18 Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him. And he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” 19 And they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say, Elijah, and others, that one of the prophets of old has risen.” 20 Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”

21 And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Resonance with Suffering

Jesus’ ministry was marked by prayer and suffering.  Often, these days, people’s prayers are shallow requests for prosperity.  We don’t think we have what we need, we doubt the Lord’s provision, and so we pray for more things so that our lives will move more fully into ease and comfort.  Jesus’ prayer leads him to teach.  It leads him to ask key questions that draw from his disciples a confession of faith.  They do believe that he is the Christ or Messiah.  This means that he is the chosen one of God.  He has been sent to liberate the people, bring healing to the nations, and to bring blessing.  However, it is not in the obvious ways that the disciples would conceive.  He is not bringing material wealth, he is not bringing political freedom, he is bringing God’s peace.  In establishing a harmony with God, God comes to earth through the lives of each follower.

Each person that follows God will live in tension between the redeemed life within them and the corrupted and twisted world around them.  As a redeemer steps into an unredeemed environment, they will often suffer.  Many Christians do not suffer because they do not live in tension with the corrupted world around them, they stay separate or they assimilate.  Jesus is the pure and holy one of God and he redeems the whole world.  In his body he will take the tension of the dissonance between Creation and God.  It will strain his body until it is broken.  However, his death means that we can resonate with God.  The dictionary defines resonance as ‘a sound or vibration produced in one object that is caused by the sound or vibration produced in another’ (Webster).  The whole of Creation was made to resonate with the sound of God, however, it has started singing its own dark melody.  The tortured tune that results from the confluence of holiness and unrighteousness is jarring and frightening.  It is full of horror.  However, if you follow the thread of the pure melody in the tortured body of the martyrs, if you follow the progression of redemption through the ages, you will see the song of the cross stand out more beautifully because of its contrast with the clamor of the world.

Prayer

May I use my freedom to choose what you want so that your message may be amplified in me through resonance.

Questions

1. What is Jesus doing before he asks his question?
2. What does Messiah mean to Peter?
3. How does Jesus define the way of the Messiah and his followers?
4. How does your life resonate with God?
5. How is there discord in your life because of your faith?

10 On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who needed healing.12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.”They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and made them all sit down.16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

The Return of the Apostles

Here come the apostles, back after an exciting time of healing and bringing the good news to the people.  They might have been quite full of themselves.  They might have thought they had arrived.  You’d think that success on the level they had just experienced would have caused them to pause.  Take a sabbatical.  Assess what they had done.  Write a book to help others.

However, Jesus is a teacher by nature and sees how they have grown and also sees how they need to grow.  Their belief is not big enough yet.  Their journey of faith is not over.  They have mastered some ideas of quality but they have not understood quantity.  They think that because they are few the people that they touch will be limited in number.  When 5,000 men run out of food, when a legion requires feeding, Jesus says, “You feed them!”  Any self reliance that they might have built whilst running around in pairs is shattered.  They look at their meager inventory of 2 fish and five loaves and they are lost as to what to do.

Jesus draws them back into their dependent relationship with them.  They can bear fruit as they are attached to the vine.  The vine produces the fruit, the branches bear the fruit.  In groups of fifty, each family is nourished and fed as the sustenance comes from the hands of Jesus.  The blessings of God produce a bounty through disciples who are not self-reliant but who are dependent on God.

Are we self-confident or are we lost as to what to do without Jesus?  True apostles will often be rejoicing about God’s work in one area in their lives when God presses into the inadequacy of our own resources to navigate life’s twists and turns.  We end up broken, even in the moment of our apparent victory.  We have to look at our meager resources to cope with grief, minister to the abused, or preach to the hardened.  We then shrug and give the circumstances to Jesus.  As we then pass the few fish or loaves we possess to the Son of God, he multiplies what little we see and there is a bounty.

Prayer

Jesus, as we look into the future we can be overwhelmed by what we believe you are calling us to do and the limited resources we have.  We have one car, a long commute, two children and so many opportunities.  Help us to have faith and give these resources to you.  Show us what you want to do in terms of housing, transportation, time, and money.  Then let us walk forward in faith.

Questions

1. What have the apostles just experienced?
2. What does Jesus try and teach them next?
3. How does this prepare them for Jesus’ departure?
4. What success have you had in ministry?
5. How might Jesus want to take you to the next level?

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. 3 And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.[a] 4 And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. 5 And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.

7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, 8 by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen. 9 Herod said, “John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he sought to see him.

Perplexed by Jesus

Herod was perplexed by Jesus.  “Who is Jesus?” Herod asks.  He is told that this is John resurrected, but he decapitated John. It is by watching Jesus’ apostles that news filters back to Herod.  We don’t see the wind, but we see its effects on the trees and flowers.  So Jesus is seen through the actions of those he sends into the world.  These disciples acted on Jesus’ authority.  They were bold in their speech as they preached the good news.  Christians today often equate the gospel with getting souls saved.  The good news includes that, but it is so much more.  The good news releases captives, heals the land, helps the poor, and raises the dead.  The disciples became apostles when they dynamically lived out the faith they had received.  This is before the Holy Spirit had descended on them with power, yet still they make their mark on the local countryside.

We Christians today have become split into those who preach a social gospel and those who preach a gospel of grace through faith.  Jesus doesn’t send his disciples with any such split.  They are the salt of the earth, we should be the same.  They were light and we should also shine.  They were called by Jesus so that they would make a difference.  We have been called in the same way.  I believe that I am called to education and I am living that out in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago.  I am a voice at my church advocating for the education of Christian children in such a way that will counter the trends in our society.  I teach at Moody and train teachers to teach differently because I am sent to Moody by Jesus.  If I am in any way effective it is because people see through my actions and see Jesus.  Then, like Herod, maybe more people will question who is this Jesus and they will seek him.

Some of us are perplexed by Jesus even though we are his own.  I have shared my perplexity as to whether Jesus wants us to move house or not.  I am also perplexed by the miracles Jesus commissions.  I am grateful for the mighty work Jesus has done in moving us into adoption and redeeming Daryl and Amelia, our children.  I am thankful that there I times that I teach and Jesus seems to work in the lives of my students.  However, I have not cast out any demons or healed someone who is visibly disfigured or lame.  I never felt led to pray for the healing of my mother and father in law.  Did they die crippled by Cerebral Palsy when I could have been the conduit of God’s grace in healing them?  I come from a tradition (and Moody affirms this) that says healings and miraculous gifts are not normative.  In stating this am I just stating my lack of faith, or did Jesus especially equip his apostles as a sign of his authority when he was physically present in Israel?  I am perplexed by Jesus.  What would he have me do?  As I look into his face, I still ask with wonder, “Who are you?”

Prayer

I am thankful that you have sent me and that I have a mission to perform for your glory.  You give my life meaning and purpose.  May people see my heart as I align it with you and may I not fear people as much as I do.  However, you perplex me with your majesty, sovereignty and holiness.  I don’t know what kind of power is available to work through me, but I pray I would have both the faith and the wisdom to find out.

Questions

1. What does Jesus give to his disciples so they can complete their task?
2. How are his disciples faithful to their calling?
3. Why does Luke tell us about Herod’s perplexed response?
4. How are you to be faithful in changing the world around you?  What is your mission?
5. How are people both positively and negatively perplexed these days by the actions of Christians?

⁴⁰ Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. ⁴¹ And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house, ⁴² for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. ⁴³ And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians,^[e] she could not be healed by anyone. ⁴⁴ She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. ⁴⁵ And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter^[f] said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” ⁴⁶ But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” ⁴⁷ And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. ⁴⁸ And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

⁴⁹ While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.” ⁵⁰ But Jesus on hearing this answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.” ⁵¹ And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. ⁵² And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” ⁵³ And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. ⁵⁴ But taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.” ⁵⁵ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given to her to eat. ⁵⁶ And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

Faith’s Timing

About Matthew 8:40-56 Darrell Bock writes:

It is often the case that what we think God ought to do right now, God chooses to act on later, while what we would put off, he chooses to handle right away.  In a sense the juxtaposition of these two miracles is an exercise in time management, where everything is turned upside down.  The critical life-and-death situation must wait for a healing and testimony that could have been done under less testing circumstances.  Part of the faith that Jairus is called to exercise not only needed to believe that God could deal with his recently deceased daughter, but also had to rest in the trauma that the seeming delay had created.  Ultimately, trusting in God’s care means accepting his timing for events.

There have been times in my life when I wish I had a seat in the council of heaven to make my case for the superiority of a timing of events that I would have preferred but that God had not delivered.  What is amazing is how often, upon reflection and given the perspective of a longer range of events, the sequence God brought to pass in my life made much better sense than what I would have lobbied for…

… The most fundamental lesson in this passage is the combination of characteristics tied to faith.  faith should seize the initiative to act in dependence on God and speak about him, yet sometimes it must be patient.  In one sense faith is full speed ahead, while in another it is waiting on the Lord.  Our lives require a vibrant faith applied to the affairs of life, but it also requires a patient waiting on the Lord, for the Father does know best.

Kelli and I put our house on the market last year.  We hoped to sell it in order to move to Grayslake.  Grayslake is closer to Moody and it is where Daryl and Amelia will both go to school at Westlake Christian Academy (http://www.westlakechristian.org/ ).  We looked around Grayslake and in Prairie Crossing we found the house above.  It was in foreclosure and was not likely to come on the market for a long time.  Other houses like it came on the market, but without our house selling, we were not positioned to buy it.

We took our house off the market last November and I believed that was that.  However, Kelli’s strong desire to move has not lessened.  The house pictured above has come on the market.  Its asking price is about $10,000 more than ours was when ours didn’t sell.  The yearly taxes are listed as upward of $12,000.  Because Kelli is on a sabbatical and our house is in no condition to show, I have made the decision not to put our on the market.  I also like the house in Prairie Crossing but I am content with ours.

I don’t drive the children to and from Westlake each day from McHenry.  Kelli wants a house where she can entertain families.  She says that space is important to her.  God has created her in a way where the layout of a house, its architecture and its feel can make her physically ill.  She wept as we drove yesterday and said that a life of driving to and from Moody in Chicago, to and from Grayslake for the children, and to and from Trinity to drop me off for my Doctoral Studies feels like a prison sentence.  She has believed that the house above would be God’s will for us.  She sees it come on the market and she longs for it as God’s solution to the pressures that she is under.

So which is it?  I am not a prophet and neither am I the son of a prophet.  I want to be faithful but I don’t know whether I should plunge into a mortgage that would reset and finish in our seventies, or whether I should play it safe and be glad for the house we have in McHenry.  My wife sees an untenable future where we are, but houses in Grayslake cost more than houses in McHenry.  Besides, three of the houses on our corner are still for sale.  The house next door was bought for $220,000 and is on sale for $110,000.

I now live in tension wanting to know whether I am to be patient like Jairus and navigate the pain of seeing my wife unhappy, or whether I am to be impulsive like the woman who touched Jesus cloak and have faith for the finances.

My thought is that in such cases we should lay the situation before the Lord.  Kelli acknowledged that we are not positioned to put our house on the market while she is writing https://thisoddhouse.org and I am studying at Trinity.  However, in the summer she’d like to try and sell our house again.  I’d have to let go a dream of going to England in July, but I might then be available to take another doctoral class.  The pursuit of Jesus in our day-to-day living is not easy, ask Jairus, and I don’t know what to do.  I pray that Jesus would tell me where to walk because I am willing to follow.

Prayer

God, I am willing to follow you wherever you lead.  I am willing to move house or to stay where I am.  I believe a move could be potentially ruinous unless we downsize, change my mind if that is untrue.  I believe that we are in McHenry for a reason, make it clear if we should be in Grayslake.  I want to be a man of faith, but I don’t want to presume upon you.

Questions

1. What is Jairus problem?
2. How do the woman and Jairus have similar solutions to their problems?
3. How does Jesus’ response affect you?
4. When have people that you have seen had to wait on God or had to act in faith concerning God?
5. How do you know when to act in faith or wait in faith?
6. What would be your solution to a problem where a husband and wife disagree?

²⁶ Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes,^[b] which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus^[c] had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” ²⁹ For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”, for many demons had entered him. ³¹ And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. ³² Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

³⁴ When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ³⁶ And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed^[d] man had been healed. ³⁷ Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. ³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

Tortured Soul

When Jesus got to shore on the east of the Sea of Galilee, why was a demon-possessed man there to meet him?  Had the demons pulled the flesh that housed them to the shore to oppose Jesus and try and defeat him?  There were a legion of demons living in that shell.  Literally, that would be about 5,000.  However, it may have been a metaphor like a ‘boatload’.  Either way, Jesus arrives and a pack of demons is waiting for him, located inside a naked and tormented man’s body.  The man’s soul shared that same house of flesh.  I doubt demon’s sleep, so I doubt the man had any peace.  In a tormented home, he was kept awake all night by horrors and fears and visions.  By day he would hear voices speaking corruption, whispering lust, and annihilating him.  Yet, maybe he dragged the flesh that housed them all to the shore to meet Jesus.  Maybe he could not clothe himself, he could not free himself, but he had heard of Jesus.

Unfortunately, I think that the demons dominated the interior life of this man.  I think they had an appointment with Jesus.  It looks like Jesus had called the appointment because of the language of the man.  Although, as we see when he is asked his name, it is not the man’s soul that speaks, it is really the multitude of fallen angels who torment him.  They try to turn the tables on the meeting that Jesus has called.  They name him.  In ancient cultures, when you name someone you have authority  over them.  However, after their thrust for power they retreat into a whimper and beg the one with true authority not to torture them with his justice.

Jesus has commanded the spirits to come out of the man, but they do not come out at once.  They want to broker a deal.  Why does Jesus allow this?  In so bargaining they will make greater spectacle of themselves and they will plunge pigs into a watery grave.  Jesus asks their name, in so doing he shows them who truly is calling the shots here.  After they reply and take their proper position in this argument, Jesus gives them permission to go into the pigs.  Who gives permission but one with authority.  Jesus owns them.  Jesus is the master of all the angels, fallen and otherwise, and he still issues commands which must be obeyed.  Satan would seem like their master,but Satan himself is a sniveling underling who has ideas above his station.  He can not rescue his minions from the hand of true justice and authority.  The mind of a pig can not survive in competition with the mind of a demon.  However, for the man created in the image of God, his contest with a legion of demons is at an end.  He is at peace.  Joy and laughter can now well up within him, free to flow from the redemption from Jesus.  He knows who has healed him, it is Jesus.  In another way, he is only an initiate.  He knows he knows nothing of his wonderful saviour.  He sits quietly hoping to learn.  He is a natural candidate for discipleship.  But that is not his calling.  He is to be an apostle with one calling.  He will have a simple message:  “Jesus once found me in a ruined state.  He transformed me from within.  He has given me freedom.”  Then again, that is the testimony of all of us who have truly met Christ.  He has taken us all from darkness into light.  He has freed us all from the voices of our flesh.  We all have a story to tell.

However, the power of the miracle leaves us with puzzlement at the reaction of the people.  They want none of this.  They want Jesus to leave.  They have experienced great economic lost and all they see is the threat to their income.  With no pigs to sell, who will put bread on the table?  Yet standing there with them is the very Bread of Life.  Standing there with them is the one who will come back to the hills nearby and feed a legion with baskets to spare.  But they are earthy, worldly, practical, pragmatic, and lost.  Jesus will knock on the doors of their conscience with the constant rapping of the freed man’s testimony.  However, they will turn away from life and embrace a path which seems right to them.  They will rebuild their empire which spawned an ungodly legion.  They will rebuild an economy which filled their bellies with unclean flesh.  they will rebuild a kingdom that Jesus has defeated and the Kingdom of God will walk away.

Prayer

What is this life about?  Why do your children still need jobs and money and community, when these things can lead us so far astray?  Take our work and our homes and our churches and cast out the impurities.  Help us to walk gladly toward the gate of death without working for fleshly immortality.  Let us embrace a life of death that we may truly live.  Let us be crucified daily so that we may live resurrected daily.  Let us walk in your way and build your Kingdom, for your glory.  Amen

Questions

1. Where does Jesus go?
2. What is the condition of the man before and after he meets Jesus?
3. Why does Luke tell us about yet another exorcism?
4. How is your spirit oppressed?  How would Jesus set you free?
5. How are those around you oppressed?  How would your testimony set them free?

²² One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, ²³ and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. ²⁴ And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. ²⁵ He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marvelled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Who Is Jesus?

Adult Sunday School at The Chapel’s McHenry Campus meets at 8:30 a.m. and is generally taught by Ken Gates.  Yesterday he left me in charge and we looked at the person of Jesus.  We asked the question, “Who is Jesus?”  One of the members of Sunday School had suggested that we meet at 8:00 to prepare ourselves with prayer and another asked if we could mix silent reflection with corporate prayer.  We started by focusing on Jesus.  We repeated his precious name to ourselves as a means of focusing our minds.  We brought him our needs and requests and we prepared our hearts to read Philippians 2:1-11.  Rather than read it to ‘git ‘er done’ like many Americans, we read it slowly and read it three times.  Each time it struck us with more depth.  We shared the different phrases that seemed to resonate with us personally and then we asked the question the disciples asked in the boat, “Who is this?”

This question is the central question to the gospels.  It is the central question to our lives.  The disciples had seen him perform miracles in the lives of individuals, but they had not seen him overpower nature on this scale before.  A person who can take a storm and make it cease has powers which only seem to be written about in fiction.  That is why many, who lack faith, dismiss accounts like this one as fabrications composed by creative minds in order to teach some truth about God and His Son.  However, many of us believe this is not a literary fabrication.  It is evidence of exactly who Jesus is.  We can go to him in a storm.  We can trust him in any circumstance to take control and do what is right.

In the evening, yesterday, a group we have dubbed Broken Pieces came to gather for the second time.  We feel called by God to share our stories of brokenness together and support each other.  Last night one of those present felt led to have us pray for a little boy who is severely disabled after falling out of a window.  We laid hands on him and prayed.  Is Jesus the kind of man who can heal such a person?  It is a stretch for my faith to pray in this way.  However, because I believe that Jesus is the same man who calmed the storm, I believe Jesus can bring a boy back from the effects of a great disaster.

This morning my children listened to DVD 11 of Phil Vischer’s What’s in the Bible? The series has tough questions and it talked about how the apostles in Acts were saved in some instances and allowed to die in others.  How can we tell if God will calm a storm or allow us to drown?  Phil Vischer pointed out that sometimes God graciously gives us a foretaste of the future when all things will be as they are meant to be.  There will be no more sickness, sorrow, or pain.  He also said that there are times when Grandpa doesn’t get better, our dog doesn’t come home, or other terrible things happened.  This is because we live in a world that is still deeply troubled by sin.  God sometimes allows us to endure its affects, and other times he graciously lifts its affects from us.  I pray that those in the Broken Pieces group will experience God’s grace and I know they will.  Either the storms will be lifted or Jesus’ presence will be real as they ride through dark clouds and tumultuous waves.  To know peace in every circumstance, we have to ask ourselves, “Who is this?”  Then we have to follow him wherever he leads and he will give us one more piece of the answer.

Prayer

Jesus, I want to see healing.  I want to see miracles.  I want to see storms calmed.  I don’t know if my motives are for me or for your kingdom.  I know that I do not like to see suffering and I trust that you don’t either.  However, I accept that suffering is often the best scenario for growth.  Please help me to know how to walk and to pray in the faith which you require in your disciples.

Questions

1. Where do the disciples travel?
2. How can such a storm happen on such a little lake?
3. What does Jesus’ action teach about Jesus?
4. What do you believe Jesus can do?
5. How does your faith compare with that of the disciples?

One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷ And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, ³⁸ and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. ³⁹ Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰ And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”

⁴¹ “A certain money-lender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³ Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” ⁴⁴ Then turning towards the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷ Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” ⁴⁸ And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ⁴⁹ Then those who were at table with him began to say among^[h] themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” ⁵⁰ And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, ² and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, ³ and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them^[a] out of their means.

Jesus Loves Women

In titling the piece this way, I may communicate some of the scandal that was in the room when she came near him.  If I had titled it as “Jesus Loves a Prostitute” it would come nearer to the scandal.  Jesus’ love of women comes through quite clearly in this passage.  Jesus was invited by a curious Pharisee to have a public dinner at his house.  The doors would have been open and the whole town would have been present.  This includes some ‘undesirables’ or sinners.  When I think of the equivalent woman turning up at a church pot luck it may be Lady Gaga or some sex slave.  In the case of Lady Gaga there would be the public notoriety that this woman’s life has been dedicated to things that are dark and self-serving.  In the comparison with a sex-slave, although this woman was known about town she may have been forced into the profession by harsh circumstances.  It would seem that she was good at her job because she had expensive perfume that she may have received from a benefactor or have paid for with her wages.  Of course, there is the possibility this was a family heirloom.  Wherever she got the expensive perfume from, she breaks it over Jesus’ feet and washes his feet with her hair and her tears.  There is something sensual (stimulating the senses) about her actions.  She is also intimate.  She has come forth from the crowd and she has singled herself out and come close enough to Jesus to touch him.  Like any disciple, she has moved from the crowd to the Master’s feet.

Simon is now satisfied that Jesus is not the prophet people thought he was.  A prophet would have known her history and would have rejected her.  However, Jesus gives a parable about his own love for this woman.  He says in affect that he has an unconditional acceptance of this woman.  He knows her history and he does not hold it against her.  Firstly, it is apparent Jesus does know her past.  Love for people is cultivated by knowing them intimately.  Pornography treats all women the same.  It treats them like inhuman cardboard cutouts.  This woman has been treated by many men as a sex object.  The men who have been with her have been with her body, but they have failed to know her in a more significant way that would qualify as love.  A woman is created to be known and to know others.  In our sexualized society, like Simon, we are afraid that if we open up to any woman other than our wife, if we inquire into their health, if we treat them like more than an object, it will be some kind of scandal.  Ironically, it is a sexualized perspective that leads to a lack of intimacy and healthy relationship, rather than leading to being with more women.

this principle also carries over into a hostage situation.  It is advised that if you are captured, you talk with your captor.  In so doing you become human to them, and they find it harder to harm you.  The principle is that as you reveal yourself to someone it is more likely they will view you appropriately, not less likely.  Simon is distanced from the prostitute.  Rather than treat her as a human being he treats her as a prostitute.  She is not someone whose services he wants to purchase.  However, that is her identity to him.

The second aspect that sets Jesus apart, is his unconditional acceptance of her.  He extends grace to her and she loves him much according to Jesus’ parable.  So, in this passage Jesus unconditionally accepts a prostitute in a sensual outpouring of her love and he challenges a religious man for his reaction of horror and shock.

As we look at this we must challenge our appropriate interplay between the sexes.  When I was a student at Moody, there was a girl on our sister floor who wouldn’t come out with her brothers any more because she had a boyfriend.  This reduced us all to potential husbands.  She was objectifying us men in the same way that pornography does.  We were of no value if we couldn’t satisfy her longings for a white-picket-fence and a pastoral husband.  I see a polarizing in North America, especially after marriage, of men and women into separate groups.  They don’t really develop a sound understanding of each other.  They treat the other sex as alien and are worried about getting too close.

Jesus is public about his connections with women.  They supply his needs and he accepts them from all walks of life.  One of his female supporters had seven demons, another had a prestigious job.  Jesus lets a woman be a woman, he lets her reveal her heart, but he does not sexualize or fantasize about these women.  He loves them with a purity that is appropriate for a sister and a mother.  In fact, in other sections of the Bible i declares that we should have familial relationships with those who are in Christ.  Jesus does not take them into the shadows and have illicit relationships with them, preying on their vulnerability and self-disclosure.  However, he does not hide from them.  He does not entreat them to become more like men, so that they can be accepted.

This passage should challenge the composition of our friendship circles and church groups.  Do we sexualize them by unnecessary exclusion?  Do we appropriately mix the groups in healthy ways?  Why does the composition of our children’s groups remain co-ed when much of our adult experience becomes gender specific?  These are thoughts to be considered and I think the path to Jesus’ purity in this area would be a thorny path to walk.  For women who feel alienated, objectified, or misunderstood, though, there is always a man who can understand them with pure motives, unconditional acceptance, and a complete knowledge.  And he accepts them as a woman.

Prayer

May men accept women with unconditional love as Jesus did.  May we seek to know them deeply and in such a way treat each woman in an appropriate way according to our relationships.  May we have purity of motives, but also not leave each other in relative isolation.  The genders were created to complement each other and we can’t do that without each other. 

Questions

1. What incident is central to this passage?
2. How does Jesus respond?
3. How does Simon respond?
4. How do men still resemble Henry Higgins in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY ?
5. How should men relate to women in healthy ways as they grow older?

¹⁸ The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, ¹⁹ calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” ²⁰ And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” ²¹ In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. ²² And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers^[e] are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. ²³ And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

²⁴ When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus^[f] began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? ²⁵ What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. ²⁶ What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. ²⁷ This is he of whom it is written,

²⁸ I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” ²⁹ (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just,^[g] having been baptized with the baptism of John, ³⁰ but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)

³¹ “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? ³² They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling to one another,

³³ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ ³⁴ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ³⁵ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

Devout Doubt

John the Baptist wants to believe and yet he has his doubts.  He has been isolated in a cell and has had plenty of time to think through the outworking of his declaration that Jesus is the Messiah.  John the Baptist faithfully proclaimed the message that God had given him, but he probably had some specific ideas of how things would play out.  Israel’s expected Messiah would have been a conquering king who would drive out the Romans and establish a new era of prosperity for the Jewish people.  This did not seem to be happening with Jesus.  I think John was struggling.  He doubted whether he had jumped the gun and declared Jesus to be the Messiah when he had actually foreseen the arrival of someone more dynamic and overpowering.

Jesus was dynamic and overpowering in just the way Isaiah and others had foretold.  Jesus makes reference to Isaiah’s prophecies in his own response.  His dynamism and power were shown in lifting up the underclass of society, he was showing how life should be lived in the Kingdom of God and he was bringing it as a grass roots movement which was changing the world from the bottom to the top.

Many today have expectations and understandings concerning Jesus.  Some think that if they live a moral life, good things should happen to them.  Others think that Jesus should give them victory over sin in quick and easy ways.  Some think that belief in God should require little effort and God’s existence should be plain for all people to see.  However, Jesus brings a Kingdom where he works in ways that we do not expect.  He often pushes his servants to points where they break so that they will learn surrender.  He defies our limited attempts to define him and then shows obvious signs of his presence when we give up the search.  He seems to give us clear guidance into a situation only to turn the situation upside down.  Like John, we are left wondering whether Jesus knows what he is doing. 

Unlike John, the Pharisees have contempt for Jesus.  They doubt him from the beginning.  They demand Jesus and John show God in ways they invent.  Because Jesus does not play to their tune, they dismiss him.  They have no understanding of their need of grace.  They are spoiled brats who whine and pout because they have no faith.  Jesus despairs over the cynics and critics, but he reaches out and encourages John in his struggles.

Prayer

When we don’t understand and we see no way forward, hear our prayer.  When we are afraid and the night seems dark, be our light.  Help us to encourage those whose faith is weak and strengthen us in time of trial.

Questions

1. Why does John doubt?
2. What does he ask Jesus?
3. How does Jesus respond differently to the struggle of John and the struggle of the Pharisees?
4. Are you ever beset with doubts?
5. How does Jesus lead people through their doubts?