Author: Bryan Richardson

RE Verse reading–Mark 12:28-34 (day three)
“And they rebuked her harshly.”  Suddenly, they championed the poor.  Well, welcome to the entire Old Testament.  God had been the poor’s champion all along, but these folks just now got religion, apparently.  Except they hadn’t.  While they were busy co-opting the poor to cover for their own love of money, Jesus saw a moment of beauty.  While they found the poor temporarily useful, Jesus exulted in a display of extravagance that had no utilitarian purpose whatsoever.  Beauty is rare in this broken world, and its presence always—always—signals that God has not abandoned us.  And beauty is rarely “useful” in the sense of getting done what we want done.  To find people useful, then, is the height of selfishness.  To find people—and their extravagance born of love—beautiful is to worship God.

RE Verse reading–Mark 12:28-34 (day three)
“And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.”  Songwriters often fear performing their songs for an audience.  Painters often dread exhibitions.  Actors languish in profound anxiety waiting on the critical reviews after opening night.  Their music or their canvas or their character are extensions of themselves, and it’s not uncommon for them to view critique of their art as a critique of who they are or who they’re becoming.  So it is with belief.  If we really believe something, that belief is part of who we are.  To understand that we have believed something that turns out to be false is a prospect of which we are very much afraid.  So if we never seek truth from the Lord, we don’t have to fear that we’ve been wrong all along, do we?

RE Verse reading–Mark 7:1-23 (day four)
The problem with the Pharisees was not that they participated in elaborate rituals.  The problem was that they looked with contempt on those who did not.  Many of their practices had developed over the centuries to discipline mind and body toward greater understanding of and faithfulness to the Law of Moses.  The Bible does not forbid the development of such practices; Paul himself spoke of disciplining his body so as not to become “disqualified for the prize.”  But the Pharisees forgot that disciplines and traditions serve not as laurels for the strong, but as braces for the weak—people who need assistance to train themselves toward obedience.  By that reasoning, the Pharisees could have used more ritual, not less. Jesus’ disciples were in the physical presence of one who was himself serving as a brace for them as they learned obedience, so they had no need for these other methods at this time.  The Pharisees ignored that, to their great peril.

RE Verse reading–Mark 6:1-6 (day three)
The fact that we read “He was amazed at their lack of faith” tells us that this was something Jesus did not expect.  That doesn’t make the Savior less divine.  It does make him human.  In Jesus we see how a human being at his best operates in the face of unexpected turns.  Jesus was amazed, and that amazement began to shape the way he engaged people.  It informed his refusal to force his thinking upon people when they clearly did not want it: Witness his “Shake the dust off” instruction to his disciples later.  It drove him to look for open doors to the gospel—even when those doors led to places and people outside Jewish ethnic zones.  May we become as amazed and as responsive.

RE Verse reading–Mark 5:22-43 (day three)
High school students commonly receive assignments to work out given scenarios that involve two life-threatening events competing for attention: Saving one person’s life seemingly means not saving another person’s life. These exercises are meant to highlight questions of ethics and promote critical thinking. Jesus faced a real situation that bore similarities to the high school scenarios: Saving the life of a widow seemingly meant leaving no time to save the life of a young girl. But Jesus, though living within the realities of time, did not surrender to the common perceptions of time. For him, the question was not, “How can I get as much done as I can in the time allotted?” Rather, it was “How can I do all the work God desires me to do?” So he saved the lives of both people, even when time ran out.

RE Verse reading–Mark 5:1-20 (day three)
“No one could bind him anymore.” Leaks always get bigger, tears always get wider, and corrosion always goes deeper. When our machinery or equipment fails, the breakdown is simply the outcome of neglecting to address breaches, rips, or rust. You can’t patch forever. There comes a time when you must repair. In our society, greed becomes more insistent, lust becomes more insatiable, and anger becomes more destructive. We patch these things with money or serial marriages or blaming others, but the day comes when people break. And society breaks. And no one can bind it anymore. In a society that is well, no one lives among the tombs. But healing from the Savior will come with the burden of submitting our will to his. This is what the people of the Gerasenes were afraid of. So they decided to keep on patching.

RE Verse reading–Mark 2:13-17 (Day Three)
“…for there were many who followed him.” The “many” in this case refers to tax collectors. The entire culture in which Jesus was raised steeped him in ethnic and nationalistic separateness and exclusivity. There were plenty of reasons for Jesus and Roman loyalists to keep their distance from each other. And yet, “there were many…” These fraternizers with the Empire would not have been many if they did not believe Jesus wanted to be around them. For Jesus not only to eat with socially shunned people, but actually to enjoy their company, was a slap in the face to those who longed to be free of Caesar’s dominion. And yet, a refusal to love people is a slap in the face to God. At the end of the day, Jesus knew whose kingdom mattered most.

RE Verse reading–Mark 19-20; 3:13-17; 10:35-45 (Day Three)
“Whoever wants to become great among you must become your servant…”  Does Jesus redefine the path to greatness?  No.  He redefines greatness.  Servanthood is greatness.  That’s not some Orwellian oxymoron.  Jesus well knew that serving people means you must get close enough to them to do unto them what you would have others do unto you.  Such a way of life trains your heart to love people.  Jesus has in mind building a community of disciples pursuing such greatness.  That’s the only kind of community—and the only kind of greatness—that will last for eternity.  In order to love, serve someone.  In order to serve someone, learn what Jesus means when he speaks of greatness.

RE Verse reading–Mark 1:16-18; 8:27-33; 14:26-31, 66-72; 16:5-7 (Day Three)
“At once they left their nets and followed him.”  What do you think you can’t live without?  For Peter and the other fishermen who followed Jesus, it was the tools of their trade.  But they left them behind when they actually began to pay attention to what Jesus was saying.  When they paid attention to Jesus, they could hear God calling to them. Their jobs did not prevent, per se, their devotion to the Lord.  But the way they gave themselves to their work certainly did.  Paying attention to Jesus ended up requiring that they make major shifts in the way they structured their days in order to hear him more intently and more clearly.  So they rearranged their lives.  They learned what they could live without—and what they could not.