What Should We Expect?
I guess one of the most difficult questions we’re faced with as a Christian is “Why do bad things happen to good people?” For those who might want to reply that “no-one is good, no not one”, I could rephrase the question to “Why do bad things happen to people who have committed their lives to God’s service?” And I could think of many examples of such bad things.
So my question today is “What should we expect?” There are plenty of examples of promises in Scripture of blessings and prosperity for those who serve God with a pure heart. So is that what we expect? Do we give to God’s work, as we saw two weeks ago, out of generosity and thankfulness, or because we’re hoping to be rewarded by God?
Do we rely on the promise that all things work together for good to those who love God, expecting that all will be well, all manner of things will be well - in our lives here and now?
Well, I think Mark may have had those questions in mind when he was compiling his gospel and he put these three instances together in the passage that we just heard read.
The passage begins with Jesus coming back to his hometown of Nazareth. On the Sabbath he’s invited to teach in the synagogue and we’re told people were astounded at his teaching. They begin to wonder where all this comes from. They’ve heard about his miracles, his words are compelling, yet there’s a problem. They know where he comes from and who he is. He’s the carpenter. Mary’s son. They certainly know her history: conceiving him out of wedlock! They know his brothers and sisters. They’re all just ordinary people. You can hear the comments circulating around the room can’t you? What makes him think he’s so special?
There’s a similar account in Luke 4, possibly of the same occasion. There he claims to be the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah coming to preach good news to the poor. What Luke reports there is the same as we find here. They take offense at him. Jesus tells them he’s not surprised: "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." He sounds almost cynical doesn’t he? In the Luke account Jesus points out that things haven’t changed since Elijah was there; and what happened that time? God sent him to a widow across the border in Sidon because the people of Israel wouldn’t accept him as a bona fide prophet. But Jesus isn’t being cynical; he’s just amazed at their level of unbelief. And we’re told he could do no deed of power there, except for laying hands on a few sick people and curing them.
So here’s our first instance of things not going well, of bad things happening; this time for Jesus himself. Why couldn’t Jesus do any deed of power in this village, when everywhere else he was a household name for doing miracles? Well clearly there was a lack of faith on their part, but there are other cases where Jesus healed someone without the person themself needing to have faith and he does do a few minor miracles here. So it isn’t just that. It’s more likely the atmosphere of total unbelief in that village, that Jesus is amazed at, that prevents it from being a place where the kingdom might flourish.
Remember when Jesus healed the blind man in John 9? Do you remember what he said to his disciples when they asked whether it was this man or his parents who’d sinned? He said it was neither the man nor his parents but rather this had happened so the works of God might be displayed in him. It seems there’s a necessary connection between Jesus’ miracles and the possibility of people’s belief in him and his kingdom. That’s why John calls them Signs. But here the people have shown that they’re actively antagonistic to the idea that he might have come from God. When Jesus heals it’s almost always done within a relationship of trust as Helen Dwyer so ably explained last week. In fact Mark has just related two events of healing: the first with a woman who simply touched his clothes because she believed that would heal her. And what did he do? He turned and called her daughter. As close a relationship as you can imagine. Then he goes on to heal a young girl who’s dying. In fact she’s died by the time he gets there but that doesn’t stop him. He takes the child’s parents into her room and in that intimate family setting he takes her by the hand and says (you can almost hear the gentleness and love in his voice) “Little girl, get up”. If only the people of Nazareth had had the faith of that leader of the synagogue in that other town. But it wasn’t to be. They’d rejected his authority and so he left and took his message elsewhere.
So we come to our second situation. Jesus moves around the other villages of Galilee but he wants to prepare his disciples for being apostles. So he sends them out in pairs to do the same sorts of things that he’s been doing, healing and casting out evil spirits. He gives them authority over the unclean spirits who might oppose them or who might be afflicting people who need to be healed. And he sends them out as prophets, clothed like a prophet and carrying what a prophet would carry – a staff and nothing else. They’re to live like a prophet, being received by the people in whatever place they come to. And again, the test of whether they’re likely to be successful is whether the places they come to are open to receiving the ministry of a prophet, demonstrated by them being received with hospitality and welcome.
But he knows that there will be places where they won’t be welcomed. Why? Well perhaps because the message they bring is not necessarily a pleasant one. Notice what we’re told in v12: “12So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.” The message of the gospel is not just good news. It’s actually a call to turn away from self-love to love of God. It’s a message of the coming of a new kingdom with a king who is to be obeyed. It’s a message that requires repentance because our natural, default position is love of self. We don’t want to hear that we’re not the centre of the universe. We don’t want to be told that God has a problem with our lifestyle, with our choices, with the way we handle our relationships.
So when we go into the world outside the church with that sort of message, no matter how gently we might present it, we’ll inevitably encounter resistance. Things won’t go well in those moments. Christians in the first century, and still today in many places, would find it very difficult to live as faithful followers of Christ.
So Jesus instructed them: when you find this happening don’t waste your time, leave that place, brush the dust off your feet as a testimony against them and go somewhere more fruitful.
Then we’re told that for the most part their mission was a success: “13They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.” Jesus’ disciples won’t always have trouble. There’ll be plenty of successes as well. So I guess one lesson from all that is that there will be times when the wise thing is to cut your losses and go somewhere else but because the gospel is the power of God for salvation we can expect to have successes along with the disappointments.
Finally our third event is the tragic end of John the Baptist.
Mark’s account begins with people wondering whether Jesus is in fact John the Baptist come back to life and this has Herod very worried since he’s the one who recently had John beheaded.
We’re given the bare bones of the story. Herod had married Herodias, his brother’s wife. She’d left or divorced Herod’s brother and so John had accused them of adultery. That made Herodias so mad at John she wanted to kill him. John then had him arrested, possibly to protect him from Herodias. But then an occasion arises that Herodias takes advantage of. Herod drinks too much at his birthday banquet and Herodias sees her chance. She gets her daughter to perform a no doubt seductive dance and Herod is besotted. He makes the foolish offer to give her anything that she wishes, up to half his kingdom. So she asks her mother’s advice and comes back and says she doesn’t want half the kingdom, just John’s head on a platter. And so it’s done. John is beheaded.
So we come back to our initial question. Why? Should John have expected this? All he’d done was speak the truth. Well actually what he’d done was to speak truth to power. And even God’s truth is not enough when the powerful won’t listen or when they feel threatened. If we think about the conversations Jesus had with Herod and Pilate on the day of his trial you’ll see that the truths Jesus told them had no impact whatsoever. They didn’t want to know. All they wanted was to get rid of this troublemaker as quickly as possible.
But here’s John the Baptist who’s served his entire life as God’s mouthpiece, proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, pointing him out to the first disciples of Jesus, gladly giving up the limelight to him, and what happens? He’s beheaded. It doesn’t sounds very fair does it?
So what about us? What should we expect as God’s people? A rose garden? He didn’t promise that did he? No, here’s what he told his disciples in John 15: “20Remember the word that I said to you, 'Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.”
Well, are you totally depressed with all that? It doesn’t sound very positive does it? But it’s not all bad news. Jesus did have some good news for them in Mark 10: 29“Truly I tell you … no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”
Membership of God’s kingdom means a membership in a huge family of people who love God and hopefully love each other. This is why we need to keep connected to others in our church. This is one place, one community that we can come to when things go wrong, when we suffer loss or disappointment, when we experience pain in some way.
We also have this reminder from Paul in Romans 5: “3We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Now I have to say that I don’t expect to have to suffer for my faith in Australia. I don’t expect to struggle financially. I do expect that my superannuation will last me into my old age. And yes I know I’m there already. But I am prepared for the possibility of loss, of illness, of tragedy of one sort or another. I know full well that we live in a world where things don’t go well on occasions. Where bad things do happen even to those who are God’s saints. I know that for some of us things may rarely go well. But this is the hope in which I live and in which I hope you live. We have God’s Spirit within us to help us to endure, to build character, to remind us of the firm hope that we have in Jesus Christ.
Which brings us back to where we started. Romans 8 tells us “28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Then it goes on to fill out this hope: “29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” What I know is that all things will work together for good because Jesus’ death and resurrection will enable us to be joined with him in God’s throne room on the last day and there he’ll share his glory with each one of us.
When I was choosing hymns for today I didn’t know what I was going to be saying but I thought I’d pick a song we hadn’t done for a while. It was only as I was writing my sermon that I realised that maybe God had prompted me to choose the next one.
So may these words that we’ll sing in a moment, written some 150 plus years ago, be the testimony of each one of us:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand
All other ground is sinking sand.
When Darkness seems to hide His face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds and will not fail
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
