Author: Bryan Richardson

Re: Verse reading–Mark 10: 32-45 (day three)

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.”  Might we abuse this teaching from Jesus?  You know we might.  Jesus teaches us that serving another doesn’t lead to greatness.  Serving another is greatness.  Otherwise, we become servants so that we might get a better job later on.  We would indeed serve people as a means to a self-serving end.  But the life together that the Three-In-One God lives is a life in which the Son defers to the Father, the Father calls attention to the Son, the Holy Spirit illuminates all creation with the truth of the Son, and the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit.  Each person of the Trinity magnifies the other persons of the Trinity.  This is servanthood.  To serve one another is to live the life God lives.

Re: Verse reading–Mark 9:14-29 (day three)

“How long shall I put up with you?”  When Jesus made a whip of cords and overturned the money-changers tables, when he glared at the Pharisees in the presence of the man with the shriveled hand, when he called out the hypocrites who ignored the plight of the crippled woman, he was angry.  It was no less the case here.  Jesus understood the power of anger—power to intoxicate or to animate.  He channeled anger in the latter direction, leveraging it to move toward revelation, healing, recognition of dignity, and, in this instance, the vanquishing of an unclean spirit and patience with unbelief.  Anger did not rule Jesus; it was his servant.  Part of our work in learning his kind of life is learning how he used anger.

Re:Verse reading–Mark 8:27-38 (day three)

“The Son of Man will be ashamed…” Shame seems to have become little known in our current society. How quaint a notion it is. Surely we’re more authentic, honest, and accepting now, whereas our forebears denied their feelings, repressed their desires, and shunned those who violated arbitrary behavioral standards. Religious talk of shame such as this verse just seems to cement the perception of shame as a tool of the powerful to force the weak to tow the line. But it’s really all of us who detest weakness–that very avenue that Jesus said is the only way to strength and life. We’re so ashamed that the Savior would live a weakling’s life and die a weakling’s death that we attempt to reimagine God in our own heroic image. And the Lord says, “I never knew you.”

Re:Verse reading – Mark 7:1-23 (day three)

“All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.”  That sin comes from within is one of Jesus’s more depressing revelations.  It means sin cannot be managed because the manager is compromised.  It means a man must entrust himself for safekeeping to someone who remains pure.  Human beings want to be self-helping, but we are instead self-damning.  Pride, and every sin, proceeds from the heart, and we would follow those sins to the death.  The sin from within is loud.  Even so, the Lord has allowed us a part of our reasoning that would listen to this Savior.  Those at the table with Jesus listened to him over the clamor of their own sin.  The years have not dimmed his voice.  We can still hear him if we will.

Re:Verse reading– Mark 6:1-13 (day three) 

“Isn’t this the carpenter?”  One generally does not welcome surprises.  Beyond the very few instances of well-meaning diversions—a gift kept secret until the unwrapping, a longed-for family member who shows up for the holidays after all—surprises interfere with one’s ability to meet the demands of the day while time still remains to meet them.  If you learn that something you thought you knew you actually do not know, that’s a surprise.  If the matter turns out to be one on which your well being will always depend, surprise turns to fear and confusion.  Fear and confusion will take the place of listening and thinking.  That’s the way we often approach new ideas.  But Jesus came in the flesh, not as a disembodied idea.  He is a person to whom you can listen.  Hear him.

Re:Verse reading– Mark 5:1-20 (day three)

“The herd…rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.” Jesus did not roll into town as an expert from the wild blue yonder, dispensing advice while remaining above the fray. He lived with people, and his nearness involved messy work: blood and bone, anguish and anger, spit and sweat, demons and decisions. We like our miracles clean; Jesus uses saliva and dirt. We want divine intervention in our squabbles; Jesus says “Who made me an arbiter between you?” We like a good rescue story, but in this fallen world, God’s rescue will result in collateral damage. Miracles aren’t magic. God in his activity leaves a footprint in the world of men. When you pray for deliverance, are you prepared for what God will destroy in the process?

Re:Verse reading Mark 3: 20-35 (day three) 

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.  You can rest assured that Jesus wasn’t merely asking this question as a rhetorical device.  The scriptures present the Lord as one who did not ask any question that he himself had not wrestled with or give any command that he himself was not submitted to or teach a Bible that he himself did not believe.  With this particular question, Jesus reveals that he has understood that sin will mean the undoing of the closest of friendships and families—that we cannot depend on biology or affinity to keep us together.  Only a new kind of life with bonds created by the Holy Spirit will do that.  Who are you counting on so that you will not be alone?  Only the community of Christ will last.

Re:Verse reading–Mark 2:1-12 (day three)

“So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”  Science vs. faith.  Secular vs. sacred.  Earth vs. heaven.  Western society has done quite a thorough job of sequestering religious conviction—confining it to the sphere of the unknowable, or, if you will, the imaginary.  Believers have gone along with this project, happy to cordon off heavenly-minded things from perceived hostile forces.  But where did we learn this?  Certainly not from our Lord, whose sovereignty holds sway over both the spiritual and the material realms—over soul and body, faith and knowledge, revelation and research lab, the hereafter and the U.S. government.  Your behavior at work, the problems in your family, the deepest needs you know—Christ has authority over it all.  Do you live as if that is true?

Re:Verse reading–Mark 1:21-39 (day three)

“He would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.”  The only proper context for truth is love.  Truth in the hands of anyone who does not love becomes a weapon.  Is Jesus the Holy One of God?  Yes.  That’s truth.  But what does it mean?  In the hands of one who does not love, that’s where the truth ends and the manipulation of people’s understanding begins.  For us, the most dangerous place to be is to be right.  We can lord that rightness over others, and we have done so many times.  Here’s a prayer that might be helpful: Lord, what does it look like for me to live out the truth in the presence of another?