The Son of God

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon
Sunday, February 5, 2012

If I were to ask four of your closest friends to describe your life to me, no doubt each of the four people would get all the major events correct and they’d be in agreement. But yet, each one of them probably would have a different perspective on your life and see different aspects of who you are as a person.

For instance, maybe you played sports with one of them in high school so they would see your competitiveness maybe in other areas of your life. Perhaps it’s a coworker and so they would see your dedication and your trustworthiness maybe in your life. Perhaps one person only sees you socially, so they see you as more sort of the happy-go-lucky, life of the party type person. Each one would shine a different light on a different aspect of your life.

That’s really what we have in the four gospels that are in the New Testament. Through God’s inspiration, all four writers, down to incredible detail, agree on the life of Jesus and yet God, in His wisdom, allowed each of those men to write in their own style and from their own perspective of looking at Jesus’ life. If you will, they shine a slightly different light on who Jesus is and each writer has a different purpose in writing their book.

Now normally, when we look at the life of Jesus, we usually look at all four gospels because we want to get sort of the full picture of who Jesus is. But I think it’s important and I also think it’s very interesting for us to just focus in on one of the gospel writers, to sort of get inside his head and to understand what was his purpose and what specific aspect of Jesus is he trying to pull out for us.

That’s why, this morning, we start our series of looking at the gospel according to Saint Mark. This series will go on for several weeks; in fact, it will culminate on Easter weekend with the resurrection account of Jesus from the gospel of Mark. As we dig into Mark, there are a few sort of introductory notes that I think we need to understand who Mark is.

First of all, Mark was not one of the original twelve disciples. In fact, history says that, more than likely, he was either a secretary or an assistant to Peter. So the conjecture is that his gospel is a collection of the sermons that Peter gave, but he arranged them in a specific way. Mark is the shortest of the gospels. Many believe that his was the first gospel that was written and that perhaps even Matthew and Luke used him as reference material. Mark doesn’t have a birth account, which sort of fits into his style. As you read through Mark, there’s a sense of urgency about him. One of his favorite words is “immediately.” “Immediately, Jesus got up and went to His hometown.” “Immediately, He got up and went into the synagogue.” You almost get the idea that for three years, He was on a constant sprint from one thing to the next to the next, but that’s all part of Mark’s perspective of the urgency of getting the message out about Jesus.

Alright, let’s get started, but another note here is that even though we’re going to go through several weeks of looking at the gospel of Mark, there’s too much material for us to dig into every aspect of it so I don’t want you getting frustrated if I look at long sections of the gospel and don’t pick out everything, alright?

So, let’s get started then with Mark 1:1, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus.” Okay, we have to stop there. We can’t go any further. We can’t miss that because, in those first five words, Mark tells us what he’s going to do. He says this is the beginning of the gospel about Jesus. Now when you and I hear the word gospel, more than likely we think of the four books of the New Testament or maybe we think about the good news about Jesus or we think about forgiveness and grace and all of that. I want you to put yourself, though, back in the 1st Century. 1st Century, it didn’t have that connotation, the word “gospel.” It’s the Greek word “euaggelion,” which is actually a combination of two words, which are “news” and “good or joy.” So it’s good news or it’s joy-filled news.

But it had a special significance to them. It was good news, but it wasn’t everyday good news. It had to be news of special significance, almost of an historical nature. So for instance, we could say, “It stopped snowing.” That’s good news, but it’s not euaggelion news. If we found out it was going to be 70 degrees tomorrow and all the snow would melt, that would be good news but it wouldn’t be euaggelion news. Euaggelion news is of special importance. It has an historical significance.

One of the best explanations that I’ve read about that is from an author called Tim Keller. He’s becoming one of my favorites. In his book, King’s Cross, he is diving into the gospel of Mark himself. So he says this, “The gospel was news of some event that changed things in a meaningful way. It could be an accession to the throne or it could be a victory.”

So he goes on and he tells the story about Greece. He says, “When Greece was invaded by Persia, the Greek army mounted an attack and it won two significant battles, one in Marathon and one in Salamis.” And when it won those battles, it says that they sent out heralds or the actual word was “evangelists.” Euaggelion, same root word. To do what? To give the good news. To give the good news to the villages and this is what the news was: We have fought for you, we have won and now you’re no longer slaves, you’re free. So Keller goes on, “A gospel is an announcement of something that has happened in history, something that’s been done for you that changes your status forever.” Let that sink in for a minute. A gospel is an announcement of something that’s happened in history, something that’s been done for you that has changed your status forever. That’s what Mark is going to write, a gospel, joy-filled news, good news, something that has happened in history, something that has been done for you and something that has changed your status forever.

We can’t miss this because if we miss what Mark is writing, first of all, we’ll miss the whole purpose of his book but beyond that, we’ll miss the essence of Christianity itself. It’s this point right here that distinguishes Christianity from every other religion because Christianity, at its core, is news. It’s good news. It’s euaggelion news. It’s something that’s happened in history, something that’s been done for you, something that has changed your status forever. Every other world religion really is about advice. Christianity is about news.

What I mean by advice is every other religion tells you, “If you want to connect with God, well I have some advice for you. Here are the things that you need to do. If you want to spend an eternity in heaven or in nirvana or whatever, well here are the steps that you need to accomplish so you can earn yourself into God’s good things.” It’s advice. “If you want to get close to God, well listen, I have a couple of suggestions for you. Here are the steps one through five that you need to do.” Christianity isn’t about advice. Christianity is about news. The gospel is about what has been done for you in history. So Mark will relate to you the historical person of Jesus, His life, His death, His resurrection and what He has done for you and how that has changed your status forever.

If you want to connect with God, we don’t connect with God by what we do or what we don’t do. We are reconnected with God because of what Jesus has done in history. Now I know I’m staying on this point quite a long time because I don’t want you to miss it. Because we miss it a lot. We might understand cognitively and we as Lutherans will recite that we’re saved by grace through faith and yet, I cannot tell you how many times that we have turned the gospel from news into advice. What I mean by that is my heart is troubled more times when I talk to a person and they’ll say, “Well, you know, I hope I’m going to heaven.” “You hope you’re going to heaven?” I always probe a little bit. They say, “Well, yeah, I try to do the right things. I go to church. I read my bible. I try to live according to the teachings of Jesus.” You’ve just turned the news into advice. You’ve just turned the news of what Jesus has done for you into the steps that you need to take to connect with God and you’ve missed the whole point.

Christianity isn’t advice. It’s news of what’s been done for you and changes your status forever. Advice falls short. We’ve all been given advice before on how to live, right? “This is how you need to live. This is how you need to love. These are the ways in which we can have a fulfilled life. These are the things you should do.” And even put into the context of, “This is how a Christian is supposed to live.” We’ve been regaled by stories of people with incredible things they’ve done, how they’ve withstood unspeakable torments in their lives or they’ve stayed strong and courageous in their faith and we can be inspired by them. But are you ever moved by what has been done for you by them?

I don’t know about you but usually when I walk away from a story that I’ve been inspired from, I think, “Wow. I don’t know how that person did that.” My next step is, “I don’t know that I could. I don’t know that I’d be that strong. I don’t know that I could endure that.” So all of a sudden, it becomes a burden because now that’s one of the steps that I need to take. That’s something that I have to do. Christianity isn’t advice. It’s news.

Now I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am not saying that we are not changed because of the news. I’m not saying that the gospel doesn’t have an impact on how we live and how we act and how we treat other people. Just the opposite. I say it has a profound effect on how we live and what we do and how we treat other people. The difference is we don’t obey God because we have to. We obey God because we want to. There is a huge chasm of a difference between those two of doing something because you have to, these are the steps that I need to take, and I want to simply out of love and response to the news of what’s been done for me. That’s what Mark is telling us. That’s what his book is. The first five words describe it. This is the beginning of the gospel about Jesus. Something that has happened in history, something that has been done for you and it will forever change your status.

Okay, well, we can’t just stay on one verse, right? We have 16 chapters to go through so let’s move on, shall we? Alright, so here we go, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Okay, we have to stop again. Yeah, I know, we’re not moving too fast but we can’t go off the first verse because it’s packed. In the first sentence that he says, not only does he tell us what, he tells us who. This is what the book is. It is a gospel. It’s the good news, euaggelion news. But who is it about? It’s about Jesus, yes, but he tells us Jesus is the Christ, Christos. That’s simply the Greek of the Hebrew which is Messiah or Anointed One. So any Jewish person who is listening to this would say, “Ah, I get it. That’s the Messiah. That’s the one who has been promised long ago, who will come in, who will be our king, will be our leader, will be our ruler and will be the head of our people.”

But then Mark does something astronomical, something bold, something unbelievable. He says, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” No one in the 1st Century, even the most devout Jew, believed that the Messiah would be God Himself. This was earth-shattering news that he was giving. Not only is He the Messiah, but the Messiah is God Himself come into the world. He further drives home the point by then quoting Isaiah and he says, “So Isaiah says that there is going to be one who is going to prepare the way.” And then he quickly says, “John is the one. John is preparing the people for Jesus.” But what is it that the prophets said? The prophets said this, “A voice of one calling in the desert prepare the way for,” who? “the Lord. God.” So John is preparing the way for Jesus. John is preparing the way for God. The Messiah is God. Jesus is the Son of God.

In these few short verses, Mark is deeply rooting Christianity into history. So for the 1st Century to hear of this, they might be thinking, “Well, Christianity is some new religion that has popped up,” or for you and I who might believe that Christianity is only some 2,000 years old, right here we have a link where he is deeply rooting it into the ancient religion of Israel, going all the way back to the prophets and I would purport to you that actually Mark is taking it all the way back to creation. Christianity is not new. Christianity is not 2,000 years old. Christianity actually dates all the way back to creation itself.

Let me show you want I mean. So we have John come and he’s baptizing. Jesus goes on to be baptized and it says this, “And Jesus was coming up out of the water. He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit of God descending on Him like a dove.” Alright, for us, again, that’s not unusual. Often times, we represent the Holy Spirit by a dove. So the Holy Spirit coming down as a dove, not news to us.

Again, though, let’s go back, 1st Century person, 1st Century Jewish person. It’s rare. Only one instance that the Spirit of God is referred to as a dove and it’s not even the original Hebrew of the Old Testament. It’s an Aramaic translation of the Old Testament, so in the Targum in Genesis 1:2, now ours reads this way, “Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, ‘Let there be light.’” Where it said the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, the actual word is “fluttering” over the waters. When they put it into the Targum, the way they translated it, they took a little bit of liberty because they wanted to illustrate what that was like, so their translation would read this way, “So there was darkness over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was fluttering like a dove over the waters and God said, ‘Let there be light.’”

We have the Triune God who is present here at creation. We have God who created everything. We have God’s Word, which is the creative power, and we have the Spirit fluttering over the surface of the deep like a dove. If you go to Jesus’ baptism, we have God, the Father, who speaks in a voice from heaven. We have God, the Son, who according to the gospel of John, He is the Word made flesh and we have the Holy Spirit who descends like a dove. The same Triune God who created the world is the same Triune God who is here at the redemption of the world.

As the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit was active in the creation of the universe and all that is in it, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is active in the redemption of God’s people, of reconnecting God’s people once again to God Himself. The connection goes further. We have the creation of the world and the very next thing that we have recorded is what? The temptation. Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, they’re attacked by Satan. He tried to lure them away from God. He is successful. Satan is successful. He wins the battle. Sin is ushered into our world, and you and I have been battling Satan ever since. A war has been waged between Satan and mankind as he seeks to pull us away from God and he wins more times than he loses.

Jesus’ baptism, Triune God. What does Scripture say immediately after the baptism? The Spirit drove Him into the wilderness and He was tempted by Satan. He was attacked by Satan. The difference is Jesus won. The attacks didn’t stop there. Satan continuously attacked Jesus until it was finished on the cross and yes, Jesus is the Son of God but Jesus is a human being. He is one of us. And as God and as man, He won. This is the good news. This is the euaggelion. This is what Mark is going to tell us about, the good news that Jesus won.

He further emphasizes that. The very first words that we hear from Jesus in Mark are this, “The kingdom is near. Repent. Believe the good news.” It’s all about the news. It’s the gospel. It’s the euaggelion. Something has happened in history, something that has been done for you that will forever change your status. Jesus fought for you. Jesus won. You’re no longer slaves. You’re free. That’s the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen.