Category Archives: Mark

Why God Why!?

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What You’ve Missed…
* Jesus blows people’s minds when he knows what they’re thinking.  Dude would have crush dominated on The Family Feud.
* Jesus heals a bunch more people, pisses off a bunch more people, and then raises some folks from the dead.  No big deal.
* Jesus dies, then he rises from the dead, putting him in the same category as Ron Burgundy of being kind of a big deal.
* Jesus disappears into and appears out of thin air enough times to make it look like he’s enjoying himself just a little too much.

Day 311
Daily Reading: Mark 16, Luke 24, Acts 1-2

Today wraps up the story of Jesus.  The short version is that he’s killed, his followers are all upset and disheartened, he rises from the dead, appears to his followers and instructs them to carry on his work with the help of the Holy Spirit who will empower them to do great things.  Then Jesus flies away into heaven, kind of like Neo at the end of The Matrix I guess.  Just with less hardcore Goth music.

And that’s it.  Jesus’ time on Earth is over.  He spent three years (most people think) walkin’ around preaching and healing people.  Then he left.  That’s what I want to focus on…because that’s crazy.

Jesus’ whole deal, as Christians understand it today, was to restore humanity’s relationship with God.  In other words, Jesus came to tell people they could know God personally.  He told them God cared about them as an individual.  He told them God was their father, and He considered them His own children.  He wanted people to believe what he was saying, and he wanted everyone to know that he died as the sacrifice required to be in a relationship with God.  His revolutionary message was for the whole world.  The whole world!

Yet, he chose to come to Earth at a time when mass communication consisted of yelling really loud and mass transit consisted of your feet.  If that wasn’t limiting enough, he was only around for a few years, and then he peaced out.

What!?  Isn’t this God?  Couldn’t God appear to everyone on the planet at once?  I mean, even aliens can pull this off.  Independence Day?  The whole world simultaneously discovers these aliens have some pretty awesome laser guns.  Signs?  Worldwide news coverage of the spookiest corn-field-loving aliens of all time.  Even an inanimate asteroid from Armageddon is able to unite the whole world as a global family.  If an asteroid can do it, couldn’t an all-powerful God?

Why does God show up as a single guy, walking around the desert?

If God is trying to reach the whole world, why doesn’t He just appear as a big guy in the sky and let us know what’s up?  That seems to be the most effective way to reach everyone at once, and have them believe in Him and in what He’s saying.

But that’s not what God does.  According to the Bible, he comes to Earth as a man, tells people about it for three years, teaches twelve guys about his mission, and then leaves, telling them to keep up the good work.  Jesus says it’s actually better that he leaves.

“In fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate (Holy Spirit) won’t come.  If I do go away, then I will send him to you.”  John 16:7

This seems so counter-intuitive to how we operate today.  Today it’s all about mass exposure.  Your band, or company, or cool non-profit, or whatever needs a viral video.  You need web presence.  You need maximum exposure.  The more people who hear your message, the better.

But Jesus doesn’t do that.  He seems to go for depth, rather than reach.  He lives alongside twelve men day in and day out.  He puts most of his efforts into those twelve disciples.  He teaches them much more than he teaches the crowds in general.  Instead of investing in mass communication, Jesus invests heavily in personal relationships.  And then he leaves the very movement he started, entrusting it to twelve, highly under-qualified individuals, one of whom has killed himself.

Way to shoot yourself in the foot Jesus.  Clearly you weren’t in my Market Strategy class in college.  (Then again, neither was I because, hey, ultimate Frisbee on the quad.)  This sounds like the worst strategy ever.

Seriously though.  You’d think an all-powerful, all-knowing being like God would just announce himself to the world, clear things up, and then have everyone live in a Care Bear utopia playing tag on rainbows and sleeping in fluffy cloud beds.

So what’s the deal?

I don’t know.  It’s not how I would’ve done it.  When I think about it, I’m amazed the Christian movement even exists today.  God’s strategy to solve a problem seems less likely to work than most of what I’ve seen in both Hangover movies.  Yet…here I am today, a believer in the whole thing.

It almost makes no sense when you think about it.  The fact that the movement still exists, despite seemingly horrible planning has led me to the following conclusions.  God is indeed very mysterious, and that maybe it’s my understanding of what’s logical, sensible, and reasonable that’s off.  Not God’s.

It’s still crazy though.

Christians Are The New Vampires

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What You’ve Missed…
* Jesus walks on water, which is pretty impressive.  Though not as impressive as walkin’ on sunshine.
* Jesus creates the world’s first free and instant buffet when He feeds thousands of hungry people, using only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and everyone eats as much as they want.  Twice.  I think it’s official.  Jesus loves buffets.

Day 283
Daily Reading: John 6, Mark 7, Matthew 15

I’m going to just jump right in and talk about zombies and vampires.  They’re everywhere these days.  Zombies have taken over the world of fiction, and even local news stories in Florida, and vampires have taken over the romantic dreams of teenage girls everywhere.  (Vampires that are ridiculously handsome AND they sparkle?  It’s like Brad Pitt and My Little Pony had a baby, and now we all have to suffer the unending squeals of teen girls everywhere.)

But this is nothing new.  The idea of zombies and vampires can be traced all the way back to the Bible.  In fact, Jesus himself talks about both.

Check out what He says.

“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man (Jesus) and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.  But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”  John 6:53-55

Whaaaaaat?  Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I get from this is Jesus tells people they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood to gain eternal life.  Did I miss something because that sounds all kinds of jacked up.  Eating flesh?  Drinking blood?  That sounds…really weird, really creepy and…cultish.

Jesus, dude, couldn’t you have just stuck with, “Love your neighbor,” or “Peace in the Middle East,” or even a little bit of Bill and Ted wisdom like, “Be excellent to each other?”  Why do you have to freak people out, talking about how your followers have to eat your body, and drink your blood?  No one wants to hear that.

In fact, after He said this, a lot of His followers turned away.  Probably because they weren’t interested in eating other people.  This isn’t the Jesus I heard about in Sunday school.  I heard about “nice Jesus”, not “B Horror movie Jesus.”

Speaking of which, many of you reading may be Christians and might not find this weird, because you believe in the act of communion, which is how Christians take part in eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood today.  It may seem like no big deal.  I think that’s because we’ve heard it so much, it no longer has any impact on us.

But think about it.  The central figure in your spiritual beliefs, the one you base your lifestyle on, told people they would have to eat His body and drink His blood in order to gain eternal life.  Do you actually believe that?  If there was a cult that drank the blood of their leader, would you think that was normal?  Or would you think they were totally whacked out?

Well I have news for you.  That’s exactly what we’re doing as Christians.  We’re drinking the blood of our leader, to gain eternal life.  That’s the whole myth behind vampires!  (It’s just a shame we don’t get super-speed and super-strength as by-products.  We also don’t become overly dramatic horrible actors either, so that’s pretty good.)

And don’t forget, we also have stuff in common with flesh-eating zombies.  Though, we may not be mindless, I know of a few Christians who drool as much as any good zombie would.

So what’s my point?  I think we, as Christians, need to have some perspective of why non-Christians think we might be a little weird.  I think we need to be mindful that when we use expressions like, “The blood of the Lamb,” or “Our sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus,” people may be totally weirded out.  (Wow, we really do talk about blood a lot don’t we?  Yeah…that’s NOT totally creepy at all.)

Okay, okay…so it’s not really that intense.   Christians don’t actually drink blood.  We drink wine (or grape juice) as a symbol of Jesus’ blood.  And we don’t actually eat flesh, but rather bread (or fancy Catholic wafers) as a symbol for flesh.  But still…when you really think about it, it’s pretty crazy that we do it at all.

Geez, after all this eating, drinking and horror movie talk, I’m ready for some Jimmy Johns and a Walking Dead Marathon.

Christianity is awesome.

Was Jesus a Klingon?

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What You’ve Missed…
* Jesus gets baptized, gets disciples, and gets the whole Christian party under way (though, no booze of course.)
* Jesus changes up that whole “no booze” idea when he kicks a local party into overdrive, turning water into wine, providing free drinks, and a good time (probably too good of a time) for everyone!
* Jesus shows He doesn’t just party, and gets down to business healing tons of sick people, casting out tons of demons and raising people from the dead.  No big deal.
* Local Jewish scholars start to get pissed at how awesome people think Jesus is, and decide the most rational course of action is to plan how to kill Him.

Day 281
Daily Reading: Matthew 9-10, Mark 6

Making my way through the New Testament, which I am more familiar with than the Old Testament, I continue to find myself surprised at how crazy a lot of it is. For instance…I always thought of Jesus as a “nice guy”.  I thought of Him as calm, rational, and someone who taught about good morals and helped people.  He probably spent time playing with abandoned puppies and gave candy to children, always making sure to remind them to brush their teeth.  Sounds like a nice guy right?

Well, I’m not so sure.  At one point while He’s preparing the disciples to go out and preach, He says some pretty funky stuff for a nice guy.

“If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine.”  Matthew 10:37

And right before that, He makes it pretty clear that He’s not here to be a nice guy.

“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth!  I came not to bring peace, but a sword.  ‘I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  Your enemies will be right in your own household.”  Matthew 10:35-36

Dang.  Jesus don’t play!  He’s making it pretty clear that He considers a relationship with Him far more important than any other relationship a person can have.  When combined with the fact that He said He came to bring a sword, that sweet little nice guy image doesn’t hold up.  He’s more like Conan the Barbarian who’s shown up to get shit done.

Jesus isn’t simply trying to sound like a tough guy here.  The man lives by His own philosophy.  Later in Matthew, Jesus puts some of this crazy thinking into practice.

“As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, His mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.  Someone told Jesus, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.’  Jesus asked, ‘Who is my mother?  Who are my brothers?’  Then he pointed to His disciples and said, ‘These are my mother and brothers.  Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!’”  Matthew 12:46-50

Dude…Jesus is rude!  Can you imagine if George W. Bush was speaking to a crowd, and someone came up, telling him that Sweet Barbara and Ol’ George Sr., want to talk to him, and he responded by saying, “I don’t know them.  I’m the Decider and I’ve decided the people listening to me are my only family.”  The media would flip out.  His parents would flip out.  That’d be a really horrible way to treat his family.  And that’s exactly what Jesus does here!  His mission is more important to Him than His own mother.

That is not how a nice guy acts.  Nice guys love their moms.  (Some of them even live with their moms.)  Nice guys give their families backstage passes and VIP treatment.  Not Jesus.  Dude gives his family the cold shoulder without a second thought.

I’m starting to think Jesus might have more in common with Klingons than Mother Theresa.