fear

May 13, 28 A.D.  – Why They Didn’t Understand — The Year of the Lord’s Favor #82

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , , ,

Week 65 — Why They Didn’t Understand
Mark 16:12-14, Luke 24:36-49, John 20:19-23

Last week, we discussed what Jesus did on the day He was resurrected. He met the two disciples who were on their way home to Emmaus.  He opened up the scriptures to them and then opened their eyes when he broke bread with them. That day ends with the two disciples from Emmaus traveling back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples gathered there of their encounter with the risen Jesus.  We have descriptions of this in the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John.  Mark’s account is the briefest:

Mark 16:12-14   After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country.  And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.  Afterward, he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. 

Mark mentions the disciples from Emmaus and tells us the disciples “did not believe them.”

How frustrating when you are telling something you are all excited about, and they don’t believe a word you say.  And Mary Magdalene is over there in the corner of the room saying, “Same.  They didn’t believe me either.”   While they are discussing this, Jesus appears in the midst of them and rebukes them “for their unbelief and hardness of heart:

Why did the disciples have such a hard time believing Jesus was alive?  To us, 2000 years later, the resurrection seems so obvious. How could they have missed it?  Of course, things are always simpler when you are looking back.  It is difficult for us to put ourselves in the disciples’ shoes.  It is hard for us to imagine their trouble believing in Jesus’ resurrection.  Hadn’t Jesus explained this several times?  

I think there are three reasons why they couldn’t see what we see now. First, they were overcome with fear.  John tells us they were in a room with locked doors “for fear of the Jewish authorities” (John 20:19).1 They are in hiding.  The weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread continues, and the city is still on high alert.  They were the core followers of a movement that the authorities had just deemed as blasphemers, insurrectionists, and traitors.  Their leader had just been dealt the most severe punishment thinkable.  They feel like they barely escaped.  Hadn’t Peter almost been discovered to be “one of them” in the courtyard of the high priest?  Peter had to lie to avoid being named as one of the conspirators.  They are scared.

Do not underestimate the effect that fear has on your thinking.  Fear activates the parts of the brain, such as the amygdala, that are designed to ensure self-preservation.  And that portion of the brain takes over.  Your body’s resources are all diverted to one goal: staying alive. Stress hormones, such as adrenaline and cortisol, are released.  Your heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate increase to prepare for rapid, strong physical reactions.  Your pupils dilate, allowing you to see the threat more clearly.  And as these parts of the brain take over, your prefrontal cortex gears down.  This is the part of the brain that is responsible for rational thinking and decision-making.  You can’t do higher-level thinking when you are ruled by fear.

This system is designed to help you best react to immediate physical threats.  You start to step, but you see a snake, so you instinctively jump back.  That’s good… unless you are walking on the edge of a cliff when you see the snake.  It is not good to let this fear response run loose.  You may make terrible decisions you wouldn’t usually make, because your higher-level brain functions are suppressed. 

What about people who live in constant fear?  We see this with people living in areas of warfare where bombs are dropping around them.  But we have a word for the most common scenario of chronic fear: anxiety.  Anxiety and stress produce the same fear response and the same effects on your brain.  And the incidence of anxiety has increased in the US over the past 5 years.  The National Institute of Mental Health data from last year noted that 19% of adults in the US had an anxiety disorder.  That is almost 1 out of 5 people living in a state of chronic fear. 

Maintaining this fear response over more extended periods is physically harmful to the body.  Studies show chronic anxiety causes increased cardiovascular disease, increased gastrointestinal disease, weakened immune function, and physical changes to your brain as your prefrontal cortex shrinks.  The part of your brain responsible for higher-level thinking and decision-making loses mass.

Is it any wonder that the most common commandment in the Bible is “Fear not!”?  These disciples were scared that the Romans were coming for them next, and they couldn’t see past their fear to think about what Jesus had told them.  Jesus said this fear was a faith problem.  He calls them hard-hearted.  

The second reason I believe the disciples didn’t believe the stories of Jesus’ resurrection is that they didn’t understand Jesus’ mission.  Every Jewish person was expected to pray daily for the Messiah to come.  They had been praying and waiting for hundreds of years.  Over the past year with Jesus, the disciples began to understand that Jesus was the promised Messiah, but their concept of the Messiah was tainted by tradition.  They had been taught all their lives that the Messiah was coming to overthrow the enemy, which they naturally assumed was Rome.  Toward the end of his ministry, Jesus tried to make it plain to them:

Matthew 17:22-23   As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” 

That seems pretty plain, doesn’t it?  ‘Men are going to kill me, but I’ll only be dead for 3 days, then I’ll be back.’  But look at the rest of verse 23:  “And they were greatly distressed.”  ‘You’re going to die?  But you can’t die; you’re the Messiah.’ Fear kicks in, and the stress hormones surge, causing their brains to shut down. They didn’t even hear the ‘rise in three days’ part.  They sure didn’t process it.  Look at another time Jesus tried to tell them in Mark:

Mark 9:30-32   They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

Again, look at their response in the following sentence:  “But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.”  They didn’t understand.  Knowing what they knew and had always been taught about the Messiah, it didn’t make any sense, and they were afraid to even ask about it.  Their thoughts were captive to the erroneous teaching of their leaders.  They were unable to see the truth of scripture. They were blinded by tradition and blinded by fear.

They didn’t understand the scriptures about Jesus’ mission because they had the wrong paradigm.  A paradigm is a dominant way of understanding or interpreting the world, a framework of assumptions and beliefs that shapes how we perceive and interact with reality.  More simply put, it is your worldview that shapes how you interpret everything.  For example, some people have the basic political assumption that we need more governmental intervention, more governmental oversight, and regulation.  Other people have a completely different assumption that we need less governmental intervention, less oversight, and less regulation.  Your evaluation of a particular political candidate will depend on the paradigm you operate under. Two people can examine the same candidate and arrive at totally opposite conclusions due to their differing paradigms.

Have you ever been at a high school basketball game when there is a very close play, and people on one side of the court are completely certain their player was fouled, but the people on the other side are equally certain there was no foul? They both saw the same thing, but they have different basic assumptions.  Different paradigms.  So they came to different conclusions.

The Jews in Jesus’ day, as well as the Jews today, have the same Old Testament Scriptures that we read, the same ones Jesus explained to the disciples; however, they reach a different conclusion.  Why?  They have a different starting point, a different point of view.   So when Jesus goes through the scriptures with the disciples in Emmaus and the disciples in the room, he is not giving them new scriptures; he is giving them a new paradigm.   This is how their eyes were opened.  

We can have the same problem. Could it be that there are aspects of Jesus’ mission that we also don’t understand?  We must always be vigilant for instances where our preconceived notions influence our thinking.  We all have blind spots where our discernment is clouded by tradition.  What are yours?

To recap, why did the disciples initially refuse to believe that Jesus was resurrected?
1. They were overcome by fear.
2. They didn’t understand his mission.
And finally,
3.  They were overly focused on the natural and blind to the supernatural.

They knew Jesus as a person. Some saw him grow up from an awkward teenager. They saw him on the days he was dirty, and his breath smelled bad. They saw him trip on a rock on the path and spill his drink at the table. Sometimes we struggle to think of Jesus as a human with all the human issues we face, but the people around Jesus had a different problem.  It was all too obvious he was human.  The problem for them was seeing him as more than human.   This was hardest on his brothers, who, at one point, upon hearing him claim to be the Messiah, thought he had lost his mind.

Mark 3:21  And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

I can hear James talking to Jude now.
James:  “Hey, older brother has lost it.”
Jude:  “Really, what is he doing this time?”
James: “He is running around telling people he is the Messiah.”  
Jude:  “Seriously?”
James:  “Yeah, he’s gone off the deep end now.   We had better stop him before he gets in trouble.”

They knew him as their older brother, the one who never got in trouble.  As kids, they probably saw him as the brother who thought he was better than them, kind of like how Joseph’s brothers saw him.

“But,” you say, “the disciples saw all of those miracles!”  Yes, but look at how they responded.  On Thursday, September 18, the disciples witnessed the miraculous feeding of the 5000, a truly supernatural event.  Everyone is amazed.  The people wanted to make Jesus king right then.  Jesus sends the disciples off in a boat without him. That night, they end up in a storm and see someone walking on the water.  They were terrified, thinking it was a ghost (there goes the fear again).  They find out it is Jesus, and Peter walks on the stormy water.  But then Jesus gets in the boat, and the storm immediately stops.  That’s pretty amazing.  But look at the following verse:

Mark 6.52   for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. 

They witnessed the miracle of the loaves being multiplied; they were the ones distributing them.  But a few hours later, they have forgotten the supernatural event and are back to thinking only of the natural.  This miracle on the water surprised them. You would think that after the bread miracle that day, they would not be so shocked, but they just didn’t understand it.  They are said to be  “hardhearted”, the same thing Jesus said this about the disciples when he appeared to them in the room after his resurrection. He said this is a faith problem. But wait, there is more…

You have these very supernatural events, and six days later, they are in a different area of the country, and this happens:

Matthew 15:32-33   Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?”

It’s just been six days. This guy walks on water, calms a storm, and just 6 days ago made food appear from nowhere.  And now these disciples can’t imagine where they could find enough bread to feed these people.  Even after what they witnessed, their minds are thinking on a purely natural level, ignoring the possibility of the supernatural. 

I get it.  We tend to draw firm lines between what we call natural and supernatural. We define them this way:  the “natural” realm encompasses what we can understand and explain through science and the laws of nature. In contrast, the “supernatural” refers to events or phenomena that go beyond these natural laws, often involving spiritual or divine realms. My problem with these distinctions is that what we can understand and explain through science is a moving target.  

Many phenomena that were once thought to be supernatural have been explained by science.  In the past, lightning, earthquakes, weather patterns, and mental illness were all felt to be supernatural events. Until the 17th century, people believed that a supernatural force acted to move blood through the body.  William Harvey proved that blood was contained in tubes throughout the body, and the heart served as a pump.   What was once deemed supernatural was now considered natural.  From there, the idea emerged that science could eventually explain everything, and the realm of the supernatural shrank significantly as the “Age of Enlightenment” began.2  However, as time passes, we come to realize that the more we learn about the human body and the universe, the less we truly understand.  We have only begun to discover the complexities of science. And there is so much that science will never be able to explain.

But even the things we can currently explain with science could not have begun to exist by themselves.  We know why things fall when you drop them – gravity.  And we know gravity keeps planets in orbit.  We have also calculated the gravitational constant.  But if that number varied by the tiniest fraction (0.000000000000001), then the universe could not exist.  If it were that tiny bit smaller, then no planets or stars would have formed and stayed together.  If it were just that tiny bit larger, then the Big Bang would be followed by a Big Crunch, where everything would collapse back down to a single point.  And that is only one of many such constants that all have to be exactly as they are for us to exist.    Our universe is incredibly complex in its design.  Science shows that it could not have happened by accident.  The natural world only exists because God designed it with incredible precision.  We only have a “natural world” because a supernatural God ordained it.  

 So while we want to categorize things as either natural or supernatural, I see Jesus moving back and forth between them with complete freedom.  Notice in this passage in Luke how Jesus casually moves from “the supernatural” to “the natural” in this room with the disciples.

Luke 24:36-42   As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!”  But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.   And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?   See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.”   And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.   And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”   They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

Remember that he just vanished from the home in Emmaus. Just disappeared. Then he suddenly materializes in a room with secured doors in Jerusalem.  You thought Star Trek transporters were cool?  Jesus was doing that two thousand years ago.   Then he gives a casual greeting.  Peace be unto you.  In Hebrew, that’s Shalom Aleikem. That’s still a standard greeting in the Middle East (Jews and Arabs).    So Jesus is like,  “Hi Guys!  Don’t be scared, it’s just me alive again.  See these holes in my hands, Yep, still there.  No worries.  Sure, stick your hand in that hole in my side.  Pretty cool, huh?  Anyhow, you got any food?  I haven’t eaten for days.  Oh great, fish!”

The disciples are flabbergasted. To Jesus, everything is just routine. They are blind to the supernatural, and to Jesus, the supernatural is just, well, natural.  Death is a mystery to us, but not to Jesus.  Resurrection is hard for us to imagine, but not for Jesus.  We draw firm lines between the natural and the supernatural.  Jesus didn’t.  Because he understood nothing was impossible for God.  The disciples hadn’t grasped that, and we haven’t either.

So if right now, Jesus suddenly appeared out of nowhere right there in the room with you and said, “Hey, everybody! How’s it going?” How would you react?  Do you believe God can do miracles?  Do you believe God is still at work in our world today?  Then why do we live our lives ignoring the possibility of God working in our midst to do God things?  Why do we look at the problems in our lives and think we have to figure them out ourselves and find a way to solve them without God’s help?  We are no better than the disciples.  We see a problem like their 4000 hungry people, and say, “That problem is just too big to solve.”   Like the disciples, the problem only seems big if you see your God as small.   Jesus said this is a faith problem.

Let’s finish the story:

Luke 24:44-49   Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”   Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,   and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses to these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

So Jesus goes through the scriptures, opening their minds by changing their paradigm. Then he tells them, ‘And by the way, you are going to be witnesses, spreading the need for repentance and the news of forgiveness through me to the whole world.  Now that is a big job.  So, if you’re going to do that, you’ll need some serious help.  You will need God’s power.  You can’t just depend on the natural; you have to learn to depend on the supernatural.. So sit tight until God empowers you.’

John gives more details:

John 20:21  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”  

 We could spend hours unpacking what it means for us to be sent to the world in the same ways that Jesus was sent to us.  However, we will focus on the one aspect that Jesus emphasized.   How is Jesus sending us?  The next verse:

John 20:22  And when he had said this, he breathed on them…

Jesus exhales a breath.  Is that odd?  Every time Jesus does something that seems weird to us, you had better pay attention, because he is teaching an important lesson.  Just like the Old Testament prophets, Jesus is a very visual teacher.

John 20:22. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Now we know these disciples will receive the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the Feast of Shavuot, and the countdown to that Feast has begun, 50 days from Passover.  What Jesus is doing now is demonstrating a lesson about receiving the Spirit.

Jesus isn’t speaking English, and when he says ‘spirit,’ it is ‘ruach,’ the same Hebrew word as ‘breath’ and ‘wind’.  Here we have Jesus, God, breathing on man.  Pay attention, we’re going back to Genesis again.  It is the beginning of creation, without form and void, and what is hovering over the face of the waters? 

Genesis 1:2   And the ‘Ruach’ of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

 The Spirit of God, the wind, the breath of God.  In Genesis 2, we see God take dust and form a person from it. How does he give life to this dust?

Genesis 2:7. Then Yehovah God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

God breathed life into Adam, and now, God is going to breathe new life into these disciples.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection draw a big vertical line in history. There was creation, when life was first made, and God dwelt with man in the Garden.  Then came the fall, when sin caused death to become a part of the world, and then God was separated from his people.  Now Jesus comes, Emmanuel, God with us, and He demonstrates what life is, then destroys the power of death. Now life reigns again.  Everything from here on out is different. God’s plan to redeem his people is happening. 

Then, 50 days after Jesus dies on the cross, it is the time of the Holy Spirit.  Now it is not God with us but God in us, God’s Holy Spirit within us.  God is breathing on humans again — to give them life again.  A life where death does not prevail and a life that is abundant.  No longer will people be separated from God.  No longer will people have to travel to a temple to commune with God, for he will be God with us and in us.  We will be the temple of the Holy Spirit.  

The Spirit descends on the face of the waters at creation.  The Spirit descends on the church in a mighty rushing wind at Pentecost, a time of recreation.  God breathes life into Adam, and God breathes abundant life into his church. So, the countdown has begun to the climax of Jesus’ ministry, the culmination of God’s plan to restore fellowship with His creation. Pentecost is coming.

However, if we are to live an abundant, spirit-filled life, then we must overcome the same issues the disciples faced.  We have to drop our fear.  We can’t be afraid of what God will do.  We can’t fear how others will react.  We can’t let fear of doing something new or something hard cause us to be disobedient to whatever God calls us to do.  We must have the faith to believe that God loves us and will be with us always.  He will work everything to good.  Fear not!

We have to understand our mission.  When I was growing up, I heard many sermons that said every Christian should be knocking on doors and witnessing to people.  And I have friends who can talk to anyone, who can do door-to-door evangelism. But I also have friends who are introverts.  Talking to people is not their gift. And for years, they had listened to the church tell them they weren’t good Christians if they didn’t go witnessing.  Do not be blinded by this traditional teaching.

God has given people a variety of gifts.  Some are evangelists, but not all of them.   We are sent to build up the Kingdom of God, but it is not just about the number of converts.  The Kingdom of God is about following God’s will, and that includes feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, comforting the grieving, loving the unloved, caring for the sick, freeing the oppressed, and giving sight to the blind.  And many times it is in doing these things that people are drawn to the Kingdom.  

Finally, we have to expect God to work in supernatural ways.   We have to expect the supernatural.  The disciples were shocked every time Jesus did a miracle.  Wow! Look at that miracle!  We’ve never seen anything like that before!  (Yes, you did!  You saw the same miracle 6 days ago.) To be people of faith is to expect God to do God things!  We can’t be hard-hearted and live our lives as if God doesn’t exist, and God still doesn’t act in this world.  

We can’t go through life trying to solve problems on our own and ignoring God’s help.  If we only attempt to do things that we can do by ourselves without God’s help, then we are living faithless, empty lives.  If we can do it without God, then where is God’s place?  How can God get glory from that? 

John 14:12   “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  

Read that again — Whoever believes will do Jesus things, and works greater than His!  Every believer is capable of doing Jesus-sized works!     But hold that thought… Why does Jesus going to the Father help us do greater works?

John 16:7   It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 

And 50 days after Passover, after Jesus’ crucifixion, is the day of Pentecost, when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit in power.  We will do greater works because the Holy Spirit is in us.  It took the disciples some time to grasp the concept of greater works.   But they did.  And we have to also.   Why did God put the Holy Spirit within us if we are never going to listen to Him or do the things that require His power?

  1.   The Greek term, “Ioudaios,” is often translated as “Jews,” but typically is understood to be “the Jewish authorities.”
  2. The starting date for the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason is typically given as 1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, followed in the next few years by Isaac Newton’s publication of “Principia Mathematica” and John Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.”

August 24, 27 A.D.  Do not be Afraid Any Longer #48

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 28 ———  Do not be Afraid Any Longer
Matthew 8:18 – 9:26  — Mark 4:35-5:43 — Luke 8:22-8:56

(**Note: Portions of the following are from a sermon done on 9/1/2024.  Some material is repeated from #47, “Jesus Calms the Storm.”)

Last week, we discussed the woman with the issue of blood that touched Jesus.  We talked about what a busy week that was for Jesus.  He calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee; he cast demons from a man on the Gentile side of the Sea.  He was teaching in Capernaum when he was interrupted by a man whose daughter was dying, and on the way to heal his daughter, he was touched by a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. 

This week, Jesus sent the disciples on a three-week mission trip to the Galilee. We know that during those three weeks, Jesus spent time teaching and healing near Capernaum, but because none of the disciples were around, we don’t have any specific accounts of that time. Next week, we will talk about Jesus sending out the 12, but today, I want to go back and look at some of the previous week’s events that we didn’t cover.  

Mark 4:35-41   On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”…  And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.   But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”   And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The Sea of Galilee is not actually a sea but a lake.  It is about 8 miles wide and 13 miles long.  But the area’s unusual geography can cause this small lake to have waves that were measured at 10 feet in 1992. Shirley and I had a chance to witness 4-5 feet waves on our first trip to Israel.  Our boat trip was canceled, and looking at those waves, I didn’t want to be out there.   Here is a picture of waves on the sea looking from the eastern side to the west.   The steep northern slope of Mt. Arbel is visible on the other side of the sea.

The boats used on the Sea of Galilee in Jesus’ day were not large.  A drought in 1982 exposed the hull of a first-century fishing boat that had sunk and was covered in mud.  It is in a museum on the shore now.  This is what it would have originally looked like:

It was 27 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, and only 4 feet high. It could carry 13-15 people. Its very shallow draft allowed it to get very close to shore, but this also made it susceptible to taking on water from wind and waves. 

So, the 13 of them are in a small boat in a storm with large waves.  Some of these men with Jesus were professional fishermen.  They were very familiar with this boat and this lake.  But the storm that blew up that night was especially violent.  Mark tells us that the boat was filling with water, and Jesus was sleeping in the stern.  They wake Jesus, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Or “How can you possibly be sleeping when we are all about to die?”  They were scared to the point of death.  They were scared of death.

Have you ever been scared of death?  I have.

We were on a flight, and the turbulence got bad. The plane was bouncing all over and, at one point, dropped straight down about 10 feet. Many were getting sick and using those bags in the seat back pocket. And everyone, if they would admit it, was scared.

One winter night, we were on our way to Memphis on a two-lane road and hit a patch of black ice. Our vehicle began spinning round and round, and an oncoming car was heading toward us. We had no control of the car. We were all scared.

I was lying on a stretcher one morning alone in a room before a major surgery.  As a medical student and resident, I saw many things go wrong in the Operating Room.  I had seen very healthy people not wake up after simple surgeries. I saw a young man have a severe reaction other than anesthesia and never make it to the first incision.  And for a few minutes, fear swept over me to the point I broke out in a cold sweat.  

But I would bet that everyone here in this room has had a few times in their life that they were scared they were about to die.

These disciples thought they were about to die.   And what was Jesus doing while they were scared to death?  Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat.  They couldn’t imagine how Jesus could be sleeping when they were scared to the point of death.  But Jesus couldn’t imagine how they could be so concerned about a storm when they were in the boat with God.

He asks them, “Why are you afraid?”   What kind of question is that? Are you kidding?  As Max Lucado says, it is like one swimmer asking another, “Why are you wet?”1  

“And Matthew records that he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”  In Matthew 17:20, Jesus describes ’little faith’ as faith less than the smallest thing he can show them, a mustard seed, so ‘little faith’ means no faith at all.  That is how Mark said it in the passage we just read: “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”  They had “no” faith.

 Why did Jesus say they had ‘no faith’?  Because, at this point, they really don’t understand who Jesus is.   Oh, they have seen him perform miracles and heal people.  But they knew the stories of prophets in the Bible who had done such things.  They thought he was a great prophet, perhaps even the Messiah.  But they didn’t have the full knowledge of who Jesus was.

God spoke the sea into existence. They are in the boat with the creator of the sea, and they don’t know it.  They don’t yet have that understanding, or, more importantly, they don’t have that relationship. Remember that understanding or knowledge in the Bible means relationship.  You don’t know something until you experience it for yourself.  They knew a lot about Jesus.  Some of them have been with him for months. They know him as a great teacher, prophet, and healer.  They know him as a great man of God — but they don’t yet know him as the man who is God.  And that is all the difference.  

There are a lot of people today who are, well, in the same boat.  They know Jesus as the man in the New Testament who did miracles and taught.  They may have sat in church for years and heard stories after stories of what Jesus did.  They may be church members, give money to the church, or hold office there.  But none of that will help when the time comes when you are scared to death.  You must have knowledge through a relationship with Jesus as the Son of God.  Unless you know him as your personal savior, then you have no faith.  As Billy Graham often said, there will be a lot of surprises on the day of judgment for people who thought they were good with God because they did all the right things, but then Jesus said, “Depart from me.” And why does Jesus tell these people to leave?  “For I never knew you.”  On the day of judgment, either you have a personal relationship with Jesus or you don’t.

But at this point, these disciples have zero faith.  But this week, Jesus is going to challenge their thinking. If they thought of him as just a prophet, he will show them how he calms a storm and later raises the dead. 

For you see, faith is trust built up through experience.  Our faith grows as we witness God’s trustworthiness.  God sees us through something, and our faith grows.  God keeps his promise, and our faith grows. This is one reason it is so important to study the Scriptures.  In them, we see the long history of God being faithful to his promises.  We learn more about God’s trustworthiness through the people’s experiences with God in history.  Perhaps we won’t have to learn every lesson for ourselves the hard way.  This is why sharing our walk with God with the people around us is so important.  Our faith can grow through each other’s experiences by telling the stories of God’s faithfulness.  We don’t spend enough time telling each other our stories.  With whom are you sharing your stories of your walk with God?

But these disciples are not there yet.  They have no faith so they are scared to death in a storm.

Then Jesus, who in the beginning, spoke the water into existence, calms the storm with a word.  The storm is over; the waters are calm, and the danger has passed.  So now the disciples should be relieved. But Luke tells us that they are afraid.

Luke 8:25  And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

What are the disciples afraid of now?  They had seen Jesus do miracles before, but he just turned off the forces of nature like we would flip a light switch. They were amazed and confused after this awesome display of power.   Who is this guy?  I imagine the rest of that boat trip was really quiet.   There were prophets of old who could heal or do miracles, but this controlling nature is God-stuff.  Whatever they thought of Jesus before has been challenged.  Just who is this man that speaks and the world obeys him?  Who is this guy who has the power of God himself?  And honestly, they are scared of the answers to those questions.

But the boat arrives safely, and we continue:

Mark 5:1-20   They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.  And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.   He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him.   Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.   And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.  

 The Bible doesn’t tell us how the disciples reacted to this, but don’t just read the words; picture them in your mind.  This man who is so strong no one can subdue him, strong enough to break chains and shackles, sees Jesus from afar and comes running out of a graveyard towards them, and he is naked.  Imagine how the disciples felt.  How do you think they reacted?  Were they afraid?  Did some of them start running toward the boat?

 “And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”  

The demons know something the disciples haven’t figured out yet: Jesus is the son of the most high God.  And they are terrified of Jesus.   They should be afraid, for they stand in opposition to God. James, in his discussion about belief without the obedience of good works, said it well: (James 2:19) “The demons believe [there is one God] and they tremble.”  

“For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”   And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”   And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.   Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside,  and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.”   So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

“The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened.   And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.   And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.   And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”

This man was possessed by many demons.  This whole area lived in fear of him.  But Jesus comes and heals the man; he casts out the demons, and then we see him clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus.  So, how do the villagers respond?  Well, of course, they throw a big party.  They celebrate that this scary man is not scary anymore.  They celebrate that Jesus has healed one of their own.  Nope.  “They began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.”  They were no longer scared of the man; they were now afraid of Jesus.  Just like the disciples in the boat, they went from fear of a situation to fear of Jesus because they, too, didn’t understand who he was.

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him.  And he did not permit him…

Notice the difference between the villagers’ and the healed man’s reactions.  The villagers beg Jesus to leave.  The man who was healed begged to stay with Jesus.  What is the difference?  It is faith built on experience.  This man has seen firsthand what Jesus can do.  He has experienced the power of God.   And this experience is the difference.   He is the only one in these two stories that gets it.   So, he wants to stay with Jesus.  But Jesus refuses to let this man stay.  Is it because he is not Jewish?  No.  Jesus has a mission: 

“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”  And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

Jesus just sent this man, the former crazy, naked, strong man living in a graveyard, to be his witness in the Gentile area of the Decapolis.  And in about three weeks, Jesus will return to the same area that he was asked to leave. And you can’t believe how different the people will react to Jesus.  He will be welcomed, and thousands will stay for days to hear him teach and be healed.  And how in the world is it possible for things to change so much so quickly?  Who or what made these people change their minds about Jesus?  We’ll talk about that in 3 weeks.

But for now, they were asked to leave, so they headed back in the boat to Capernaum.

Jesus is then teaching in Capernaum, but he gets interrupted by one of the synagogue leaders, Jairus, whose daughter is dying.  Jarius is afraid.  He fears for his daughter’s life.  Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a parent or grandparent than a child who is sick or in danger.  On the way to Jairus’ house, Jesus is interrupted by the woman we talked about last week who is healed by touching the tassel on his garment.  While Jesus is talking to her, a man comes to Jairus and says, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”  Jairus’ heart sank.  His worst fears are realized.  His daughter has died—a parent’s worst moment.

But then Jesus interrupts:

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”

And Jairus stands in the middle between these two. Between horror on one side and hope on the other.   Between disaster and diety.   Between fear and faith.  Have you lived in that moment between the two?  That’s why Matthew is telling these stories.  In this troubled world, we are often thrust into the middle between fear and faith.  What are you afraid of?

The Greek word for fear in the New Testament is ‘phobos,’ the base for our word phobia.  There are currently more than 550 named phobias.  The four most common are: 1. Social Phobias (fear of crowds, social situations, speaking, etc.)   2. Fear of Animals (dogs, snakes, insects, or mice), 3. Claustrophobia (fear of closed-in spaces), and 4. Acrophobia (fear of heights).   However, how words are used changes over time, and this can cause confusion when reading what the Bible says about fear.  For example, if I asked you to quote a Bible verse about fear, you might say:

Proverbs 9:10   The fear of the LORD [Yehovah] is the beginning of wisdom.

And then I might ask you, “Are you afraid of God?”  Does that seem like an odd question?  These days, when God is pictured as a ‘kind old man’ or ‘your best buddy,’ it may seem strange.  But I remember hearing many “fire and brimstone” sermons as a child that made me very scared of what God might do.

The Bible is not telling us to be afraid of God.  As a matter of fact, the most common command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid.”  So what is Proverbs 9:10 saying?  Remember that the way words are used changes over time.  Think back to the days when people were ruled by kings who held absolute power over their subjects.  To ‘fear the king’ did not mean the same thing as to ‘be afraid of the king.’  To fear the king meant to be utterly loyal to the king, carrying the idea of awe and respect in the realization that this king has absolute power over you.  In contrast, to be afraid of the king was to be scared of what the king might do.  So “the fear of Yehovah” in this verse is about having absolute loyalty and obedience to God, with awe and respect.  

There can, however, be a good reason to be afraid of God, as Jesus implies:

Matthew 10:28-31 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

For those who oppose God (like the demons we talked about earlier), fear of God’s justice is warranted. This fear can lead some to repentance. However, contrary to my childhood experience of scary sermons, this should not be our primary tool for evangelism.

Now, we can see how the disciples’ reaction to Jesus in the boat differs from that of the people across the lake.  The disciples witnessed Jesus do more than any prophet had ever done before.  They have awe and respect after that display of power.  After learning that Jesus had cast out the demons from the man into the pigs, who ran into the sea, the villagers were scared of what Jesus might do next.  They were already missing 2000 pigs and weren’t happy about that.  These are two different displays of fear.

The difference in these reactions is significant.  This is the place Jairus was standing, between fear and faith. The difference is your worldview.  What kind of world do you live in?  

Skip Moen said it this way:

“There are two different worldviews competing for your allegiance.  The first is the world of constant familiarity.  It is a world of risk and fear.   It is the world of the nightly news where tragedy, risk and trauma are given prime importance.  This world is the world of security concerns, insurance protection, hedge funds and hurricane warnings.  It is the world of the terrorist, the thief, the con man and the kidnapper.  In this world, being afraid is an important component of capitalism.  We are taught to be afraid of bad breath, crooked teeth, wrinkles and out-of-fashion clothes.  This kind of fear produces all sorts of actions in attempt to reduce risk.  But in the end, this world is unpredictable, hostile and dangerous.  When I believe that the world is ultimately fearful, nothing I can do will actually overcome my dread of the future.  I will always confront “but what if”.

The second paradigm is God’s view of the world.  It is not based on fear.  It is based on the fact that God loves what He creates and that He can be trusted to manage His creation.  From God’s perspective, the only proper fear is the fear of Who He is.  That fear is designed to bring me to repentance and seek Him.  That fear produces faith in His grace and trustworthiness.  When I believe that the world is actually in the hands of an almighty God Who loves me and has my best interests at heart, I no longer dread the future.  In fact, I can give up trying to manage the consequences of my life.  I stop living with the myth of control and start living with the reality of submission.”2

One view says God is irrelevant and that we should all live scared to death of many things. The other says God is sovereign—in complete control of everything—and we need not be afraid of anything or anyone, but we are to be loyal, obey, awe, and respect God alone.

The airplane drops 10 feet, and  I get scared.  Oh, me of ‘little faith.’  
The car spins on the ice, and I am afraid.  Oh, me of ‘little faith.’
I imagine everything that can go wrong as I enter surgery, and I become frightened. Oh, me of ‘little faith.’   

Moen said, “Fear produces faith.”  How does that work?   

The airplane drops, but we are all okay. The car spins, and through a miracle of God, the ongoing vehicle doesn’t hit us. On the day of my pre-surgical fear, God’s voice comes to me as clear as you hear me now and says, “Don’t worry; I’ve got this. ” Though I could look at my previous fears as failings, God used them as experiences where my faith could grow.  

Aristotle said the thing to be feared most is death because it appeared to be the end of everything.3

Mark 5:36  (NASB)  But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.”

Hear the good news as Jairus did!  You do not need to be afraid any longer!   You do not need to fear storms, weird people in the graveyard, or even death.  (Aristotle was wrong about this and pretty much everything he ever said.)  Jesus said, “Fear not anything that can kill the body.”  You aren’t leaving this earth until Jesus says so.  This past week, my friend Danny died.  He was a wonderful man of God who spent his whole life as a teacher and coach, influencing young people for Jesus.  Let me tell you, Danny did not fear death because Danny knew Jesus, not just knew of him, but had an active relationship with him. 

The most common command in the Bible:  “Do not be afraid!”
The most common promise in the Bible:  “I will be with you.”

Do you see how these fit together?  We do not need to be afraid because God is with us.  This is the message of the Bible from beginning to end.

Psalm 23:4   “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.”

John 14:1-2  (NLT)  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.  There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.  If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am.

God has promised to always be with us.  We need not fear the storms because Jesus is in the boat with us.  We need not fear death because when we leave this world, God does not abandon us – He will be with us forever.  

Hebrews 12:1-2  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

Danny outran me to the Father’s house.  I will see him soon.  There is plenty of room.  I look forward to seeing you there also.

  1. Lucado, Max.  Fearless.  Page 6.
  2. Moen, Skip.  “Do Not Fear”  February 9, 2005
  3. King, R.A.H. Aristotle on Life and Death. 2001.

February 16 – March 27, 27 A.D.  Jesus in the Wilderness – The Year of the Lord’s Favor #13

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , , , ,

Week 2 Going where you don’t want to go

It is getting time for the evening meal, and you don’t want to eat at home.  Then comes the classic question, “Where do you want to eat?” with the classic answer, “Anywhere is fine with me.”  This must be very common because all across the country, restaurants have sprung up with names like “Anywhere,” “Anything’s Fine With Me,” “I Don’t Care,” and, of course, “It Doesn’t Matter”1.  When we have a group deciding on a restaurant, and no one has a preference, we then do eliminations: for example, ‘I ate at Applebee’s last week, so not there’ or ‘I don’t feel like Italian food tonight.’  This seems to be more productive.  Sometimes it is easier to know where you don’t want to go.

There is some discussion in the commentaries about whether Jesus fasted for 40 days and then was tempted or if he was tempted the entire 40-day period and then had the final three temptations that Matthew and Luke discuss.

Mark 1:12-13   The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Our English version seems clear that Jesus was tempted for the entire 40 days, and the Greek version even more so.   Matthew and Luke then record the 3 specific temptations, but Mark does not.  It’s not hard to imagine 40 days of temptations.  We are told to expect trials and temptations.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  1 Peter 4:12

We are told that this is the norm.  God told Cain that “sin is crouching at the door”.  Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8).  We are surrounded by trials and temptations — that is the fallen world we live in,

So the Spirit “drove him out into the wilderness”.  The Greek verb is very forceful.  ‘Ekballo’ means to ‘throw out’.  This is the verb used when Jesus drives out the moneychangers in the temple, or when Jesus ‘cast out’ demons, or when Stephen is ‘cast out’ of the city and stoned.    It is the same as when the people in his hometown of Nazareth throw him out of town and then take him to throw him off a cliff.  This was not a friendly suggestion to Jesus by the Spirit to go to the wilderness.  This was no gentle nudge.  The Spirit forced Jesus to go where he did not want to go.

As we have discussed, the wilderness is not a place many would choose to go.  On a trip to Israel in 2016, the bus stopped at the edge of the Judean wilderness, and we were instructed to go off by ourselves for 40 minutes.  It was oppressively hot and dry.  There were no trees, no shade, almost no vegetation, and no signs of water.  40 minutes was long enough.  I could not imagine 40 days.  And in Jesus’ day, it was dangerous.  Mark tells us, “he was with the wild animals.”  That seems an odd detail to throw in a short passage.  That area used to be home to large and small predators.  (We were told the large ones (like lions) were no longer there.)  But this is not a place you choose to be day and night alone. I wonder if Mark was painting the wilderness as an anti-Eden place — Eden was a place of abundant vegetation and fruit of all kinds, the wilderness was desolate.  Eden had abundant water, “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground” such that a river flowed out of Eden, but the wilderness was dry.  The animals in Eden came to man without fear, but the animals in the wilderness are “wild.”2  But both were a place of testing and interestingly, Adam and Eve’s temptation was about something to eat, just as the first of Jesus’ temptations by the devil.

No one would choose to go to a place of testing, with an encounter with the devil after 40 hard days.  Jesus was forced there at the beginning of his ministry.  He will be forced to go somewhere else he doesn’t want to go at the end of his ministry.  

Matt. 16:21   From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is “greatly distressed and troubled.” He prays and asks if there is any other way to accomplish God’s plan of redemption.  The way of the cross was not the way anyone, including Jesus, would want to go.  But praying in the garden, Jesus makes a choice that Adam and Eve should have made. 

God asked Adam and Eve, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

“Will you follow my will or your own will?”  Adam and Eve fail at the tree of discerning good and evil.

God asked Jesus, “Will you be obedient to me about the tree?”

And Jesus answered, “Not my will, but your will be done.

  Jesus is obedient about the tree.

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree”  Acts 10:39

God sent Jesus somewhere he didn’t want to go, as he did other Bible characters.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh, Moses didn’t want to go back to Egypt, Ananias didn’t want to go pray for Saul.  Abraham left his home, having no idea where he would end up. And then there is Peter.

 Jesus tells Peter, “When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Then Jesus gives Peter the same instruction he gave him at the beginning, “Follow me.” I have been to Rome and have seen the spot where, 34 years later, Peter was led, a place where his arms were stretched-out and nailed to a cross. Peter had learned to be obedient, to be faithful to go somewhere he didn’t want to go.  I believe at some point in all of our lives, God will ask us all to go somewhere we do not want to go.  It may be to minister to an enemy or to people who don’t like you; it may be leaving your home to unknown places, or it may be to a place of desolation or testing. It may be to martyrdom. 

Jesus followed God in everything, even to desolation and death.  

The one who restores our soul may lead us through paths of righteousness that look to us like the valley of the shadow of death. There are some dark valleys in this world.  Some of you have walked in the valley. Some of you are walking there now.  There is the valley of pain; there is the valley of depression, the valley of despair, the valley of illness so severe it is the shadow of death, the valley of grief over a loved one.  We all will walk through those valleys — places we don’t want to go.  And on that day, may Jesus remind us:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There they are, the most common command in the Bible (“Do not fear.”) and the most common promise in the Bible (“I will be with you.”).  They are inextricably linked.  As God told Joshua before they entered the land:

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”    Joshua 1:9

The same promise is given to the disciples right after Jesus tells them to go into all the nations.  Jesus’ last words in the gospel of Matthew:

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  Matthew 28:20

Jesus willingly went into the wilderness and willingly went to the cross with no fear, knowing God would be with him.  God promises to be with us in the deepest, darkest valleys of death, comforting, healing, and feeding us with cups running over with goodness and mercy. 

Jesus continues to say, ‘Follow me’.  If we follow him, we know he is there with us.  And if we follow Jesus, we are sure to end up going somewhere we would have never thought about going.  But we will never go alone. Are we willing to go where we do not want to go?  Have you been to the wilderness this week?

1. I have heard the “It Doesn’t Matter Family Restaurant” just below Montgomery, Alabama is a great place.

2. Talking about the ‘wild animals’ in Mark, Skip Moen said, “This sinful world into which Jesus enters to accomplish his mission is less like a pristine garden and more like Jurassic Park.”  Yikes!