Category: Sermons

Context

Parable of the Tenants — Mark 12

“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. ² When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³ And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

Later in Chapter 12, as we looked at last week, The Lord Christ has a scathing denunciation of the 1st century religious Professionals.

Here the Lord Christ speaks of the coming ruination of the Temple.

The theme running through Mark 12 and 13 is the end of the Old Covenant Order. When the disciples come to the Lord Christ to ask about “the End,” they are not asking about the end of the world. They are asking about the End, to them, of their present Temple order.

That this is a conflict that only has one of two possible endings is the fact that the enemies of the Lord Christ realize also that if they are not to be ended they must end the Lord Christ and in Chapter 14 we begin to see that unwind.

As we said last week this is a worldview conflict which means either the enemies of Jesus have to end or that the Lord Christ Himself must end.

It is interesting that the Disciples come to ask Jesus in private about the end,

³ And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴ “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”

I note this private conversation because throughout Mark, Jesus reserved some of his most essential teaching for private moments with the disciples. Jesus explained the parables to them privately (4:34; cf. 4:10-12). He took Peter, James, and John alone to a high mountain and revealed his transfigured self to them (9:2-8). Privately, the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t cast out a demon in a specific case (9:28). Here, in chapter 13, the disciples — Peter, James, John, and Andrew — ask about the timing of the telos (or, “end”; 13:3).

So, we see, that for Mark there are many private teachings. At least in terms of the Temple, the reason might be that the conversation was private was that such public teaching of the same truths might be considered treason and sedition. So, the Lord Christ teaches privately.

Of course this can remind us that not every truth need be set forth in a public setting. We have to pick and choose what teaching is for private consumption and what teaching is for public consumption.

Now as we get to the meat of the conversation here we have to note time indicators of the text. We emphasize this because so many today want to suggest that texts like these are yet completely future. But while, these conversations were future to the Disciples I am convinced that they are past to us.

In this regard note

“Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The Lord Christ, in all that He is about to teach, is teaching about the buildings that stood in the 1st century. He is not talking about the ruination of some future Temple. He is speaking of the ruination of the 1st century Temple. As such once that 1st century Temple complex is gone the prophecy itself is past.

Another time indicator here is

And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads YOU astray.

Note the pronoun “YOU.” The Lord Christ is not talking about the danger of some hypothetical people in some far distant future being led astray. He is talking about the danger of those very alive disciples being led astray. So, unless we believe that the Disciples are still alive, to be potentially lead astray, we have to understand that what the Lord Christ was speaking of here was not only in regard to that 1st century Temple complex but also in regard to those 1st century disciples.

Quickly another time indicator regarding the 1st person plural pronoun is in vs. 7,

⁷ And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed.

Q.) — When who hears of wars and rumors of wars?

A.) Those 1st century disciples.

All that is being said here should be understood as past to us but future to them.

Now, this is monumentally important because legion is the name of Christians who believe that this kind of apocalyptic literature remains future to us and as such they are looking for Temples to be rebuilt that can be cast down again. They are mapping out possible end date return scenarios of the Lord Christ by reading passages like this up against Newspaper accounts of what is going on in Israel.

They look at nation rising against Nation … they see famines … they see earthquakes and they somehow insert all of that in a belief system that looks for a different “end” than the end that the Lord Christ was speaking about here.

And so we get the prophecy Snake oil salesman. We get John Hagee running around selling books about 4 blood moons.  We get books like, “88 reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988,” by  Edgar C Whisenant. We get Jack Van Impe, the Evangelist who scared me royally with his predictions about the end of the world when I was a adolescent. We get the “Left Behind” Series by Tim LaHaye.

When we are wrong on this “end” business, and we’ve been wrong for 2000 years because this wrongly understood “End” has not come then we look like fools running around saying the “world is ending, the world is ending,” Jesus is coming back next week.

An example of the ship wreck all this wrong headed futurism can do I offer just one example I came across in my preparation,

“When the designated range of dates passed, I remember there being a lot of confusion and anger in the church and we ended up leaving. After several years of religious exploration dosed with much more skepticism than before, my wife and I both ended up rejecting Christianity all together.”

A great deal of confusion in Church History, both modern and long past, could have been avoided if texts like these were understood to have been future to the 1st century hearers but past to us.

Now … this is not to say that all predictive events in the Scripture are past but it is to say that many that are taken as yet Future are indeed now fulfilled already. Mark 13 is one of those texts.

Well, as we continue on the issue of Timing we consider vs. 2

² And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

The Lord Christ has drawn their attention to the 1st century Temple complex and as that is the building that must be destroyed, in order to know when this prophecy was fulfilled we need only ask when that happened. When we ask that question we see in history that this temple was thrown down in AD 70.

In AD 70 the Jewish End came with the Temple stones ruined just as the Lord Christ predicted. The Roman General Titus came against Jerusalem for its Rebellion against Rome and crushed it.

Flavius Josephus, the Priestly descended Historian writes of the Temple in his book “Wars of the Jews”,

“there was left nothing to make those who had come thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”

A book by Historian Thomas Newton, accessing old records, and written in 1754 tells us,

For when the Romans had taken Jerusalem, Titus ordered his soldiers to dig up the foundations both of all the city and the Temple…. As we read in the Jewish Talmud and in Maimondes, Turnus Rufus, or rather Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army in Jerusalem, did with a ploughshare tear up the foundation of the Temple; and thereby signally fulfilled those words of Micah (3:12) “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed  as a field.” Eusebias too affirms, that it was ploughed up by the Romans, and he saw it lying in ruins.

So again, the End that the Lord Christ is speaking of here is NOT the End of the Cosmos but the End of the Jewish Order… the end of what made Judaism, Judaism… the End of the Sacrificial and ritual system … the End of the Jewish Age. Here is also the End of a distinctly Jewish Church and with this end comes the in rushing of the Gentiles into God’s Church.

With this End that the Lord Christ speaks of in the little apocalypse of Mark 13 comes in God’s New World Order. Instead of looking to the Sacrifices to turn away God’s just wrath against our sin, we now look to the Lord Christ as the author and finisher of our faith… as the one who through His sacrifice turns away the wrath of God. Instead of some regal centralized Temple, Christ is now our Temple and whenever we assemble as God’s people in the name of the Lord Christ there God receives our Worship. The High Priestly Aaronic line and its necessity has ended and Christ is now our Great High Priest who gives us entry into God’s presence. Because that End has come it is no longer necessary to please God with animal sacrifice as Christ is now our eternal lamb of God and through Him we receive God’s favor.

When Christ speaks of the End then here, he is not speaking of the End of the Cosmos but the End of the Old Covenant age, and that End has indeed come. Continuing to look for the End that Christ speaks of in Mark 13 would be as ridiculous as a 70 year old Grandmother looking for the end of her virginity. That End has come and gone and so has the End that Christ speaks of here.

As the Church we do ourselves a grave disservice by be futurist in our eschatology.

Signs of the End

False Prophets 

⁵ And Jesus began to say to them, “See that no one leads you astray. ⁶ Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.

The reality of False prophets throughout History is ubiquitous. No less during this time.

Acts 5:36 — Gamaliel speaking mentions two such men,

³⁶ For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. ³⁷ After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

Acts 8 likewise tells us of another,

⁹ But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. ¹⁰ They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” ¹¹ And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

Secular Historians likewise chronicle the rise of False Messiahs during this time. Dositheus, a Samaritan, “pretended that he was the lawgiver prophesied of by Moses.”

Indeed, the problem of False Prophets was so thick that the procurator Felix had many of them routinely gathered up and killed every day. These charlatans did then what they have always done and continue to do. They gather gullible people around them who want to follow a Messiah. Well might we expect the Lord Christ to warn His disciples against such deluded con men.

It is NOT the false prophets in 2015 that Jesus was warning about though they exist aplenty. It was the false prophets between His death and His judgment coming in AD 70.

Warfare

⁷ And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁸ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

In the Annals of Tacitus, covering the period from AD 14 to Nero’s death in AD 68 we read of him recording,

“disturbances in  Germany,”
“Commotions in Africa”
“Commotions in Thrace”
“Insurrections in Gaul”
“Intrigues among the Parthians”
“The war in Britain”
“The war in Armenia”

Josephus writes of the commonality of war,

“I have omitted to give an exact account of them, because they were well known by all… yet for the sake of the connection of matters, and that my History may not be incoherent, I have just touched upon everything briefly.”

It was not the wars of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the wars between His death and the overturn of the Temple’s Stones.

Famine  — Josephus

Book V, Chapter I, Section 4 (Entire)

The Destruction Of A Vast Quantity Of Corn That Led To Famine During The Siege

 In another section we read of the famine,

The madness of the seditious did also increase together with their famine, and both those miseries were every day inflamed more and more; for there was no corn which any where appeared publicly, but the robbers came running into, and searched men’s private houses; and then, if they found any, they tormented them, because they had denied they had any; and if they found none, they tormented them worse, because they supposed they had more carefully concealed it. The indication they made use of whether they had any or not was taken from the bodies of these miserable wretches; which, if they were in good case, they supposed they were in no want at all of food; but if they were wasted away, they walked off without searching any further; nor did they think it proper to kill such as these, because they saw they would very soon die of themselves for want of food.

But we likewise hear of Famine in the New Testament which was all written by AD 70 and the destruction of the Temple.

²⁷ Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius).²⁹ So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers^[a] living in Judea.

Tacitus speaks of other Famines in AD 51

“This year witnessed many prodigies (signs or omens)… including repeated Earthquakes,… further portents were seen in shortage of corn, resulting in famine.”

The Lord Christ mentions wars and famines together and rightly so for as we know war and famine are root and fruit.

It was not the famines of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the famines between His death and the overturn of the Temple’s Stones.

Earthquakes

There will be earthquakes in various places;

Notice Christ doesn’t say, “There will be more earthquakes than usual.” He merely says, There will be earthquakes in various places

And we see that,

Two Earthquakes mentioned in Matthew’s Gospel

^27:54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said,“Truly this was the Son^[a] of God!”

^28:2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

Paul’s imprisonment ended via Earthquake

Acts 16:26 —   and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.

Also we find in chronicled history that 3 earthquakes occurred prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. There we also quakes in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, Colosse, Campania, Rome, Pompeii and Judea.

Josephus describes a Richter busting quake in Judea “that the constitution of the universe was confounded for the destruction of men.”

Plumptre, in his commentary on Matthew writes,

“Perhaps no period in the world’s history has ever been so marked by these convulsions as that which intervenes between the Crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem.”

It was not the earthquakes of 2015 that the Lord Christ was referring to when  He spoke of the coming End but the quakes between His death and the overturn of the 1st century Temple’s Stones…. those stones and that Temple He is speaking of.

Conclusion

Now what is the conclusion of all this. Is the conclusion, “Whew, Jesus already came back so I don’t have to worry”?

Christ did come in Judgment in AD 70 but He is coming again once He has made all His enemies His footstool.

The conclusion of the matter should be about the Lord Christ’s Kingdom work. We are not living in a time when “the End .. The End is near. We are living in a time when the nations yet need to be discipled. We are living in a time when the message must still go out that all men everywhere must repent.

Our mindset isn’t one of holding out waiting for the Lord Christ to snatch us out of a descending gloom and doom. Our mindset is one of “occupy until I return.” Our mindset is not defeatist … not “the Anti-Christ is going to get us.” Our mindset is to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. Our mindset is to be part of the Army, before which, the Gates of Hell will not prevail.”

Our mindset is not, “if the war doesn’t get us, the Famine might and if the famine doesn’t get us the earthquake might.” Our mindset to speak up the finished work of the Lord Christ that the glory of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea. Our mindset is to remind people of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and that they should have compassion on themselves by bowing the knee now as opposed to bowing the knee later.

³⁹ And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, ⁴⁰ since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. 12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Today is All Saints Sunday.  Throughout much of Western History the Church celebrates this day in recognition of all our Brothers and Sisters, Fathers, and Mothers in Christ who have gone before us and who now comprise the Church at rest. We take this day to remember and commemorate the Saints, just as the writer of the book of Hebrews remembers and commemorates the Old Testament Saints in Hebrews chapter 11.  The writer of Hebrews holds up these long departed as positive examples of faith and models these saints before the congregations as examples of the kind of faith that the Hebrew congregation is to have.

In terms of remembering and honoring the long dead we do the same thing in our broader culture, as we are doing here on this Lord’s Day. In our broader culture we have days like “Veteran’s Day,” and “Memorial Day,” where the purpose is to honor those who have gone before in a general sense. “All Saints Day” is to the Church of Jesus Christ what Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day is to us as Americans.

On “All Saints Day” we are reminded that we are who we are because we are in Christ and being in Christ we have been given a Christian History as lived out by those who have gone before.

This is a celebration you will seldom find in Reformed churches. The Reformation was known for getting rid of the idea of saints because the idea of saints had become a business with praying to saints, and a calendar full of holidays for saints and and the blasphemous idea that dead Saints could intercede for those still living. The Medieval Church thought they were honoring the Saints in such a way but in point of fact they were dishonoring Christ as our alone Mediator with God by lifting departed saints to such an exalted positions.

But I think the Reformed Church needs “All Saints Day.”  The Bishop of Rome has no property of rights over 2000 years of Christian heritage. If the danger 500 yeas ago was to worship the Saints or to make them silly by giving us things like “A Saint for oversleeping,” (St.Vitus), or a Saint for Ice Skaters ( St. Lidwina) or a Saint for caterpillars ( St Magnus). then our danger today is forgetting our History. our story, and those who have gone before.

And So we come to the first necessity of “All Saints Day,”

I.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can reconnect with our Past 

Notice what the Writer to the Hebrews does here in Hebrews 11 & 12. He invokes the Saints of the past and their faith hoping to connect the Hebrew congregation with a living and dynamic past. The Hebrew congregation is in danger of returning to the Old Covenant because they are weary and what the writer to Hebrews does is to bolster their faith by recalling the faith of the Patriarchs.

Here we see a linkage between the past and the future that much of the modern Democratic Western Church has forgotten.

When a Church cuts itself off from its past and forgets those who have gone before it becomes rootless and so prone to being blown around by every stranger wind of doctrine. The writer to the Hebrews, much in keeping with the idea of “Honoring our Father and Mother,” seeks to bring forth the History of the Hebrew congregation so as to root them again in their undoubted catholic Christian Faith.

This desire to root them in the past is done so as to propel them into a Christian future. The past and the future are thus intertwined. In the way we comprehend our past is the way we will seek to craft our future. If our past is characterized by faithful men and women who have gone before we will see that as the ideal and so will seek to live ourselves as men and women with the same kind of faith as those who have gone before. And so an embrace of our Christian past will be a mighty stimulant to creating a God honoring Christian present and future.

The idea of “All Saints Day” then is not so that we can live in the past. The idea of “All Saints Day” is that by recognizing and honoring those who have gone before who finished the race well, we might be inspired ourselves to be the kind of men and women those Saints were to the end that eventually the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

So … “All Saints Day,” is not about the Past without, at the same time being about a future oriented people. When we get cut off from our past then we lose our identity in Christ who is the author and finisher of the Faith of all Saints — past, present, and future. When we get cut off from past then we run the danger of having our Christian faith reinterpreted for us through a historical prism that is not particularly Christian.

When  the Church loses its self understanding of its past it immediately loses its vitality for the future. This is what was happening to the congregation of the Hebrews. They had lost their identity and so the writer to the Hebrew parades their History before them…. the History of the Saints.

Without a strong sense of those who have gone before and of our past we will eventually adopt a different past in our thinking and so will end up have having a different future. Those with an agenda will insert a different past that will serve their humanist agenda for the future.

This is what is happening with the advent of Multiculturalism and Political Correctness. Strip the past of its nobility. Bespatter our Christian forbears with scurrilous lies. All seeking to make us repent for a noble and Christian past.

So in order to reconnect with our glorious past we celebrate “All Saints Day.” We realize that if we don’t revitalize our Christian past and the Saints who made it (Historical theology) we will suffer grave consequences.

1.) A diminished short term future

Unless we can convey the same conquering faith that characterized the Saints who have gone before our future will be diminished. We will become pariahs fit to only pay the Jizya tax of some Muslim overlord. We will become economically limited and socially isolated.

2.) The probable loss of our children to the faith

If we can not esteem the Christian past to our children we will not be able to convey the meaning of the Christian faith as being much more then fairy tales. The Christian faith, in order to be sustained in our children must make a deep imprint in terms of how Christianity has shaped those who have gone before into Heroes. Without that reality the Christian faith will lose its substantive meaning and so other faith systems will intrude themselves upon our children’s thinking.

3.) Finally the death of the Christian West

If we will not conquer the world by a faith informed by the past and the Saints who have gone before we ourselves will be formed by alien faiths. We are seeing that happen daily all about us. Either Christianity will absorb and convert on the strength of its undoubted catholic Christian faith as lived out by the Saints who have gone before or we will be absorbed by the faith of aliens and strangers.

So what must we do in order to recapture our Christian Past. Well we must engage upon the very same thing that the writer to the Hebrews is doing. We must keep telling about the Saints who have gone before. This is something St. Paul did as well. Using the OT Saints as a negative example he wrote,

11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

We must give our children Christian History. Full of heroism, struggle, triumph and loss. Christian history that inspires all ages with resolve, tenacity, and confidence in Christ. We must give them a history that gives them a reason to believe and keep believing that Christianity is both true and is superior to all other faiths.

We must tell them about the great Captain of the faith; the Lord Jesus Christ. We must tell them of the Saints in Scripture and History who were what they were because of their being rooted in Christ.  We must tell them of the Saints in Church History. The Mission of St. Patrick and then the Green Martyrs. We must tell them of Augustine and his writings. We must tell them of Perpetua and Polycarp. We must tell them of Charles Martel, Jean LaVellette, and John Sobieski. We must teach them Geert De Groote and the Brethren of the Common life. We must teach them of Jan Comenius and his resolve to teach the Christian faith. We must teach them of Huguenots, Covenanters, Pilgrims, and Voor-Trekkers.  We must teach them of Henry Martyn, Raymond Lull, and Samuel Zwemer. We must tell them of Faithful Christian wives and Mothers like Monica, Susanna Wesley, and Katharina von Bora.  We must tell them of how Ambrose denied to communion to Emperor Theodosius, how Calvin denied communion to enemies of Christ, and how Gergory VII humbled Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV at Canossa. We must tell them of the saints Columbus, Cortez, and Henry Hudson.

We must tell them of Christian Grandparents and great Grandparents and cousins and Aunts and Uncles. We must let them know that theirs is a Saintly lineage and that to be a Douma, or a Bacon, or a Matens or a McAtee is to be a Christian. Because of God’s covenantal faithfulness to a thousand generations our lineage is sainted.

So, we are reminded by the celebration of this day then that to be a Christian is thus distinct from being an American. After all, those Americans who have no interest in Christ and His Church are not celebrating this day today. We as Christians have our own History and the celebration of “All Saints Day,” communicates that.

This is our Faith and unless we pass it on with all its regal history we will rightfully lose our children.

II.) By Restoring “All Saints Day” to our Calendar we can Emphasize the Communion of the Saints

When we talk about “All Saints Day,” of course we are talking about the Communion of the Saints.  The holy catholic church of which we speak of in the Apostle’s creed corresponds to the church visible while the communion of saints corresponds to the church invisible. The communion of saints means that inward and spiritual fellowship of true believers on earth and in heaven which is based on their union with Christ. It is their fellowship with God the Father the Son and the Spirit (comp. 1 John 1:3 1 Cor 1:9 Phil 2:1) and with each other a fellowship not broken by death but extending to the saints above. A most precious idea

The saints in heaven and on earth
But one communion make
All join in Christ their living Head
And of his grace partake

Here are all these Saints who have gone before listed by the writer to the Hebrews and yet a relationship exists between the living and the dead even though the living comprise the Church Militant and the dead comprise the Church at rest.

In the confessional tradition of the Reformation, as expressed in the Augsburg Confession, the Book of Common Prayer, the Belgic Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, and the Cambridge Platform, the members of the church are said to have a blessed union and communion with one another and with Christ.[7] The Second Helvetic Confession says that those “who truly know and rightly worship and serve the true God, in Jesus Christ the Saviour, by the word and the Holy Spirit, and who by faith are partakers of all those good graces which are freely offered through Christ … are sanctified by the blood of the Son of God. Of these is that article of our Creed wholly to be understood, ‘I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.’ “[8] Question 55 of the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that “the communion of saints” means “First, that believers, all and every one, as members of Christ, have part in him and in all his treasures and gifts. Secondly, that each one must feel himself bound to use his gifts, readily and cheerfully, for the advantage and welfare of other members.” Calvin recognized that the phrase expressed that the church is a community of heart and soul, a diversity of graces and gifts.[9] Although the Reformed creeds encourage us to imitate the faith of deceased saints, they never promote venerating, invoking, or praying to them.

So, to celebrate “All Saints Day” is to magnify Christ. There is only one reason we or they are or were saints and that is due to the finished work of Jesus Christ. All the Saints have been grafted into and united with Him and so we have fellowship with one another. Christ is the champion of this day. He is the one who has formed this Holy body by His work of turning aside the Father’s wrath. He has given us a reason to live besides material comfort. Being a Saint is NOT a result of being super Christian. It is merely the result of being found clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

We cherish then, the honored dead
Magnifying our Covenant Head
Ours is a living faith that gives the lie
That  faith or Saints can ever die

Happy All Saints Day.

I Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;² For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. ³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; ⁴ Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. ⁵ For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

1 Peter 2:9 — But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

In the first Passage we learn that Christ alone is our Mediator … our high Priest, between God and men. From that we conclude that no other Mediators or Priests are needed when in comes to the matter of who we confess our sin to and when it comes to the matter of who alone can deal with sin. The Protestant answer has always been Christ alone.  This is why the language changed in the Reformation. Protestant clergy were never called “Priests,” but instead took up the title of Minister, or Pastor, or Shepherd.

In the second passage we learn that we ourselves, as members of the body of Christ, are priests under Christ’s Priesthood. This is to say that all that we do we do as God’s representatives.

Together these two ideas form the idea of the Reformation doctrine of “Priesthood of all Believers.”

I.) The Priesthood of All Believers and Salvation

As it comes to the first idea that Jesus Christ is our alone Great High Priest … our alone Mediator between God and Man we note that men are forever trying to outsource the role of priest to other people. For example, Anthropologists tell us that man, in man made religions and in his attempt to avoid God, is forever trying to outsource his religious obligations to other people. Man has no desire to face God in Christ and so he creates religious hierarchies to deal with the supernatural realm so he doesn’t have to. And so you have the medicine man, or the witch doctor, or the Shaman, or the Priest. All are designated to take care of the supernatural realm so everyone else does not have to bother with it.

So, men in creating man made religions want other Priests and religious hierarchies. It relieves them of having to come face to face with God. But in Biblical Christianity man does not have this option. Man can not outsource his responsibility before Sovereign God. All men must realize that their is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

By the way … in our own cultures, outside the Church, modern man does much the same thing here.  Modern man, though not Christian, still outsources his religious responsibilities. But Modern man has made the Shrink his equivalent of the Shaman, Priest, Witch Doctor, or Medicine man. When Modern man has something wrong with him he can’t figure out he doesn’t go to a Christian Priest but he does go to a pagan Medicine Man — The Shrink — in order to find a cure by way of preforming confession.

In the Christian religion you may go to a Minister but a good Minister will take you to the Word of the Great High Priest as found in Scripture. A good Minister will remind you that you can’t pay for your own sins. A good minister will not require you to say “10 Hail Mary’s” or 10 “Our Fathers,” but instead will tell you that Christ is our alone High Priest and will tell you that you must confess your sins to Him and then realize that forgiveness is found in Christ alone.

Christ, in His death and resurrection eliminated the need for other mediators and Priests. He eliminated the need for us to work off our sin since He Himself worked off our sin by His perfect life and His propitiatory death in our stead.

In the Reformation the emphasis was placed on the once for allness finished work of Jesus Christ. There is no continuing need for other mediators to provide forgiveness. No need to go to Priests to confess our sins as if sins could not be forgiven without those priests. No need for the ongoing mediatorial work of Priests in their preforming the Mass. All this was cleared off the Table again with the Reformation. Christ is our once for all forgiveness and so their is no continuing need for this Priestly function. In point of fact given the Mediatorial work of Christ any ongoing work of official mediators that somehow function to remove sin today is indeed blasphemy against God’s finished provision in Christ. This explains, in part, why there remains such a divide yet today between Rome and Reformation.

II.) The Priesthood of All Believers and Vocation

In the medieval Church, the sacrament of Holy Orders was one of seven of Rome’s Holy Sacraments. This sacrament was reserved for those who were the super Christians … for the Clergy, (Monks and Priests) of the Roman Catholic Church. These were those employed in “full time Christian work,” as if all other work done other than priest or Monk was secondary or not really Christian work.

In the Medieval Church Christians were divided into “religious” and “secular” callings. In this context Luther noted that “Whoever looked at a Monk fairly drooled in devotion and had to be ashamed of his secular station in life.”

This kind of thinking continues on today. I saw it just last week in the Nursing Home I was visiting. I engaged a conversation with another visitor there. She had a son who was a missionary. She told me that she knew when her son was young that God had a special call on her son for the ministry. That her son was never going to go into anything but the “Lord’s work.” As if the doing of anything but a missionary or a minister, , in terms of a career, was automatically something other than “the Lord’s work.”

Against this mindset, and against the “Sacrament of Holy Orders” the Reformers gave us “the priesthood of all believers.” This Reformed doctrine sought to eliminate the idea of first class and second class Christians based upon their career callings.  This doctrine insisted that all vocations before God are Holy. Luther said,

“The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. That would be a good prince and ruler. When a prince sees his neighbor oppressed, he should think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor….The same is true for shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or reader. If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor. When a Christian does not serve the other, God is not present; that is not Christian living…”

You see in the Reformation mindset all redounds to God’s glory as all is done to serve God in serving others. The Priest, while important to God, is not singularly important to God as if the Priest’s work was Holy and all other Christian’s work was secondary and comparatively unimportant.

Again, according to a quote commonly attributed to Luther though unverifiable captures the essence of this doctrine,

The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

The 16th century Reformation of the church released the laity from the oppression of Rome’s sacerdotalism and sacramentalism.  Direct access to God through faith in Christ and through their own reading of Scripture became a reality for many who were able to realize their responsibility before God to live as a holy priesthood, offering the sacrifices of lives devoted in service to Christ and humanity.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers all of life was leavened with the leaven of Christianity. No longer was it simply the case that one could speak only of “Christian sermons” or “Christian Art,” or “Christian Church order,” now one could speak of being a Christian Prince or a Christian Soldier or a Christian Printer. With the doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers all vocations in life could be lived and handled as Christians … all vocations could be reinterpreted through a Biblical grid and plied in order to advance God’s Kingdom on earth.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers, believers were forced to ask, “how is it that I may handle my vocation in such a way that is pleasing to God.” In the field of Music for example, Bach desired to represent the Reformation in both the music he wrote for the Church and the music he wrote for that which would be preformed outside the Church. Bach would sign all of his compositions, “Sola dei Gloria” — the Reformation slogan — “To the glory of God.” As a Christian Musician Bach sought to get the music of the heavenly spheres into all his music. All his music would be Christian … not because it had Jesus notes in it but because it was objectively beautiful.

With this Biblical doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers Christian princes could rule as foster Fathers for the Christian faith and Christian  Queens could rule as Nursing mothers to the Christian faith. They could bring their Christianity into the civil sphere because they could rule according to God’s standard of Justice.

The doctrine of the Priesthood of all Believers allowed all of life to sizzle with vocation as done before the presence of God and for God’s glory and as pursued for the benefit of all of God’s people.

Another impact of this doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers was that the natural found its proper place alongside the supernatural. In the Medieval world the supernatural was everything and the natural was nothing. This was seen in the sacraments. The sacraments were everything because they partook of the “supernatural.” Bread into the Body of Christ. Wine into the blood of Christ. This was seen in the order of Monks and Priests — those who were serving the supernatural realm. Everyone else in the natural realm …. not so much.

The supernatural was in the ascendancy and the natural was considered unimportant. This was also seen in Medieval art. Medieval artists, when they desired to show light in this paintings, had light emanating from a supernatural source…. perhaps from a beaming heavenly ray coming down from heaven or from one of the Halo’s over one of the saints or over one of the Holy family members in the painting. However, with the Reformation, the Natural realm was given its place alongside the supernatural realm. The sacraments were stripped of their magical quality. Paintings were now done where light was drawn from natural sources such as sun or moon. These are subtle shifts that testified to an epoch worldview shift.

The Reformation understood that heaven is the ultimate hope of the Christian but it restored to its proper place the importance of this world … a world we testify to in song as “This is my Father’s World.” If not for the Reformation and the doctrine of the “Priesthood of all believers” we would still be divide all vocation up into “Full Time Christian Ministry,” and “Everything else we poor schleps do.” If not for the Reformation and the  doctrine of “The Priesthood of all Believers,” we would still think that if something were really important it would have to be directly connected to the Institutional Church in some way. If not for the Reformation and the doctrine of the “The Priesthood of all Believers,” we would still be subject to Priest-craft and convinced that our salvation was dependent upon human Priest who intercede for us instead of dependent upon Christ alone who is our alone Priest and whose intercession alone can provide relief to confessing sinners.

Introduction

As we come to this text this morning here in Mark we summarize the whole by saying, that Mark has intertwined the two stories in 6:1-13 with the common theme of Kingdom work. Because Kingdom w0rk is the overarching theme we will spend some time speaking about the Kingdom.

When we come to this narrative we summarize it as follows. After days at sea and on the road Jesus astounds his hometown with His teaching (Mark 6:1-2). Next we see that familiarity with Jesus breeds contempt (6:3). Jesus response suggests that He expected their refusal (6:4) and so cannot do a thing for them (6:5a) save, incidentally, heal a few sick folk (6:5b). While such works that the Lord Christ does accomplish, to date has culminated in audience astonishment (1:27; 2:12; 4:41; 5:20b; 5:42), now Jesus is the one astonished — by rank disbelief that is so thick (6:6a) as to be a barrier to the Kingdom. This rejection catalyzes fresh ministry (6:6b-7) by empty-pocketed ambassadors (4:13, 35-41; 5:31; 6:8-11) who get the job done (6:12-13). In Mark there’s no stopping the good news (13:10) — but no telling how it breaks through (16:1-8).

If we take the two accounts together it seems that the linchpin issue that connects them is the purposeful contrast between Jesus questioned status in the first account and His unquestioned status in the second account. In the first account the Lord Christ has no honor (6:4) and so the irruption of the Kingdom of God is minuscule and negligible (6:5). In the second the Lord Christ delegates His power to the disciples (6:6-7) with the consequence that the irruption of the Kingdom is everywhere seen where His deputies are sent (6:12-13)

That is a synopsis of the text this morning. Now let us spend a bit of time looking closer.

1.) Familiarity & the work of the Lord Christ

“The Carpenter” — Perhaps a snipe at a comparatively low trade status.
“Son of Mary” — The fact that Joseph is not mentioned may have been an attack on the alleged bastard status of Jesus … an issue that was brought up in John’s Gospel,

“We  have not been born from fornication; we have one father – God!” (John 8:41)

Clearly there is some dismissing of Jesus here because they think they know him.

The tension between Jesus and his family or hometown was an on-going sub-plot of the story in Mark, (cf. 3:20-21, 31).

²¹ And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.

^{Mark 3:31} There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. ³² And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.

What is going on here? Why the lack of receptivity? Why the offense (3) at Christ?

In the book, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, we might find an answer, for there we learn about the cultural norms in antiquity.

“Honor was a limited good.  If someone gained honor, someone else lost.  To be recognized as a ‘prophet’ in one’s own town meant that honor due to other persons and other families was diminished.  Claims to more than one’s appointed (at birth) share of honor thus threatened others and would eventually trigger attempts to cut the claimant down to size.” This seems to be what is going on in the text.

Aside — Mention of Jesus siblings and Roman Catholicism on Mary’s perpetual virginity.

2.) But we see that Christ as more than a Hometown boy

a.) Christ as Prophet

⁴ But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.

By referring to himself as a “prophet,” he associated himself with a long line of counter-cultural figures within Israel. In the Gospel of Mark, others would also view him in this way (cf. 6:15; 8:28).  The role of the Prophet was often the role of one isolated. The prophet was to the Culture what a chicken bone was to the gullet.

In an honor/shame society, “prophets” would have received honor (cf. 11:32).  But the traditional wisdom of the age was that this occurred generally in places in which prophets were less familiar.

But to demonstrate that Christ did indeed have both authority and honor Mark gives us 7-13.

The rejection at Jesus’ hometown synagogue did not hinder the mission for long.  In point of fact, as suggested earlier, the whole thrust of putting these two narratives back to back may have been to contrast the paucity of Kingdom irruption among Christ’s own people, with the expansive Kingdom irruption by the Deputies of Christ under the umbrella of His power and authority.
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3.) Rejection of ministry — Dust and feet

Shaking dust off the feet appears to have been a prophetic demonstration: from those who repudiate the kingdom’s herald, nothing should be received — not even their dirt (see Nehemiah 5:13; Acts 13:51).  Those who reject are rejected. The time for the forced bowing of the knee has not yet come. If there are those who prefer the culture of death as opposed to abundant life conferred by Christ then their choice is their misery.

4.) Question of Authority

Mark 6:2 From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? ³ Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

⁷ And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;

Note the contrast between the locals who questioned his origins and the power later declared that would have been a testimony of Christ’s origins. It may be that Mark is purposely setting up this contrast so that we might see the authority of Christ.

This isn’t the first time that Jesus and His authority has been doubted like this,

^{Mark 1:27} And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him

5.) Note the character of the Kingdom of God