Category: reMARKable

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:13-17 (day three)

“He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth.”

Jesus saw Levi (called Matthew in the other gospels), but it wasn’t merely an instance of line-of-sight, x-y axis perception. He saw “Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth.” Here was a person with a name, a familial context, a social circle, a skill set, weighed down with the burden of living and working in two cultures – one Jewish, one Roman. That’s far more than “human in field of vision.” What could happen to this man and to the world if Levi turned his interests, his knowledge, his abilities, his influence, his physical presence, and his energy toward eternal realities? It was with that kind of whole-person thinking that Jesus looked at this individual. Jesus will teach us to consider others with such whole-person thinking as well.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:13-17 (day two) 

And He went out again by the seashore; and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. vs. 13

I always resonate with passages like this. I love reading about Jesus surrounding himself with large crowds, children, tax collectors, or inquiring Pharisees. Jesus loved to teach. He had just performed an incredible miracle and by way of that miracle revealed his true nature to those who were there, but he came to teach, to save. The spectacle was grand, but in the end he wanted people to understand why he came. That is the heart of every teacher I know. We want to make sure you know why we are doing the things we do. Jesus didn’t come to keep you in the dark. He came to bring light. Aren’t you grateful for a God who teaches? Have you spent time with the Lord asking to bring understanding to his Word or his plan?

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:1-12 (day seven)

“[…] there came one like a son of man […]
 And to him was given dominion
    and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
    should serve him;” Daniel 7:13-14

Rick, you got the Re:Verse wrong! Daniel was the passage in Spring of 2020. Okay, okay some of y’all are still recovering from the apocalyptic literature overload, but that study laid a great foundation for our Mark passage. Look at what happens here: The pharisees ask “who can forgive sins but God alone?” (vs 7b) and Jesus responds “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (vs 10) Jesus is pointing the scribes back to the prophets. Specifically, Jesus is referencing where Ezekiel and Daniel called this coming Messiah, the Son of Man. Jesus is saying that He is that Messiah! He is God! What caught the scribes so off guard was in their perception of what this Messiah would do. They thought He would have come and make the world bow down and serve Him (them). Instead this Son of Man has come to forgive, heal, and teach. He came to serve!

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:1-12 (day six).

Jesus reveals something new. Up to this point he has shown that his mission is to bring renewal and restoration to a sin wrecked, spiritually oppressed and broken people; he has come to beckon his people to turn toward God. In this story he makes the connection between forgiveness and renewal. Eternal renewal, or healing, comes through forgiveness.

Another way to think of this, is that forgiveness, or avoiding God’s judgement, is not the end of salvation, it is the means through which we experience abundant life and fullness of joy.

Forgiveness is the way, thus Jesus is the way…the truth and the life.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:1-12 (day five).  And Jesus seeing their faith *said to the paralytic, “ Son, your sins are forgiven.”

It’s a beautiful picture. All 5 of these men have faith that was recognized by Jesus.  What was it that they believed?  I think they believed that Jesus could and would meet their friend’s deepest need. They were right, and they were wrong. They were right in the sense that Jesus could meet His deepest need. They were wrong in understanding what his deepest need actually was.  Jesus was very clear and understood completely what his biggest need actually was- the forgiveness of sin, to be in a right relationship with the Living God. Jesus at that moment looked past the circumstances and met the paralyzed man’s greatest need- forgiveness of Sin.

Will you ask Him to do the same for you?  Lord- Look past our circumstances and meet our greatest need!! (Help us be in a right relationship with You, Lord)

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:1-12 (day four)

Not everyone who comes to church is there because they want a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Here in our passage…even though there were honest seekers of Jesus wanting to get in…there were seats up close that were occupied by scribes who wanted to discredit Jesus.  Their hearts were cold to Jesus and they wanted to find reasons to reclaim their authority over the people.

The people had recognized that Jesus “taught as one having authority and not as the scribes…” (1:22). Now, Jesus’ authority was exemplified by His forgiveness of the man’s sins and the healing of his paralyzed body.  Also, His authority was demonstrated when He told the man to go home.  Suddenly, the crowd that had been too dense for the man to approach Jesus before, found room to create a pathway for his exit at Jesus’ command.

There are many motivations for people to go to church.  What motivates you?  We cannot answer for others, but we are responsible for our own responses.  Are we seeking Jesus for a relationship with Him?

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

“Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

There’s a perverse logic at work in the kind of reasoning that claims the act of forgiveness is above one’s pay grade. If forgiveness is the domain of God alone, you don’t have to bother with cancelling the moral debt of people who’ve wronged you. Let ‘em take it up with God. But Jesus doesn’t just show us what forgiveness looks like. He tells us that unless we forgive those in our debt, no life with God is possible (see Matthew 18), and that the way we treat one another has eternal consequences (“Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” – again, see Matthew 18). To say “some things only God can do” is often a very clever way to dodge the kind of life that our Lord calls us to live.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 2:1-12 (day two)

Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. vs. 4

What would you do to get near Jesus; climb a tree, push through a crowd, walk to the next town, leave your dying relative? Are these familiar stories of people doing whatever they could to get near the savior are becoming, well, familiar? It seems we are comfortable reading these magnificent stories, but, in reality, we do little to emulate them. Perhaps it is because any one of those stories includes a bit of humiliation. Each of them were willing to risk something to get near Jesus, and that may be a bridge too far for us. It was good for a tax collector, or a bleeding woman, but not for a 21st century average Joe/Jane. What’s missing? Did they recognize Jesus more fully than we do? Were they willing to throw all caution aside for a chance to be near this teacher, this healer, this Jesus? One thing that hasn’t changed over time is Jesus. So what we are left with is a choice to follow the examples of some first century sinners and do whatever it takes to get near him today.