Jesus invites us to repent of our sins.
The startling introduction of Mark’s gospel features a lone prophet,John the Baptist, standing in the desert and callingpeople to,"Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him." Mark 1:3 (NIV) With unflinching resolve he preached, "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Mark 1:4 (NIV)John's message was the same whether he was preaching to ordinary folks or to powerful people, like King Herod. King Herod nursed a grudge against the John the Baptist because John said, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife."Mark 6:18 (NIV)
What a peculiar life John the Baptist lived. His message was that our souls are stained and our sins need to be washed away. We talk a lot about sin, but we don’t talk of our need to repent. We laugh at sin, justify sin, and minimize the danger of sin.Through our television sets, we gawk at sin, lusting after its temptations. But repent of sin? We're flawed as individuals— deeply flawed. There is something fundamentally broken within us.
The first words Jesus speaks in Mark’s gospel are, " 'The time has come,' he said. 'The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!' "Mark 1:15 (NIV) This is where everything begins for us in our relationship with God. We must come to terms with our sinful rebellion against God. We must ask forgiveness for our many violations of his law.
In Mark 2:17 (NIV) he says, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."Jesus saw himself as a doctor. His diagnosiswas that we are terminally ill. His first order of business was always to address our sickness.
We see this earlier in Mark 2 when a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus by four of his friends. They couldn’t get to Jesus because of the crowds, so they went up on the rooftop of the place Jesus was staying and dug through the roof so that they could lower their friend to rest before Jesus. They had extraordinary faith! But Jesus' first order of business, before healing him physically, was to say to the paralyzed man, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Mark 2:5 (NIV)
We see this again in Mark 1:38 (NIV) as Jesus walks away from crowds of suffering people in need of healing. "Jesus replied, 'Let us go somewhere else-- to the nearby villages-- so I can preach there also. That is why I have conme.' " Why did he walk away?Because his first priority was to preach repentance and forgiveness. This, my friends, is our greatest need— to repent and be forgiven. Forgiveness has preeminence over everything else God would do for you today, or any day.
These are unflattering truths.We are lawbreakers. We are guilty. Our conscience accuses us. We bear on our soul the marks of sin and death. Christ's first invitation is to repent. Confess your sins.Be baptized.Be cleansed. Be forgiven.Be healed. We cannot do these things for ourselves. OnlyJesus has the authority. Mark1:10-11 (NIV) says that God gave Jesus authority when he claimed him as his Son."As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: 'You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.' "
Jesus' second invitation is to believe in him as the Son of God.
A second invitation we find in the gospel of Mark is to believe. In Mark 1:1 (NIV) Mark introduces Jesus as the,"Son of God."In Mark 1:7-8 (NIV) John the Baptist introduces Jesus by saying, "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
In Mark 1:11 (NIV) we hear a voice coming down from heaven affirm Jesus, "You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased." Even demons and evil spirits recognized Jesus' identity. In Mark 1:24 (NIV) a spirit says, "What do you wantwith us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are— the Holy One of God."
Jesus was no ordinary man. He is the Son of God. He is infinitely worthy of our worship, and he is powerful enough to save us. With him, and with him alone, the Father is, "well pleased."In the gospel of Mark, Jesus demonstrates authority over sin, over evil spirits, over the wind and waves, over sickness, over disease, and even over death itself. When tempted, Jesus was without sin.
But then thereare us humans. Humans who are unworthy to even stoop down and untie Jesus' sandals. The Father isn’t pleased with us at all. We’ve sinned, and we need to repent and be forgiven. Unlike the Son of God, we are vulnerable to temptation. We are subject to sickness, disease, and death.
It isn’t enough to repent of our sins. We must come to terms with Christ’s identity as the Son of God. We need to believe thatJesus Christ is the Son of God. We are the perpetrators of sin, whileJesus is our physician, the one who holds the cure for sin. We cannot forgive ourselves,yet Jesus is mighty to save us. He has the authority to forgive all who believe. He has the power over life and death.
Thethird invitation of Jesus is to understand.
Jesus was very misunderstood.
The crowds couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t satisfy their demands for healing. They didn't understand why he would evade them by night.
The religious leaders couldn’t understand why he ate with tax collectors and sinners— people known for their greed and corruption. The leaderswere angry that he didn’t conform to their legalistic rules and regulations.
Jesus' own family thought that he was out of his mind for inciting the crowds, the religious leaders, and the Roman authorities with his high profile ministry. They tried, to no avail, to intervene and save Jesus from his own demise.
His own disciples struggled to understand his parables and teachings. When caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, they feared for their lives, "Teacher, don’t you are if we drown?" Mark 4:38 (NIV). When confronted with the hunger of the crowds, they didn’t understand Jesus' compassion or his ability to miraculously provide for so many."Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat." Mark 6:36(NIV)When Jesus walked on water, they thoughthe was aghost."...but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified." Mark 7:49-50 (NIV)
The people in Jesus' hometown were puzzled by his wisdom, " 'Where did this man get these things?' they asked. 'What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary’s son, and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?' And they took offense at him." Mark 6:2-4 (NIV)
We could go on and on. But what Jesus' disciples most struggled with were Jesus' dire warnings. Mark 8:31-33 (NIV) says, "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter.'Get behind me, Satan!' he said. 'You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.' "
In Mark 9:31-32 (NIV) Jesus says, " 'The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.' But they (the disciples) did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it."
In Mark 10:33-34 (NIV) Jesus said to his disciples, " 'We are going up to Jerusalem,' he said, 'and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.' "
What the disciples most misunderstood about Jesus was the way in which Jesus would bring forgiveness and eternal life to all mankind. It was necessary that Jesus offer his perfect life as a perfect sacrifice. Jesus' sacrifice was necessaryto satisfy God’s perfect wrath against sin, once and for all. In so doing, Jesus would demonstrate God’s perfect love.
Mark 10:45 (NIV) says it this way, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
In John 15:13 (NIV) Jesus says, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
As they carried Jesus off to be tried by the Sanhedrin and Pilate, we're told in Mark 14:50 (NIV), "Then everyone deserted him and fled."Even Peter would disown Jesus three times that night. It wasn’t until Jesus rose on the third day, the event we celebrate on Easter Sunday,that his disciples finally understood what had happened on that dreadful cross.
This Palm Sunday, Jesus offers us three invitations. He commands us to repent of our sins,to believe in his identity as the Son of God, andto understand that God spared no measure to welcome us into his kingdom as sons and daughters, and friends.