Sermons

As Mark watches Peter die a martyr’s death, he resolves that the ministry of Jesus must be written down. The Gospel he left behind is the story of the Son of God, who came in the form of a servant, served, and gave his own life as a ransom. John the Baptist proclaims a baptism of repentance at the Jordan River, and even among those who came out to be baptized were Pharisees who said they had nothing to repent of.

The phrase “the beginning of the Good News” means that all the law and sacrifices of the Old Testament came to an end at the cross of Jesus, and a new age began. Water baptism is confessing one’s faith within the church community. Baptism with the Holy Spirit is meeting God personally through grace that he gives on his own initiative. If a person’s words and actions do not change even after baptism, that person cannot be said to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Mark records that on the night Jesus was arrested, someone ran away in fear, though Scripture does not say for certain that this person was Mark. Mark later grew in faith, falling and getting up again and again, and he preached the gospel, filling the place Peter and Paul had left. Faith takes a different amount of time to grow in each person, so the church must wait in love for a brother who is weak.

As Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, the people spread their cloaks on the road, wave palm branches and cry out, “Hosanna!” The word is not a shout of praise but a plea: “Save us, please.” Yet only five days later those same people have become a crowd shouting for him to be crucified.

The salvation they longed for was worldly power to free them from Roman oppression, but the salvation Jesus meant to give was the restoration of a broken relationship with God. From the moment humanity was driven out of Eden for its disobedience, it stood under God’s judgment with no way of escape, and Jesus gave himself as a ransom to close that gap. The crowd that turned away as soon as Jesus’ path parted from their expectations is also a picture of ourselves, for whenever God’s work runs contrary to what we expect, we too can all too easily end up standing against him.

This is the time to ask whether we are holding on to success and prosperity in this world more tightly than to salvation. Each day we must lift our gaze from ourselves back to God, so that our thanksgiving and our lives do not go separate ways, and so that we do not quietly slip our own merit in alongside the merit of Christ. The salvation already received comes not from our devotion but wholly from grace, and within that grace all that remains is to live out with joy the Kingdom of God, which will be brought to completion with Jesus at his return.

A man who is deaf and can barely speak is brought to Jesus. Jesus takes him aside, away from the crowd, puts his fingers into his ears and touches his tongue. Then he looks up to heaven, sighs and says, “Ephphatha.” At that moment the man’s ears are opened, his tongue is set free, and he speaks plainly.

Without ears to hear, a person may hear the mysteries of God yet neither understand them nor pass them on. Like that sick man, we too had ears closed by the noise of the world, and we had grown so used to the darkness that we could not see the light. It is the cross of Jesus Christ that has opened those ears and eyes. Now we have become people who can tell good words from evil ones, and the narrow way from the broad.

Only where we deny ourselves and take up our own cross can fruit be borne, just as an acorn falls to the ground and puts down roots. God gives even rebuke and discipline as an opportunity, not because he hates but because he loves. When someone realizes this and repents, the miracle of Ephphatha always takes place in that life. Proclaiming the truth we have heard, and so bringing that same miracle to other souls, is the offering of ourselves we give at Thanksgiving.

Just as Jesus had said, that though one dies, one will live, and will never die, he rose again three days after his death on the cross. The Roman soldiers trembled with fear, but the elders paid them to spread the rumor that the disciples had stolen the body. Even so, Jesus appeared first to the women, Mary Magdalene among them.

The women and the disciples had plainly heard him say that he would rise again, yet they could not believe until they saw it with their own eyes. Thomas, too, declared that he would not believe unless he could touch him with his own hands. People are like this: they insist on seeing before they will believe, and, forgetting the word they have heard, they pour all their effort into what can be seen.

Yet God’s word has never once changed. As he had promised, Jesus met his disciples in Galilee, gave them the Holy Spirit and commanded them to preach the gospel to the whole world. The risen Jesus is alive even now and will come again; so it falls to the faithful not to doubt, but to entrust their lives to him and to live out the word they have heard.

When Jesus collapses from exhaustion, the Roman soldiers seize Simon of Cyrene as he passes by and force him to carry the cross in his place. Simon was only a stranger who had come to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and he finds himself on that road with no preparation of heart at all.

All the way to Golgotha, Simon sees from close at hand how Jesus is nailed to the cross, the words he exchanges with the robbers, his patience and his silence. The road he began against his will opened his eyes, and in later years his son Rufus and his household became a family of faith who gave great help to the apostle Paul.

It is all right if the work of God begins under compulsion. In worldly work, the harder one strives, the heavier the burden grows, but the work of God becomes lighter the more one shoulders it. That one day when he happened to be seized made Simon and his descendants a blessed people.

Pilate asks Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, and three times declares that he finds no guilt in him. Yet when the chief priests stir up the crowd, he washes his hands and gives way to the cry to crucify him.

Had Jesus defended himself there, he might have gone free. But then the plan of salvation that God had long prepared would have come to nothing. His silence, then, was not helplessness; facing the suffering he had to bear, he was not swayed by his feelings.

The name of God’s people is not to be taken lightly. Those who bear it need to be bold in what is right and, for the salvation of souls, must learn like Jesus to endure patiently and to keep silent.