Gospels-Acts
Mark 3:7-19
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Jesus Appoints the Twelve audio (4MB)
Mark 3:7-19
Imagine Jesus appeared in Melbourne today and was looking to form a band of disciples. What sorts of people do you think he might look for? People with influence? Media savvy types? University trained professionals? People who are good with words, good at presenting the right image? It’s interesting isn’t it, that that’s the type we often think about when we think about how to present the gospel to the world? What sort of people are invited to join the Archbishop in his BMW Edge breakfast conversations? Who do they invite to speak at the Melbourne prayer breakfast? What sort of people are asked to lead the big churches?
Mark 4:1-20
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- Written by: George Hemmings
The Nature of the Gospel audio (5MB)
Do you see what I see?
When you look at this picture, I wonder what you see? A young lady in silhouette, or a cartoon man playing the saxophone? There’s only one picture, but people see different things. By the end of Mark 3, the disciples must be wondering the same thing about Jesus. How is it that people have such different reactions to him? Some people, including Jesus’ own family, thought he’d gone mad. The religious leaders said Jesus was a monster, that he was Satan or at least on Satan's side. The disciples saw Jesus differently though. He was the one they'd chosen to follow, even if they couldn't understand everything he said or did just yet. To them Jesus wasn’t mad or a monster, but their master. But they must have wondered, why doesn't everyone see this? Why doesn’t everyone follow him?
It's a question we might still ask today. Why are there so many different reactions to Jesus? You might know that the word gospel means good news. The news that Jesus came to restore us to full relationship with God, isn’t just good, it’s great! It’s the best news in the world! But if that’s the case, why doesn’t everyone respond with joy? Why is it that people still reject the gospel?
Mark 4:35-5:20
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Power Over Sea and Spirits audio (5MB)
Di & I were watching a show the other day where they were previewing the latest movies and one came up that we decided was just too close to the truth to bear watching. It was based on the tsunami in 2004. Do you remember it? Those horrific scenes of the ocean rolling in and swallowing everything in its path. [video clip] 230,000 people died in 4 different countries. Do you remember watching the news reports and being reminded once again of the awesome power of God’s creation and humans’ inability, despite our great advances in science and technology, to fully control it?
Of course to the ancient peoples of the middle east, the sea, in particular, was seen as the image of unpredictability, of anarchy, of all the forces of evil that opposed God and his people. You can understand why, can’t you? The sea can be a fearsome thing even for those who know it well. [Video clip - the Perfect Storm] [Well the storm on Galilee wasn’t quite a Perfect Storm but] as we’ll see as we go through today’s passage Jesus’ disciples were among those who knew the sea and yet could be afraid of it.
In fact in today’s passage we find two types of forces that people fear. First there’s the power of the sea, which we all understand, but then there’s that other power that so many fear because they can’t understand it or comprehend it. That is the power of the spirit world. [Again there’s something very contemporary about this issue as well. TV shows and movies regularly portray all sorts of supernatural forces that our modern, scientifically trained, minds don’t want to admit. Yet these forces have been known and talked about since the scriptures were first written.]
I wonder how many of us have trouble believing that God still intervenes in the world in a miraculous way. When we pray do we really believe that God can and will answer our prayers? Or do we hedge our prayers to make them more ‘reasonable’, not asking for anything that’s outside the realms of the rational and explainable? Do we asking for patience rather than healing? Do we prefer to put up with the hardships of life rather than ask God to change them? Or are we so overcome by the troubles that we face that we simply forget to look to God for help?
Mark 5:21-43
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Faith to Heal audio (4MB)
If you were here last week you may remember that I asked whether you have trouble believing that God still intervenes in the world in a miraculous way. Well, a similar question arises today. Not whether you believe that God can answer your prayers, rather do you believe that he will answer your prayers?
Do you wonder whether God will listen to you because you’re not sure if you’ve been good enough? Do you think to yourself, “I haven’t really been good enough lately to ask him that.” Or do you sometimes make deals with God and then find that you’ve broken the agreement you had so you think you’ve blown it. Well let me suggest that it all comes back in the end to what you think faith is. What is it that faith in God hangs on? Is it something in ourselves? Does God look at us and decide whether we have enough faith before answering? Or is it something else.
In our reading today we find the account of two quite different people who had faith in Jesus. But we find the account cleverly interwoven by Mark so that as we go through it we see a number of contrasts and a number of similarities.
Mark 6:1-13
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- Written by: Ivy Wong
Many successful people have been rejected.
For example, Woolworth’s founder Frank Winfield Woolworth.
He was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store; his boss said he lacked the sense needed to do so.
Soichiro Honda is the founder of the Honda company, one of the well-known large car companies. When Mr Honda went for a job interview to work for the Toyota Company as an engineer, he was rejected and was told that he was not fit for the job!
Walt Disney was hired to work at the Kansas City Star newspaper. He was later fired from the paper for his “lack of creativity”.
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4 years old and did not read until he was 7. His parents and teacher thought he was “sub –normal” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable.”
Thomas Edison: his teacher said he was “too stupid to learn anything”
Beethoven, his music teacher once said of him "as a composer, he is hopeless".
Jesus did so many miracles; including healing the sick, calmed the wind and sea and brought people back to life. Yet he was rejected by people in his home town.
Jesus is just like these famous people, people rejected them just because they didn’t have faith in them. They didn’t trust them.
Why’s that?
Let’s find it out from today’s bible passage.
