[8/21/22 Sermon Recap and Discussion Questions]

That’s Implausible

In Mark 12:35-44, Mark recaps a moment in time and Jesus words and perspective within it. I’ll do my best to recap the recap, but it would be good for you to re-read the passage and it’s context.

Jesus reaffirms the confounding yet certain nature of the gospel message, the pharisaical self-promoting distortions of it, and the implausible cause & effect on very real and humble people.

At its core, the gospel (Jesus’ primary proclamation to the world) is that He is and will be finishing the work necessary for all people to enter into God’s eternal and unconditional affirmation and permanent future (particularly those who have been wrongly outcast) regardless of how little one may deserve it.

The gospel is a free gift of freedom from the bondages of life that lead to guilt, shame and destruction, to those who can humbly accept it. The gospel is an offer that seems to lack the necessary obligations and responsibilities of the receiver – that is, it seems like an offer that will only be abused – a pardon from eternal consequences that frees a person to carry on in immoral, God-dishonoring ways.

The gospel begs the question: If Jesus takes on the consequences of the world’s sin (takes away the threat of eternal consequences) what then would keep a person’s behavior what it should be. Or, the question: What will keep people from an immoral life if God’s approval is assured through means other than an individual’s own performance?

The Pharisee’s could not accept this as the message and purpose of the Messiah. The gospel of Jesus would seem to be working in the opposite direction of what they understood God to have historically asked of them: To get the people of God on their best behavior or kick them out.

Jesus deeper message / answer to them was this: Even you (the best of the best) don’t measure up to God’s standard, and no one can.

What one can do, Jesus teaches, is to humbly repent of your ungodliness (even of your thoughts and desires) and accept a free pardon. AND then watch how God, by His mercy and living Spirit, changes people into vessels that obey out of gratitude rather than guilt…out of love rather than leverage.

He says, essentially (in this section of Mark, and just about everywhere else in the Gospels), that we must stop reducing Him down to an amazing human (which He was),…Son of David and accept Him as the Father-sent Son of God as the eternal solution to the unsolvable human condition – a sin-separated eternity from God. And to believe in such a way that your life becomes a fruitful (responsive) new life reality within the new context of God’s unearned approval.

And then, Jesus pointed to real-time example of how humble certainty in God’s love…His promise of provision and protection…leads to implausible and exemplary outpouring, action, fruit: A woman who had next nothing (including means), giving back all she had, thus putting her future firmly, fully and faithfully into God’s (and only God’s) completely reliable hands.

Moral law, if enforced my moral people, can constrain bad people and make for a better society. But only the Gospel makes bad  people good and populates the eternal community of God.