Mark 15:16-28 and 1 Cor 1:18-29
Christ the King

For those who follow the liturgical year, today is officially the last Sunday of the Christian Calendar. Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent and is thus the first Sunday of the new Christian Calendar.

Whoever helped to compile the Christian Liturgical Calendar felt that on the last Sunday of the Christian year, we should go out with a bang, and so the theme that many Christians and Church’s of all denominations, and all around the world will be reflecting on today is the theme of Christ the King. As we have spent the last year focusing on Mark’s Gospel, I would like to use Mark’s Gospel today as the lense through which we explore this theme of Christ the King.

The opening verse of Mark’s Gospel is only 13 words long and yet it has three allusions to royalty, kingship and empire.

It reads simply: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, the son of God.

The first allusion to kingship is the word Christ, or Messiah meaning anointed one. The kings of Israel were anointed by oil to set them apart for the office of king. They were thus called God’s anointed one’s.

The second are the words ‘son of God’. Now for centuries as Christians, we have been trained when we hear that term as a statement of Jesus’ divinity. But in the Old Testament, the term son of God was one of the titles given to the kings of Israel. As God’s representative the King was called God’s son, ruling Israel on God’s behalf.

The third word is the word Gospel itself, which is translated as Good News. It was a word used by the Roman Empire’s propaganda machine which would send out messages of Good News throughout the Empire proclaiming the victories of Caesar as he brought peace to the world through military might and domination. The good news of victory.

So here in the first verse of Mark’s Gospel, our expectations are high. This is a story about a new monarch, a new king of Israel, an anointed one. Maybe even a king who will rival Caesar and the Roman Empire.

The second place where the theme of kingship comes up in Mark’s Gospel is in the baptism of Jesus, the moment of his anointing. Whereas as David in the Old Testament was anointed with oil by Samuel in the Old Testament to take over as King instead of Saul, Jesus is anointed by God himself as the Spirit descends upon him. The voice from heaven “This is my son” are words from Psalm 2:7 indicating the choosing of a king. Jesus, God’s chosen ruler. The king designate.

The rest of the Gospel represents Jesus trying to teach his Way to his disciples... but they continually fail to understand it. They know what normal kings should behave like. But Jesus keeps saying strange things like:

• The first will be last, the last will be first.
• If you want to save your life you must lose it.
• If anyone wants to be great in the Kingdom of God he must be least and the slave of all.
  
• If anyone wants to be great in the kingdom of God he or she needs to become like a little child.
  

In addition Jesus begins associating with strange people, the lowest of the low in society.

What kind of kingdom is this that Jesus is establishing? What kind of king is this?

In our passage that we read today, we see the moment of coronation and the moment of the enthronement of Jesus. But what a strange coronation it is. What a strange enthronement? The coronation and enthronement scenes of Mark’s Gospel are none other than the mocking, the torture and the crucifixion of Jesus.

The coronation scene starts with the soldiers dressing Jesus up in a purple robe – a sign of royalty. Next, instead of a crown of Gold, it goes on as they twist thorns and briars into the shape of a crown and place it on his head. Next, instead of touching his head with a scepter, a sign of authority and power, they spit at him and strike him over the head with a stick. Instead of bowing with respect they mock him as they fall on their knees pretending to pay homage.

Next on the way to his enthronement, Jesus is offered wine and myrrh. Again, there are royal connotations. Myrrh was used as part of the anointing oil in Israel used for priests and kings.

Then, instead of Jesus being enthroned on a throne in a glorious palace at the heart of the city, Jesus’ enthronement takes place outside the city walls where he is hoisted up on a cross and crucified. A sign is displayed above him with the words: “King of the Jews”. It is the first time in Mark’s Gospel that the word king is explicitly used to describe Jesus.

What kind of a story of kingship is this? What kind of a king is this? What kind of a victory is this? Jesus seems to be the very opposite of a king. Mark’s Gospel turns the whole idea of kingship, power and authority upside down, turning it on its head. So much for being a king to rival Caesar.

And yet, at the end of the enthronement scene there is a twist in the story. We find what some have described as a fascinating switch of allegiance. When Jesus breathes his last, and gives up his spirit, we read that a Roman soldier, whose allegiance was to Caesar (who was known as a ‘son of the gods’), seemingly switches his allegiance. Seeing how Jesus died, the Roman soldier said: “Surely this was the son of God”.

A few months ago I found a really interesting article in the New Statesman dated from September 2016. It was written by Tom Holland, the contemporary British writer and historian, who has done some significant research and writing on Greek and Roman history as well as the history of Islam and Muhammad. He writes that from his early twenties, he had come to view Christianity as a superstition that had nothing left to offer western culture. But the more he studied Greek and Roman history, the less and less he could identify with the callousness and violence of its values in which those at the lowest end of society were regarded as expendable, as being less human and less valuable than those at the top.

He thus came to a surprising discovery about himself, that his own values as a secular western atheist, were not those of the Romans and the Greeks, but deeply and profoundly Christian.

In his article he refers to the passage we read from 1 Corinthians where Paul speaks of Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, and yet he writes that it is this image and message of Christ crucified that continue to provide many of the underlying values that leave their mark and imprint on contemporary Western secular culture.

Holland concludes that this message of Christ crucified “...is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us who live in post-Christian societies still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. [And] ...why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value."

In closing, I would like to refer again to a few lines from the little ancient Chinese book of wisdom called the Tao Te Ching which captures something of the spirit of Christ the king as we find it in Mark’s Gospel:


“The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.

The gentlest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

Teaching without words,
performing without actions:
this is the Master's way.”



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Mark 13 1-8

In about 2011, we visited my brother and sister-in-law in London and had an opportunity to attend a communion service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The sheer scale of it all was very impressive, especially as one looked up and saw tourists walking around the dome. They looked so tiny from down on the ground.

I have a sense of what the disciples must have been feeling in our reading this morning. Our text from Marks Gospel opens today with the disciples and Jesus leaving the Jerusalem Temple saying to Jesus: “Look, what large stones and what large buildings!”

In this passage we see that the disciples are real country bumpkins. The fact that they are so impressed with the large stones and large buildings of Herod’s Temple complex in Jerusalem reveal that they were not very familiar with the temple. They had not spent enough time in Jerusalem to have become familiar with the temple so that it no longer surprised them by it’s size.

Secondly, it is clear that the disciples are particularly interested by external things, outward displays of wealth and power. It is interesting, because our passage today comes just after another passage that is also about outward displays of wealth and power.

In that passage it was the rich and famous of Jerusalem who made a big display of their wealth and their generosity by making a boastful outward display of how much money they were contributing to the temple treasury. But Jesus was not so impressed, because they were giving out of their wealth.

Jesus was far more impressed with the poor widow who put in a few copper coins, but for Jesus her contribution was much more significant, because in his words, she gave all she had to live on, while the wealthy gave of their spare money. It didn’t make much of a difference in the end to their standard of living. They gave of their excess.

In that passage, Jesus was not taken in by large outward displays of wealth power and status.

In this passage today, Jesus seems like wise unimpressed. Jesus doesn’t join the disciples in their amazement at the large buildings and large stones. Size doesn’t seem to impress Jesus very much.

Earlier in the gospel, he had tried to teach his disciples that very point when he spoke of the Kingdom of God being like a mustard seed. For those who knew their Jewish Scriptures, they would have expected Jesus to say that the Kingdom of God was like a great towering Cedar of Lebanon. Instead, Jesus said it was like a mustard seed, a small seed, which in fact didn’t grow into a very impressive plant at all. It was more like a bush than a tree. Some would suggest, even more like a weed because of the way it spread and took over a garden.

Jesus was not taken in by great outward displays of wealth, power and status. Not taken in by large buildings and large stones.

Jesus knew that nothing in this world lasts forever, kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall. Outward displays of wealth and power only last a season before the sands of time blow over them and great buildings are turned into rubble.

“Do you see these great buildings?” Jesus says to the disciples, “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

In other words, Jesus suggests, don’t put your faith in great buildings, they don’t last forever. Don’t put your faith in external things, the winds of impermanence and change will blow over them.

The kingdom of Jesus is not to be found in outward external things. The kingdom of Jesus is not of the world of things at all. The kingdom of Jesus is a hidden dimension of the heart, and when we have entered that Kingdom the outward glories of the world no longer seem quite as important as they used to. When we have entered that Kingdom of the heart, we will discover that true and deep happiness can never be equated with external material things. The Kingdom of God is the kingdom of the uncreated, that which existed before anything came to be and will continue to exist when all things will come to an end. When the great buildings of the world crumble and are thrown down, the uncreated, silent kingdom of the heart will remain, and a joy that wells up from within that is not dependent on anything external, but wells up all on its own. Uncaused, uncreated, a joy and a happiness that comes from touching that which is eternal, that which has no beginning and that which will have no end.

The disciples said to Jesus, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus said to them, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”

If Jesus is not impressed with the great outward display of Herod’s great Temple complex... what does impress Jesus? There are a few things in the Gospels....

• In our passage just prior, Jesus is impressed by a poor Jewish widow who gives her last few pennies to God out of deep faith and devotion...
• Jesus tells the story of a Samaritan, a heretic, someone who lived on the other side of the tracks, who stops to show an act of kindness to his enemy, a Jew who had been attacked and robbed on left for dead on the road.
• A man named Zachaeus, a traitor and a swindler, who had grown rich at the expense of others who has a change of heart that makes him want to put right what he had done wrong
• People who do acts of kindness in secret out of the goodness of their hearts, avoiding making a display to get the attention of others, not even allowing their left hand to know what their right hand is doing.
• A soldier, who cares enough for his servant, that he humbles himself and comes to Jesus seeking help. And when Jesus agrees to come with him, He does not feel worthy to have Jesus come under his roof.
• A women who anoints Jesus head with expensive oil as an act of love and devotion... it may seem wasteful... but it is an expression of a heart over-flowing with love... and for Jesus love is worth more than any amount of perfume.

I would like to end close with a few short quotes from the Tao Te Ching, that little Chinese book of wisdom that touches on some of our themes today...

"When people see some things as beautiful
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

If you over esteem great men,
people become powerless
If you overvalue possessions
people begin to steal.

Success is as dangerous as failure.
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
You will always keep your balance."

At Sunday's Remembrance Service we were privileged to have Jeffrey Martin preaching to us. Jeffrey is member of our church and a local historian who has done research into the history of those who served in World War 1 from Dromore and having written the book "Dromore's Great War Heroes".  He has also contributed to a number of other publications.  The audio of his Sunday sermon is attached.

Mark 12:28-34

In our passage today we come to see the heart of Jesus teaching in Mark’s Gospel.

A religious lawyer comes to Jesus and asks him what is the greatest commandment of them all. It seems he was testing Jesus to see how well versed Jesus really was in the Jewish Scriptures, but perhaps also wanting to weigh Jesus up a little, trying to discern what Jesus was really all about... what was it at the heart of Jesus that motivated him, that drove him on and what was the heart of the message of Jesus that he was spreading to the people.

Jesus responds:

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And the second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.

For Jesus the essence of the Law can be boiled down to a single word: Love

Love of God, Love of Neighbour, and Love of self.

I would like to make three brief observations:

Firstly, isn’t it interesting when you think about it. You cannot force someone else to love. Love is therefore not actually something you can command another person to do. Love by it’s very nature requires freedom. To command or force is in a way a denial of freedom. If love is to be genuine it needs to be a free response.

Calling it the greatest commandment is therefore kind of strange when you think about it. If truth be told, you can only invite someone to love. Rather than being called the greatest commandment, it may in actual fact be better to call it the Greatest Invitation. God’s greatest invitation to us is to learn the way of love.

Last week on the notices I had a small quote: "There is only one happiness in life. To love and to be loved".

The Greatest Commandment or the Greatest Invitation to Love is in fact an invitation to find the only thing in life that can truly bring happiness: Love.

Secondly, isn’t it interesting that Jesus responds to the religious law expert, not with just one commandment as was requested, but with two. Clearly for Jesus the two commandments were thoroughly interwoven like two threads making up one garment, or perhaps like two sides of a single coin... you cant have one side without the other. Where the one side is truly present, you will find the other as well.

As we read in one of the Epistles of John: “How can we say we love God who we cannot see, if we do not love a brother or sister who we can see”. One of the tests for the genuineness of our love for God is our love for our brothers and sisters, our neighbours.

And in the book of James (2:8ff), our love for our neighbours, our brothers and sisters is not just about words and ideas, but about practical actions:

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? ...Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?"

Thirdly, while Jesus quotes two commandments in response to the question posed to him, what we often miss is that there are three aspects to his answer. It is not just love of God, and love of neighbour, but love of neighbour as oneself. The greatest commandment or the greatest invitation is not a call to neglect ourselves. Modern psychology would remind us that in the end, a persons inability to truly care for and love ourselves will hinder their ability to truly love and care for others. It is the same logic that is used when they give the safety drill at the beginning of a flight when in the case of emergency we are told that before we help to put someone else's oxygen mask on them, we should first fit our own.

When we come to a communion service like today, our communion is not just with God. All three dimensions of these commandments are involved. Our communion is with God but also with each other in this church community. And you cannot be in communion with another unless one shows up oneself. Communion – a coming together in union. Communion with God, communion with each other and communion with self.

I would like to close with a beautiful poem by James Leigh Hunt that expresses something of the heart of Jesus message to us today:

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:-
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?"-The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.