to do great things or braving something new is the fear of rejection or failure.

But Jesus was the ultimate failure, and in that failure was the ultimate victory. And so the disciples too, are set up for this failure. They go out with just a staff and sandals, entirely dependent on God. That also means that the ultimate responsibility for what happens does not lie with them or us. It lies with God and those we speak to.

That is why Jesus tells his disciples not to sweat it when they are rejected as He was. Shake the dust from your feet and move on. It is not about us.

On the other hand, we also need to look at what we actually worship. We worship a hometown Jesus. An American Jesus, a prosperous Jesus. We worship a Jesus we create in our own image. We may not recognize the real Jesus if He does not come in the way we expect. But Jesus is a disruptor, and He will break up and disrupt our conceptions of Him if we let Him. He is so much bigger.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, January 7, 2024

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Legion – Mark 5:1-20

In this passage, Mark spends a lot of time describing the state of the demon-possessed man. He is not only oppressed by demons but living among the tombs, howling in the darkness, soaked in death and pain.

The man is experiencing severe isolation. He is an outcast from society, a problem for those around him and so rejected. He is exhibiting anti-social behavior, keeping himself isolated. He is homeless, only able to find shelter in the most cursed place in the region. He is self-destructive as well, cutting himself. While the specifics may be different, these are things we see on the streets of our cities regularly.

The demons controlling the man recognize Jesus and know His name, though He does not know theirs and asks. But they beg him not to send them out of the region. But why does that matter?

It implies that there is a greater strategic purpose and goals of the demons – it’s not ultimately only about one man, but about the region as a whole. It’s the people, the environment, the systems. Everything is interconnected. The demon goes from singular to plural and our understanding of evil should likewise expand.

So the demons know their time is over but they beg to keep some control. Jesus sends them into herd of pigs, which promptly commit suicide. These thousands of pigs (which indicate a gentile area) represent a huge investment, a large amount of money and serves in some ways as a corporate payment for the evil centered on this man.

And just as the demons begged to stay in the region, the people begged Jesus to leave it. Despite the miracle He has done and the freedom He had given, the people of the region prized their peace and prosperity over the health of that man – they prized the status quo despite the evil that it meant lived among them.

We see in the Greek names of the region and the fact of a herd of pigs that this was a Greco-Roman region rather than a Jewish one. Jesus’ actions here demonstrate His power over not only supernatural oppression, but also the Empire that oppresses His people.

And the final step here is the actions of the man himself having been freed. The natural next step is to jump in the boat and follow Jesus, just like the disciples – but Jesus sends him out to his own people to spread the word of what has happened to him.

Two big takeaways for us. First, we all bear responsibility for each other. We are all called to care for the howling people among us. Second, evil is real and must not be ignored. We must face the evil in both our past and our present, both corporate and individual.

In response to that evil, though, we must not despair but turn to Jesus in His person and His body, the Church. Like any predator, evil goes after the isolated and alone. Come together and draw others into the saving relationship with Christ.

— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, November 26, 2023