Credentials: Work

Mark 6:1-2

      Have you ever had your credentials checked? I bet you have. Have you ever been stopped by the police and had to show your driver’s license and registration? How about when you applied for your driver’s license and you had to show your birth certificate, marriage certificate, social security card or passport. Or when you log into Facebook, you put in your user ID and password. Or when you stand in line at the airport to get your boarding pass and you show ID. Or you applied for a job and had your references and education verified.

      Have you ever had the wrong credentials, forgotten your ID, missed a certification or insurance payment and your coverage lapsed? It can be an uncomfortable position to be in when you don’t have the correct credentials, or when your credentials get questioned. You can begin to question your own sanity and your own memory.

      Jesus’ credentials are questioned by the people of His hometown. He has gone home with His disciples. He is preparing them to go out two by two. He is showing them how ministry is done. But in the process His credentials get questioned, questioned by the very people who knew Him growing up in Nazareth.

      The questions come in two areas: His work and His family.

      The first set of questions that Mark records deal with His ministry. The first question deals with the origin of His teaching. Where did it come from? We might ask, what book did He read? What seminar did He attend? What websites did He read? They can’t figure out how He came up with the things He was teaching. What Jesus taught was a very different take on religious tradition and the character of God. He taught that God wasn’t only “way out there” He was also “right here in me.”

      The people also questioned the wisdom He was given. They didn’t question that it was wisdom, really insightful things about life and God. They recognized that His teaching was filled with wisdom. It was not the typical wisdom that religious teachers of that day dispensed. Jesus’ teaching had punch, substance, impact. It rang true in the core of their being. They had never heard anything like this before.

      But that wasn’t all. Jesus teaching was backed up and reinforce by the miracles that He did. His miracles often seem to have a direct correlation to the content of His teaching. He would talk about His power and authority over spiritual matters and then cast out demons. He would assert His rule of the physical universe and then heal the sick. He would talk about His position as the Author of life and then raise the dead. It is this connection that made what He did so powerful and unique.

      No wonder the people who heard Jesus teach that day had many questions. We too might have many questions, very similar to those people of that day. We read about this extra ordinary man and His wisdom and miracles, and we too wonder where it originated. The only explanation that makes sense is that Jesus was who He claimed to be, God in the flesh. Any other explanation just falls short.

Olympic Sized Qualifications

Mark 1:9-13

       Were you ever is such a hurry to tell a story that you left out some of the details? Of course you have. If you included all the details it would take just as long as the original incident to retell it. We must condense our lives when we tell about it. Even in the age of Facebook, where people report that they brushed their teeth, life must be condensed when reported.

      Mark wastes no time in giving us the connections. He has just reported that John baptizes with water, and now Jesus comes to be baptized by him. And in the process of being baptized by John with water, Jesus Himself is announced with a heavenly presence and voice. The very Spirit that John has said Jesus will baptize with shows up in a visual form.

      And when this baptism happens, Jesus is immediately sent on a very strange mission. He goes to the desert where he faces temptation by the lead tempter, Satan himself.

      These two events mark the official beginning of Jesus ministry. Or perhaps the qualifying events. Without the baptism and these trails by temptation, Jesus would not be able to fulfill His calling and mission. Think of the Olympic Games. Every athlete must train for years, compete and win against the best in their countries, and then qualify in the Olympic trials. They need the medals from previous competitions in order for them to be able to compete for the Olympic Gold. You can’t just walk up and say, “I want to be in the Olympics.” You aren’t qualified.

      So where are we in this part of Mark? In our lives there are things we must go through in order for us to be ready for the next steps in life. We need the experiences of earlier in life to help us later in life. We need to learn to trust the LORD in the small things, so that when the big things come, we know how to trust. We also need to know from personal experience that He is faithful and trustworthy. We practice our trusting muscles. We have said “No” to our own desires and sought what was best for others.

       We may not, and probably won’t have, a voice come from heaven announcing who we are. It only happened once. We won’t see the Holy Spirit in some physical manifestation. That only happened a few times. But we will go through temptation. We may not have Satan take up a conversation with us, but we will have conversations about temptation, either in our heads or under our breath, should we or shouldn’t we. And the consequences of yielding to the temptation are just as monumental. Our future ministry is at stake. Our eternal destiny might be as well. So take the temptation seriously, and resist it.