Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
It's our hope that these sermons will draw you
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Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and
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Instagram and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this
sermon. God Bless. I want to read to you these
words of John Newton from the meditation page
inside cover of your bulletin. What thank you
of Christ is the test to try both your state
and your scheme? You cannot be right in the rest
unless you think rightly of him. As Jesus appears
in your view, as he is beloved or not, So God
is disposed to you and mercy or wrath is your
lot. Let me pray for us. Lord, we're thankful
again for the gospel of Mark. Lord, I thank you
for how quick it is, how well it is crafted and
the beauty of it. Most of all, Lord, we're thankful
that it points us and tells us and calls us to
our Lord. I pray this morning. that we would
heed that call, that you would touch us, uncover
our blindness, Lord. We would see you and love
you, follow you. Amen. This week I listened to
a podcast, Rethinking Ted, has anyone listened
to that? Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist
who teaches over at Wharton at Penn. He interviews
particularly people that have already like given
Ted talks He finds really interesting and he
like, you know gets deeper in with them And the
episode that I listened to was with Jacob Collier
Does anybody know Jacob Collier the music? I
almost said magician Musician he's actually kind
of like a magician, right? He's kind of amazing
Matt Monticchio our former music director put
me on him like a decade ago And he really is
kind of I did not mean say magician I don't know,
but he is kind of like a magician. He's just
this incredible artist of a musician, you know,
plays just about every instrument. Sort of goes,
brings different genres together, directs orchestras
while he's directing the audience, right? He's
won some Grammys, all this kind of stuff. He's
pretty remarkable. What he was saying in this
podcast, though, in part is that all humans are
are musicians. I don't know what you think of
that, but that's part of his contention that
we kind of have this innate what he calls wiggleness
that music brings out, this liveliness. We're
all sort of musicians if we're given sort of
the freedom. And one of the things that I think
is really interesting in this podcast that he
talks about is he talks about how music spans
all of these different emotions of being human.
So music actually is not only something that
each human has, but it's something that calls
each of us to a deeper kind of experience in
life. So he plays this augmented chord. And he
says, doesn't that sound like a fairy? It evokes
this idea of otherworldliness for us. So he plays
this augmented triad. And I promise you, I tried
to hum it. to the point that I could remember
it. And I was like, if I try that, I'm going
to mess it up, and you're not going to really
get it. But it's sort of this lifting up, right?
What is to augment, but to add to, right? To
bring you beyond, right? And this chord actually
makes you kind of think, well, there maybe is
a world beyond us. Maybe that's why it's so connected
to fairies, he says. And then he plays a diminished
chord. Diminishment, of course, is to take away
from, right? diminished chords are a little less
friendly. They're a little less hopeful. That's
kind of what it evokes in us. They're more sad.
I have hesitated to call myself a musician. This
is probably because I'm not a capital M musician,
but I've loved music my whole life. I've played
music and I've sang and all this. And I've had
a sense of what an augmented chord is and a diminished
chord and all this and how they sound. But in
some ways, I never put these things together,
that actually the words themselves are calling
us out from ourselves or actually calling us
and actually naming for us the sad realities
of the world. And even in the names of how we
sort of describe those kinds of chords has that
experience sort of built into it. Which is to
say, in some ways, I've... I've seen and I've
heard and I've even engaged with music and just
in this little kind of thing where he gets into
in this podcast, I felt like I could see things
a little bit more clearly. I was putting together
musical ideas that I and I just never put together
just in that moment. Sometimes our ears and our
eyes get opened a little bit more. Sometimes
we see things what they are a little bit more
clearly. Of course, what this also means is that
sometimes we don't. Often we don't, right? Most
often we are walking around partially blind and
partially deaf. We know this as we engage with
other people. Listening well is far beyond just
hearing what words are said. I would even say
that we rarely really listen properly. hear the
heart behind, the intent behind what is said,
the experiences behind what's said, the hopes
behind what's said. Our passage this morning,
there's a lot of different stuff going on, isn't
there? Jesus engages with this blind man. He
asks, who am I? And then he says, hey, you gotta
follow me, even to the place of suffering. But
it begins with the story of this blind man who
was brought to Jesus by others, probably his
friends. who begged Jesus to touch him, who was
then brought outside of the town, who was then
touched by Jesus twice, who also spat on him.
Doesn't that sound familiar? Does that sound
familiar? Some of you, that sounds familiar,
right? I mean, last week, last week we had a
deja vu moment, didn't we, with the Feeding of
the 4 ,000. We were reading it and we're like,
wait, that was on this page. Just the one before,
with the feeding of the 5 ,000, so much was so
similar. There were some differences, but it
was so similar, a little deja vu. And if you
remember actually two weeks ago, we had a story
that Mark told us about a deaf and a mute man
who was brought to Jesus by some of his friends
who begged him, same word. Touch him who was
brought away from those who may have maybe had
mocked him for his speech impediments and all
this Outside of the community and Jesus touched
him and one other thing he did is he spat in
that thing? And of course initially we're like
what's going on here, but what is unquestionably
happening is Deja vu again Mark doing Why why
is mark doing this y 'all repetition is the Only
a few of you listened last week. Let me say it
again. Repetition is the key of learning. Repetition
is the key of learning. Okay, we'll get it. Mark
wants you to get it. Mark and Jesus want us to
learn. They want us to hear. They want us to
see Jesus. And part of the thing that we learn
is actually the difference that's taking place
in these stories, just like the part of what
we learned in the feeding of the 5 ,000, the
feeding of the 4 ,000 is actually in the differences
of the two texts. So what's the difference here?
There's a process here that's a little bit different,
but that was sort of similar. One of the big
differences is that in the first passage, it
was the ears and the mouth, and now it's the
eyes, right? And it's an interesting process
because first Jesus touches him and he sees a
little bit. He says, I see people, but they're
like trees that are walking around. They're ants.
And then Jesus lays his hand on the man's eyes
again, and his eyes are opened. And he sees everything
clearly. Sees everything clearly. His sight is
restored. And he saw everything clearly. Now,
keep in mind, he was taken out from the town.
He's seeing people maybe walking in the distance,
but who's right there? He's seeing Jesus clearly.
And Jesus wants him to see him clearly. He wants
us to see him clearly. He wants us to move to
a deeper understanding of him. He wants us to
hear him well. Jesus wants us to see him clearly.
I think he's doing this in some ways because
we are actually a lot like the disciples in the
boat. What was the last thing Jesus said to the
disciples in the boat? After they spent so much
time with them, after they seem to do so many
wonderful miracles, after he saw the 12 baskets
gathered from the 5 ,000, the seven baskets from
the 4 ,000, he ends with, do you not yet understand?
And I wanna suggest to you that this morning
Jesus is saying is, do you not see? you do not
see. And when we have this passage, we have some
reasons why we don't see. And then I think also
we have the reason why Jesus actually wants us
to see him clearly, okay? So first a few reasons
why we don't see him clearly. So check it out
in verse 27, the next passage after this engagement
with this blind man. Jesus went with his disciples
to the village of Caesarea in Philippi, and on
the way he asked his disciples, Who do people
say that I am? Who do people say that I am? And
the response, they told him John the Baptist,
others say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets.
Which, again, is kind of a, make us scratch our
heads, right? Why, when did John the Baptist
die? Again, one more page behind, right? Chapter
six, John the Baptist has his head cut off. We
know that Elijah slipping 900 years earlier.
But what we can kind of quickly at least put
together is unquestionably, if people are saying
somebody like John, at least somebody in the
vein of Elijah, Let's say just one of the prophets.
Jesus is one of the prophets. What we can quickly
say, if we kind of just look at that little list,
is that most people are at least saying, Jesus,
you're one of the great teachers. One of the
great teachers. A lot of people went out to John
the Baptist here. A lot of people here are the
prophets of all. You're like those guys. And
doesn't kind of everybody say that? Pretty much
everybody says Jesus is a good teacher. Almost
nobody denies that. Aristotle is known as the
first teacher. Maybe some of you think of the
great teachers like Confucius or Socrates or
Solomon in the Bible. But it is an undeniable
fact that Jesus is the great teacher. Most people
think of Jesus, at least, at the very least,
as a great teacher. The Bible itself! Supposedly
there's like five, I googled it. Five billion
copies of the Bible in the world. Far more than
any other text. Far, far more than the Quran
or the Little Red Book or Don Quixote, A Tale
of Two Cities, all of the greats. I'll engage
with Jesus as at least a teacher. The Bible's
in a different category. I mean, everyone here
today and everyone who will listen to the sermon
I am betting will say Jesus is a great teacher.
His words to say that I maybe should listen to
that might guide some areas of my life So many
have had their eyes at least rubbed open to that
right They come to Jesus for advice for morals
for stories that help them understand themselves
and the world better But of course, the disciples
were saying a little bit more than this, too,
right? They were saying a little bit more than
this, which I think gets to sort of another reason
why we don't quite see Jesus clearly. The people
were saying that he is a prophet. John the Baptist.
You know, they're not just listing random good
teachers. It's John the Baptist. It's Elijah.
He's a prophet. Jesus, they are saying, is one
of those which is to say that he's sent by God.
He sent by God with the words of God. He sent
by God with the words of God to call people to
God, show them the way. So maybe you don't just
take Jesus as a good moral teacher, somebody
whose words are worth sort of considering as
you wonder how to live your life. Maybe you think
he's one of the divine ones, the gifts from God
to instruct us specifically. Muslims believe
this, right? Some say he's one of the prophets
sent by God. One of the prophets like Noah, the
great prophets, or Moses, one of the great prophets,
Esau, Jesus, great prophet. Their eyes are murky.
They still can't see. They can't make out. They
can't see Jesus. I think part of why we don't
see Jesus clearly is that we in some ways don't
see him enough, right? It's not that some people
can't see him somewhat, you know? Give me your
words. I'll go along with the idea that you may
be somehow from God. We get caught up with the
idea of having a good teacher, maybe a prophet.
My guess is that some of you maybe this morning
have at least that much of Jesus. You might not
want to go all the way, but you're like, good
teacher, I'll take it. Maybe one of the greats,
I'm there. But a partial understanding, a partial
seeing of Jesus is not what Jesus longs for.
He desires. It's not what he's about. So Jesus
goes on to ask his disciples, right? What does
he ask them? Who do you say that I am? Who do
you say that Jesus is? Who do you say that I
am? And I think he's doing this in sort of the
same line of that last question from last week.
You do not yet understand. Why do you not yet
understand? In some ways he's saying you... yourselves
don't quite see. How are you viewing me? Do you
not yet see? Do you not yet understand? And Peter
gives a fairly good answer. You are the Christ.
Why do we know this is a at least fairly good
answer? You know, Jesus, he doesn't rebuke him.
He doesn't correct him. He just says, hey, Let's
not talk about that. Let's not talk about that.
And I think, in fact, even part of Jesus' response
is a way of saying, you're sort of seeing right,
but you're still blurry. Some say that when Peter
said, you are the Christ, He's pulling together
all of these other Old Testament passages that
talked about messiahs and used that word, which
is the Hebrew word for Christ. Christ is the
Greek word meaning messiah. And the word is used
quite a bit in the Old Testament, and it's used
in a lot of different kinds of ways. Messiah
means anointed one. And so messiah, that word
is used when the priests were anointed in the
Old Testament. It's used when kings are anointed.
It's used sort of in a reference to the anointed
patriarchs of Israel. It's also used, actually,
like we heard in our Psalm reading, of Israel
itself. Psalm 130 mentions that Israel is the
anointed one. Whole body. What does anointed
mean? But consecrated by God. Consecrated by
God. set apart by God. And there were a good
deal of others who claimed to be the Messiah
around Jesus' time. So this audience, Peter's
understanding of Messiah would have had all these
Old Testament connotations set apart for God,
but it would also have had contemporaneous sort
of context. There was Judas the Galilean. Y 'all
remember him? He was mentioned in Acts chapter
five. You probably know the story of Judas. Don't
feel bad if you don't. I looked him up. He led
a revolt in the year 6. So when Jesus was alive,
toddling around, Judas the Galilean in the area
of Galilee in Judah led a revolt against the
Romans in the exact area where most of Jesus'
teaching took place. He died for it. But people
called him a messiah, an anointed one by God
who sought to establish political strength. There
was Simon of Perea. Simon of Perea was an ex
-slave. He lived in the year 4 BC. He led a band
of rebels against the Romans again, crowned himself
king and then was killed. There was Theodos.
He's also mentioned in Acts chapter five. He
also led a revolt against the homens and was
killed. Yeah. See, to be a messiah at the time
was to be consecrated by God, appointed by God,
but appointed by God for the sake of dealing
with the political enemies. I want you to think
about this too. Think of how often and how much
we come to Jesus for our political gain. I mean,
my word. Yes, people come to Jesus as a good
teacher. Yes, people come to Jesus thinking you
transcend just teaching. But man, don't we often
like to come to Jesus for political gain? We
come to him maybe on one side, pricing his teaching
of personal responsibility, maybe traditional
values, and his deep care for the poor, his demand
that we give of ourselves, blessing of others.
I mean, truly, don't we see folk on the right
and the left claiming Jesus as their Messiah?
Theirs? The one who justifies their political
thought and their actions? Do we? Come on, we're
a call and response church a little bit. I mean,
not normally in this kind of way, but if we had
it written in the liturgy, you would then say
we do, right? Don't we? We do, yes. And we find
this impulse among ourselves, the impulse to
have Jesus baptize our own political sort of
thoughts, right? We do, don't we? We do. Good
job, you are fast learners. Don't we often see
Jesus as one who is there, really, to baptize
our view of the world, our own personal, our
social ambitions, don't we? We do, we do. Which
is to say, at least in a way, we see Him, but
we see Him... Fuzzy. And Jesus wants us to see
him clearly. He wants to receive him for who
he really is. Look down starting in verse 31.
I think in these verses we have one of the greatest
reasons why Well, let me say this side note.
I think in these verses, we see one of the great
reasons to take the Bible seriously. You've got
to at least consider that it's far more beyond
just some human text, because no one puts their
leader, which is Peter in the early church. I
mean, you have Paul and James and John too, but
Peter saying in one moment, you're the Christ,
then being told that he's Satan. People don't
do that when they're like in charge of writing
their books, right? Unless it's true. Anyway,
if you look down these verses, what you see is
that Jesus teaches them that he must suffer many
things, that he must be rejected by the elders
and chief priests, scribes, and he must be killed.
Then on the third day, he would rise again. And
Peter knew these stories of Messiah. And yet,
Peter does this remarkable thing. Peter, putting
his arm around Jesus. Jesus, I need to rebuke
you. Right? Peter took a Messiah, verse 32, and
began to rebuke him. No, Jesus. You're not supposed
to be the Messiah that dies. You're supposed
to be the Messiah that lives. Peter can't see
Jesus clearly. He will go along like everyone
else with Jesus as a good teacher. He will go
along like most people with Jesus not just being
a good teacher, but being somehow divinely given.
He will go along with the knowledge that he is
the anointed one, the consecrated one by God,
all of its political overtones at the time. By
the way, Jesus actually never calls himself a
messiah, interestingly. But if it means suffering,
if it means dying, if it means all that stuff
that we heard from Isaiah that his visage was
one so marred that we would not want to look
upon him, then he needs to be rebuked. And I
want to suggest to you again, this is another
reason why we just can't see Jesus clearly. We
don't want a Jesus who suffers and dies, even
if he does rise again, because we don't want
to believe and confess and live into the reality
that our sins are that bad. Jesus, guide us in
a way to live. Jesus, give us a divine anointing.
Jesus baptized our view of the world, but don't
tell me that you actually have to die for me.
Even if you're gonna rise from the dead, my sin
can't be that bad that it demands your life.
One of the great reasons why we don't see Jesus
clearly, why we don't come face to face with
him is because we can't come face to face with
what our sin demands. The death of the Anointed
One. We don't wanna see Jesus clearly because
we don't really wanna see ourselves clearly.
I think these are some of the big reasons why
we actually don't see Jesus clearly. Partly because
we actually are interested in his teaching, but
we only wanna go that far. Partly because we
want Jesus just to go along with us, right? Just
be like me, have my views, Jesus. largely because
we just don't want to come face to face with
the reality of our own sin. But I did begin with
saying that this passage isn't just about seeing
Jesus clearly and the reasons why we don't, but
also the reason why he wants us to. So Jesus
calls this crowd to him, right? He calls the
crowd to him and his disciples and he says, if
anyone would come after me, Let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me or whoever
would save his life Will lose it But whoever
loses his life for my sake the Gospels will save
it Think about this we see Jesus as a good teacher
because we want to know how to live well true
We see Jesus as a teacher sent by God because
we want God's blessing. Yes We see Jesus even
as a Messiah because we want our political power
But we rebuke him to reject him for his suffering
Because we want to see ourselves as good and
we want the good life We want self -preservation
right Self -preservation Jesus says that is the
way of death When you seek to save your life
you lose it when you lose your life you save
it Jesus says despite what we think the way of
self -preservation is the way of death The only
way to life is through death The only way to
resurrection is through the cross the only way
to rising again is through suffering Which is
to say if you want to see Jesus clearly you have
to be willing to die And we like more the idea
of a guru who teaches us how to live Politicians
that promote the good life Messiah's who conquer
the Romans, not die on a Roman cross. But this
is the way to see, this is the way of life. All
right, think about this with me. I heard this
from a friend I used to RUF with. Imagine I just
hit your car and totaled it. Ignore the whole
insurance thing that hopefully you have, or I
have. But there are only two options, right?
Two options to repair are the wrong. I can buy
you a car. Cost me a lot. Or you can forgive
me. Why can't God just forgive? Why can't God
just teach and give people a good life? Just
forgive me for totaling your car. But you know...
that you can't actually just do that. If you
did that, it would cost you. I mean, literally,
it would cost you buying a new one yourself,
cost you your time and your energy. It would
probably actually mean costing the anger that
you felt that you had to eat yourself kind of
at me, that I'm gonna forgive you. I'm gonna
take a lot of deep breaths and not want to punch
you in the face. Or think about it like this
because this works in all of our relationships,
too All of our human relationships and our divine
relationship Someone hurts me their words their
actions With their omissions and comissions with
things they do and don't do that they should
do for me. I Can hurt them back, right? I can
pull out their hair Gouge out their eyes. I can
say mean things behind them, behind their back.
I can mean, say mean things to them in front
of their back, right? I can hurt them. They hurt
me. Or I can forgive them. But don't think that
forgiveness doesn't mean dying. Forgiveness always
means dying. In order to forgive, I must absorb
the pain that they caused. Which is why true
forgiveness and true repentance has to deal with
the actual pain. Somebody's got to deal with
it. I mean, in order to forgive, I would have
to turn away from my desire for revenge. I have
to let that die. Put to death bitterness, anger,
malice. My right to be right and my right for
you to teach or treat me like that All of that
would have to die if I were to truly offer forgiveness
There's an absurdity forgiveness some of you
know Walter Wangren's book as for me in my house
Some of you know that because in premarital counseling,
I've given it to you He says only the one who
is wronged can make things right In order to
make things right, in order to forgive, death
has to happen. The way of the world. You know
that in order to forgive somebody who's really
hurt you, truly hurt you, it is a suffering that
you have to bear. And the forgiving one is the
one that has to bear it. It is always a death.
Always a death. And what Jesus is saying is that
you don't see this, that in order to gain your
life, you must lose it. In order for resurrection
to happen, there must be a cross. In order for
forgiveness to take place in your own relationships
and in my relationship with you, somebody must
die. He says, in order to see me clearly, you
have to see that I'm going there and you can
follow. See we're interested in Jesus as a teacher
and Jesus the political baptizer Jesus and all
the rest we want from life Because we want life
he says if you want life follow me to death Find
there your own forgiveness And find there the
only power for life to coming to you because
you're gonna have to die in your own life for
it to actually flourish bear fruit in the world
Let me try to get back to music and then I'll
close, okay? What's so powerful about music?
It gives us a voice for what we're going through
so often, right? I think one of the things that's
most powerful, and this is what Jake and Collier
says, is that in some ways music doesn't come
to life in just the major chords, the augmented
chords that make you go, ah. The wonder of music
is that it makes you go, ah, and also makes you
go, ah. It's dealing with all of life, right?
And this is what Jesus is inviting you to, to
see him. He is the great teacher. He has tons
to say about our social life together. Tons.
He is the divinely given prophet. That's true.
He is the ultimate messiah who has loads to say
about his kingdom in the world. But if all you
do is keep Him up here in the augmented fifths,
right? Do not see His beauty. To see Jesus, to
hear Him well, see Him clearly, you have to go
to the minor, have to go to the cross. And it
is there that we see what we sing about, love
poured out to the life of the world. Amen. Lord,
thank you for this text. Thank you for your great
grace to us. Thank you that you are slow to anger,
that you are willing to go with the process,
that you know that we often treat you in one
of these different kind of categories, that you're
slowly rubbing our eyes, that we can see you.
Lord, do that more and more in us, please. Give
us open ears like you did the other man. Give
us open eyes like you did here in this passage.
The soft hearts and then give us eager feet that
we would walk the way that leads to life, the
way of the cross, and follow you. Amen. Thank
you for listening to Second City Sermons podcast.
We hope this sermon has encouraged you to worship
God and to celebrate the gospel of Jesus. Please
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for listening. God bless.