Again, my name is Greg if I haven't mentioned that yet. I'm one of the pastors here at the house and we are in a series called
the first
Gospel the first gospel is the gospel according to mark
It's not the first as you open the the scriptures
But it is the first one that was written and so that is why we are going through this
And so we're just gonna jump right into the scriptures
Scott it's funny that you mentioned how the sermon should go today because I was telling someone before the service
I got a real
Heady heady sermon for you today with all the kids present so can't wait to see how it goes
So let's open up the scriptures to the book of Mark
It goes Matthew mark Luke John if you don't have one of your own Bibles
we have copies hard copies out on the bookshelf you can take one of those home with you and
otherwise just download it from a digital app store and
It goes Matthew mark Luke John X Romans. See any of those you're in the right neighborhood
We're gonna be in mark 3 and we have a tradition of giving these scriptures our full attention while we read them
We can do that any number of ways
But if you'd like you can stand with me as you are able as we read from the scriptures
This is mark chapter 3 starting in verse 13
Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him
He pointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and have authority to drive out
Demons these are the 12 he appointed Simon to whom he gave the name Peter
James son of Zebedee and his brother John to them. He gave the name moon air
Jays went which means sons of thunder Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James son of Alpheus Thaddeus
Simon the zealot and Judas Iscariot who?
Betrayed him then Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat
When his family heard about this they went to take charge of him for they said he is out of his mind and the teachers
Of the law who came down from Jerusalem said he is possessed by Beelzebul by the prince of demons
He is driving out demons
So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables
How can Satan drive out Satan if a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand if a house is divided against itself
That house cannot stand and if Satan opposes himself and is divided
He cannot stand his end has come in fact
No one can enter a strong man's house without first tying him up then he can plunder the strong man's house
Truly I tell you people can be forgiven all their sins in every slander
They utter but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. They are guilty of an eternal sin
He said that he said this because they were saying he has an impure spirit
Then Jesus his mother and brothers arrived standing outside. They sent someone in to call him a crowd was sitting around and they told him
Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you. Who are my mother and my brothers?
He asked then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said here are my mother and my brothers
Whoever does God's will is my brother sister and mother. Let us pray
God of every tribe every tongue every color every nation
We thank you for the scriptures that we have them that they've been put together that they have persisted throughout the millennia
That we can read them that we can learn from them
And today I pray that whatever you have for us to learn and pray that it would stick
That it would become a part of the framework of our faith that our faith would become stronger as we become more like your son Jesus
Amen. Amen. Thanks. Y'all can have a seat if you were standing
All right, so in the space of 10 verses between verse 13 and verse 23 we have five
firsts
five firsts in 10 verses verse 13 the first mention of a mountain verse 14 first mention of the 12 disciples
Verse 19 first mention of betrayal verse 21 first mention of his family verse 23
first mention of teaching in parables and
Here's here's the deal. I'm only going to talk about two of those
So today might be one of those days where you might have more questions at the end than you did at the beginning
Because I'm not going to address most of what I read
But I wanted to make sure that I read so that you can see the context of what's happening
He there's so much happening and if I don't cover all of it, you can just blame Mark for that
Shove in too much into small sections when we look at how dense this section is how much mark is
Packing in again. We're reminded that he's an author
He's trying to communicate things with the way that he is writing and whether we mention that every week or not
I don't want us to lose track of that mark is an author
Mark is an author. He's thinking about how he's telling us
He's thinking about how he's telling this story
He's writing things next to each other and crafting this story intentionally. He's building motifs layers
themes
One way he does this is that sometimes he'll take similar events that may have actually happened days or weeks
Or months apart and he'll put all of those together
Okay
For instance last week when pastor Jen read five stories of conflict
It would be easy for us in our modern mind to think man
Like just every single thing that happened to Jesus on that day was just all about conflict man
That sounds like a really bad day
But if you read if you take your time if you slow down and you read
intentionally
Mark makes it clear that these things did not all happen in the same day
He actually writes this he says he tells the first story and then he says a few days later
And then he says once again
Then he says one Sabbath
And then he says another time
There's space between these stories and he's grouping them together to do something that authors do
to build themes
tension
momentum a sense of movement in this story
And today's section is no different
He stacks all these firsts on top of each other so that we feel like this ball that just started rolling
Isn't slowing down
Wants us to feel like everything is happening all at once
Like it's building speed
And going deeper with every single verse and so he stacks events another way that he does this is with
Stacking of meaning with the layering of stories. Okay, it's a common bible writing technique
It's kind of what I was talking about the first week of this series
It's common when you read the scriptures especially scriptures that were written in the first week
Especially scriptures that were written with a jewish background
For the story that you're reading to be intentionally calling back to other stories that you've already read
Or that they expect for you to know one of the ways he does this in today's passage
Is when he mentions a mountainside
And the 12 disciples for the first time
I'll read that part again. It says this
Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him
And he appointed
12
All right, so we're thinking about mark like an author
We're thinking about how authors have editors. Yeah, like we think okay
I want to I want to make the best decisions with every word that I use when mark wrote this
He doesn't have to say it this way
Mark doesn't have to mention a mountainside if he doesn't want to he could have just said and then on tuesday jesus selected his team
He could have said that but he doesn't he points out where they are
For a reason and he does mention the 12 and he does mention a mountainside. And so we should ask
Why why is he saying jesus went up?
Mountainside now, let's think like we are a first
century
israelite, okay
2000 years ago
Let's jump into our way back machine
If we lived back then and we were reading this for the first time and we see
A spiritual leader going up a mountain mountainside who might we think of maybe david?
Hiding in the mountainside from king saul jesus. We know this from the line of david. Maybe we could think of elijah
Meeting god on the mountainside after he ran for his life from jezebel
We know that john the baptist is like in elijah that was coming before as a forerunner
Maybe we think of abraham taking isaac up the mountainside
Wondering how god was going to provide a replacement
To save his son from being sacrificed, but the strongest connection
Would be moses
Why?
Because moses is the one that led the israelites
out of egypt and before they built the tent of meeting which is where moses would meet or the
Tabernacle which is where all the priests would meet moses would do what he would go up the mountainside
to meet with god
and the mountain
Is where he would get the law from god
Bring it back down and teach
his people
And so when we see this idea that jesus goes up the side of the mountainside he chooses 12. He says I give you
Authority to go down the mountainside
We're getting this motif from the old testament of moses receiving the law and then giving it to the people the same law
These people had been following for the 1300 years leading up to that moment
So if you're a first century jew and you read that a spiritual leader went up a mountainside moses is probably on your mind now
It doesn't mean
That mark is making this up just so that we'll think of moses. That's not what we're saying. Okay
Jesus went up the mountainside. He's not pretending like he did
But if all this is about is information if all the bible is about is giving us information
About jesus having disciples then mark doesn't have to tell us how and where he chose them
He just has to say that he chose them
He adds the detail
A because it happened and because it leads the reader deeper
into
The story does that make sense?
Yeah
Okay
So then when mark says that he chose 12 disciples, what might that remind us of?
He had 12 tribes of israel, right?
If any point mark wrote down and then jesus bought a dozen donuts
He wants us to think of 12 tribes of israel
If if any gospel writer refers to something as 12
The point is that this is somehow a reference to the 12
tribes because israel having 12 tribes is a
Core element of who they are and who they were and so now
Mark shows these two things
together the mountain
and the 12
I think
Because moses was the first person to lead
the 12 tribes
Moses is the one that led the 12 tribes out of egypt
Out of slavery and he lived with them for the next 40 years on their way to the promised land
And mark is showing how jesus is leading these people
into a new
promised land
But wait, there's more
Because if you read the bible if you're familiar with it or if you're thinking like a first century
Israelite, maybe you remember that while moses led them out of egypt
That moses didn't get to lead them through the jordan river and into the promised land. Do you guys remember that?
Moses gets to the end of his life. He dies. He hands over authority and leadership to joshua
And joshua is the one that gets to lead them
into
The land moses was the first one to lead the 12 but joshua was their leader
When they stepped into the land and received their inheritance
When for the first time listen think about this when for the first time in the history of this people that all 12 tribes had a hundred
people that all 12 tribes had a home
And a land to call their own
Because the 12 tribes started as what?
It started started as brothers
They just started as the children of jacob, right?
They were the brothers of joseph
And they went to egypt as one large family because of a famine
And 400 years later they lead as tribes of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people
So when joshua
Takes them into the land
It is the first time that they get to step into the fullness of who they are
It's the first time that as tribes they get to realize their freedom
It's the first time as tribes they get to step into their identity
It's the first time that happens in history
Of their family and if you are a first century jew you're thinking of moses
You're thinking about the exodus you're thinking about the 12 tribes you're thinking about joshua you're thinking about the
joshua you're thinking about the promised land
And if you're reading this back then
You're thinking
That you would not be calling jesus
jesus
Stay with me
If you are a jew in the first century and you're reading this
You're thinking that if you're jewish you would have said his name a little differently
And when you said his name and when you read this story it would have connected the dots differently than it does for us english
Speakers, what do I mean?
See we call jesus jesus
right
Everyone's familiar with that
Because during translations
His hebru name had a shh
In the middle of it
Had a shh sound but greek didn't have a shh in their alphabet
And so in the greek when it's translated the shh became a ss
Okay
And then his name in hebru ends with an uh sound
But in greek it was considered feminine to put the uh sound at the end of a word
And so they put in ss sound at the end of the word because that was the masculine way of saying it and they didn't want to confuse people about who he was
and then
In hebru his name starts with a yuh sound but later in german their j also made a yuh sound
And so it often got transliterated as a j but we english speakers the j's
Sounds make so what sound a juh sound and when you put all that together we end up in english saying jesus
But in the first century they called him yeshua
And everywhere
Everywhere else in the bible
That we find the name yeshua
That name is called jesus
yeshua
That name is translated
joshua
In this one moment that mark has written down
Mark shows us a spiritual leader go up a mountainside like moses
And then like joshua yeshua
Point them into the promised land that is the new kingdom of god
Do we need to get the mop for anybody's brains like guys it's two verses
It's two verses
So what do we do with this
How do we participate with this?
I'm gonna keep it short and simple because we got the kids with us and it's already been pretty heady
guys be curious
Just be curious
Like I would not recommend everybody to do this
Like I would not recommend everybody watch this show. It's called ted lasso has a lot of swearing in it
But there's this scene
where
Ted's in a pub and he's with the owner of the soccer club
And she's intimidated by her ex that that had owned the club previously
And he's trying to manipulate the situation and so ted says hey if I beat you in darts
Then you have to I think he says you can't show up to any of the games the rest of the season if I remember it correctly
and so
Ted doesn't look like he plays darts very much and this guy is
pompous
And he just starts hitting everything that he wants to hit
And it gets down to this point where ted needs an exact number of points on the dartboard in order to win
And he goes into this monologue and he said, you know
When I was a kid, I was bullied a lot
And one day I remember driving and I saw this quote by walt woodman. It said be curious
He said and I realized that all those people that gave me such a hard time they just weren't curious
Because if they were curious if people like you were curious and he hits a bull's eye
He says you might ask me a couple questions like hey ted
Do you play darts much?
And then he hits another one
And then he says and I would have told you yes every sunday
Until I was 16
He hits the winning shot
We need to be curious when we look at the scriptures
We need to ask
Something as simple as why did he mention the mountainside?
Why does he say that there's a boat?
Why does he say that his family came to get him and thought that he was out of his mind?
Why does it say that the religious leaders came down? Why does it say?
be curious
Because when this was written
There was so much more packed into it than we would see with our english-speaking american eyes today
But it's there
If you will look
And the holy spirit of god will help you see
Amen
Let's pray
God again, I thank you for your scriptures
That they are so full of who you are
They are constantly pointing us to who you are but not just who you were in that year and in that day
But to who you've always been throughout the whole story
That we call existence
Would you soften our hearts in such a way that our minds would want to know more?
And I pray that you would move in our hearts that we would always look for the work that you are doing
We would always want to participate with it
That your yes would always be our yes
Amen