MARK 9:38-50
EXCISING ERRONEOUS ENTANGLEMENTS
I. EXTERNALS: *
A. Energy.
B. Entertainment.
C. Enticement.
II. EXPECTATIONS: **
A. Exhaustive.
B. Exclusive.
C. Edifying.
III. EFFECTS: ***
A. Existentiality.
B. Eternally.
C. Evolving.
Jesus gives some strong words and lessons in the latter part of Mark 9. Mark compiles this chapter by including four different happenings in the life of Christ. The chapter opens with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Then, upon decent from the Mount, Jesus heals a boy who was possessed by a devil. Next, Mark relates how that Jesus left and crossed over into Capernaum where He reminded the disciples that to be first in His kingdom, one had to become like a child. The chapter closes with John telling Jesus that he saw one doing things in the name of Jesus and wondered if that was proper. From this introduction, Jesus then gives what is necessary to be a true follower of Him and then concludes by reminding His listeners, and we readers, just what He wants from us if we desire to follow Him. The message was not lost on John: if the one he saw was as Jesus required, then all was okay. However, it was more important that John and the rest of His disciples-including us-measure our lives by His standard and do as He wants us to do. And, if we do as He stated there will be a great Excising of Erroneous Entanglements by all of us.
As I study the last part of this chapter, there are three things which dominate my attention regarding what it takes to follow the Master. The first thing I note is that there are some External things that must be taken care of if I want to follow Him. These things have a direct bearing upon the environment in which I now live. The next thing I note in this passage regarding what it takes to follow Jesus has to do with His EXPECTATIONS of me, should I decide to be a Christian. The last part of this chapter deals with the EFFECTS that will flow from my decision whether to follow Him or not.
*EXTERNALS: Jesus was adamant in His reply to John about some things which must be avoided if one were to follow Him. The decision on whether or not to follow Him rests in certain areas of life and Jesus was telling John that he was to take care of these things himself and let Him, Christ, decide about the other person with whom John had been comparing himself.
These things are EXTERNALS and the words of Jesus, in referring to them, seem so out of context to the gentle Jesus. He was saying strange things like cutting off the hand, the foot and plucking out the eye. Taken at face value these things do not make sense with the rest of the Master’s words about yielding the whole body to Him so He can use it for His glory. Also, if taken at face value then every person who comes to believe in Him should begin the mutilation process of one’s body in order to be a better follower of Him. I do not know about you, but I would not want to begin to remove one of my hands or one of my feet nor remove an eye just so I can claim to be a Christian. Furthermore, I do not think that this would appeal to the masses of the world if they hear that they have to dismember themselves in order to follow Jesus.
Yet, these are the strange words spoken by Jesus to John. The question then arises, did the Master really mean the EXCISING of parts of our bodies in order to be His child or did He have some other meaning involved here for all who are following Him? Remember, that Jesus was an Oriental, who spoke in terms which are sometimes strange to we Occidentals. He also lived in a different time and expressions valid then need to be interpreted in the light of the time given. If we take these verses under study with these thoughts in mind, we are able to gain a better picture of what He was tying to tell John and us, in today’s world.
The first thing I note is that Jesus told John if his hand offended him, he was to cut it off. If we take some liberty with the word, “hand” we can begin to move closer to what Jesus was trying to say. And if I am correct, the meaning of the verse makes a great deal of sense.
The hand represents, Energy. With our hands we, for the most part, gain our livelihood by hard work. The hand also represents friendship as we extend our hand for a handshake, or a pat on the back of a dear one. We use the hand to sooth the troubled child, to wipe away all tears, to applaud something great, to gesture, to signal hello and good-by. The hand does represent the inner Energy of the body. We do so much communicating with our hands, even if we are blessed with the ability of talking and listening.
Our hands are the expression of so much that is bound up with in us. With the hand we bring food to the mouth, we use it to wash our body, to mend and build homes, to repair broken things and to at last fold in eternal rest. All of our life, we are using our hands. If we do not have our hands, and there are some who have no hands, the ability we posses to express ourselves is limited indeed. Our hands are full of Energy in so many ways. What we do with that Energy marks us and helps to define us. The old saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop,” can be applied to idle hands just as easily. What Jesus was saying to John at that time was that if our Energy which we posses is not for the glory of God and the furtherance of His kingdom on this earth, Excise it, cut it off, do away with it and turn our life over to Him for His energizing influence.
Jesus was adamant, that all of our Energy in this life was to be dedicated to Him. And, if we could not do that, then let Him perform an operation on us, to stem the misuse of our Energy just so we can make it to Heaven. According to the Master, He was saying, it is better that you have a shortage or a complete lack of this self-promoting, vain, worldly Energy and make it to Heaven than have all of this and miss His Kingdom. We cannot serve God nor be good Christians if we allow our “hands” to posses the wrong type of Energy.
Next, Jesus told John that if our foot bothered us, we were to have it Excised, because it would be better to enter Heaven with one foot than have two feet and miss His eternal home which He has prepared for us. Again, strange words from the gentle Master, but what was His intent? Let us look a bit at what the feet might represent then and now.
We who have the ability to move freely with the use of two legs and two feet are indeed blest by God. There are many that do not have this blessing and are confined and constricted in so many ways. But we, we who have the use of both limbs, have a clear advantage over others and yet what do we do with these feet of ours? I contend that we use our legs and our feet for so much of our self-pleasing: our Entertainment.
Notice and think on how we freely walk to this place or that just so we can be amused for a moment of time. We also use our legs and our feet to walk to places that may not be wholesome nor to places where Christ would go, but we go, and we walk freely there to be Entertained. There is certainly nothing wrong with going to good, wholesome places for a night of relaxation and entertainment. Yet, Jesus was saying that if we use our limbs and feet to go to places for unholy entertainment, we had better have that Excised so we can enter Heaven and not walk our way into a Devil’s Hell.
With our feet we can walk into the Sanctuary of a church or into a hell-hole where God is not welcomed. With our feet we can approach God and walk closely to Him or we can walk away from Him. With our feet we witness our faith by the places we frequent. By our daily walk, we bear witness to our faith in God or its lack thereof. Our walk portrays the inner loving of our souls and Jesus said that if this is a problem for us, then we are to Excise, cut off one foot, which hinders this waywardness of ours and follow Him. It is better to have this problem solved now rather than later.
These words of our Lord are powerful and speak straight to our daily lives and Jesus meant what He said: take care of the waywardness of our hearts now while there is time-tomorrow might be too late.
Lastly, Jesus told John that if our eye offends us, pluck it out. The eyes!!! Oh, how precious the eyes are. We who are not blind in one or both eyes are blessed by God. We are able to see the faces of those whom we love. We are able to see the sunshine on a bright and clear morning. We are able, with our eyes, to see the snow fall and watch it gently cover all that is ugly and all that which is beautiful. With our eyes we are able to absorb so much of our world. With the eyes we read books, signs, newspapers, even people’s faces. Our eyes are so important to us. Yet, Jesus said that if our eye offend us, pluck it out because it would be better to enter Heaven with one eye than have two and be lost. Oh, how powerful these words are-but, what did He mean?
It is a common fact that so much of our Enticement to sin, comes in through the eyes. These eyes, the portals which allow the passages of good sights and evil sights to enter our minds are very important. These eyes with which we will someday use to gaze upon the face of Christ are being Enticed daily, to look the other way-away from Jesus.
With our eyes, we read the Bible and also are able to read the trash which fills the book stands and is readily available on the Internet and TV. Our eyes help draw us closer to Christ by that at which we look or our eyes draw us further away by what we see.
Our eyes are able to see the suffering plight of mankind and weep over man’s lost estate or we can be blinded by these sights and refuse to help someone in need. Our eyes are able to see our self through the eyes of God and to recognize our lost estate without His blood, or we can refuse to see our situation and live without His redeeming grace. Our eyes serve us as great instruments of Enticements for good or for evil. Jesus was telling John that if our eyes were leading us away from Him, Excise the problem and enter Heaven with this problem solved so our full eye sight can rest on Him.
These three points: the hand, the foot and the eye serve to remind us that we are to bring everything under the control of the Master so we can follow Him and make it to Heaven. Jesus told John, “Let that other man alone, I will deal with him, but if you want to follow me, surrender all your Energy, Entertainment and Enticements-even jealousy-and let me take care of you. I will take care of that one to whom you referred.” Oh, how we need these words for today’s Christian world.
** EXPECTATIONS: Just as Jesus mentioned what one should do to follow Him, He then seems to turn His attention to what are His Expectations of one who wants to come after Him.
The first thing, I believe which relates to what He wants from me, had to do with the idea of complete surrender to Him. This entails a very Exhaustive and complete surrender to Him. If I am to guard myself in my spent Energy for Him and His cause; if I am to guard and pay close attention to that which I allow to serve as my Entertainment; and to beware of what I allow to Entice me, then I feel that what He wants from me is my complete and total surrender to His cause. This is an Exhaustive demand of Him on my part, but under the situation, there are no recourses left in which to follow Him. Jesus demands that it is all or nothing regarding Him. And, if I comply with His demands, I will soon realize that there are no other avenues open for me wherein I might be free to follow Him and to follow the world. This is a hard saying as was said long ago. But He urged all to think before deciding to follow Him, we should do as He urged all to do, to sit down and count the cost. If we feel His way, His demands are too Exhaustive then we should not take up His Cross. There is simply no other way to follow Him.
Besides the way of the Cross being Exhaustive, it is also an Exclusive path for the Christian to embrace. There is something sacred about committing our life to Christ that is so different than committing our lives to another cause, another person, a different idea. We who embrace Christianity are pilgrims upon this earth. We are on this earth but not of it. We are different; we are a peculiar people. Some saints have identified this “otherness” by their manner of dress, or where they choose to live, or maybe by their speech. These choices might serve to help strengthen the believers within these groups to serve Christ to their best ability. But this is not what Christ really was saying. He wants us to center all of our lives, our interest, our strength and way of living on Him to the exclusion of all others and all other things.
His words of Excising things from our lives that are not like Him speak to this fact that we are a different breed of people on this earth. We are Exclusively His representatives on this earth. When He told John not to worry about that other person doing things for Him, He was telling John that the number one criteria in John’s life was to make sure that he was Exclusively Christ’s servant, and He would take care of that other person in His time. Sometimes we think we are able to combine certain elements of “other” things and ideas in serving Christ-we cannot. Sometimes we are deluded to think that maybe we can be a representative for Christ on the days we chose-that is not to be. Sometimes we contemplate that we can pick and choose how we want to be His representatives and to allow certain things to creep into our lives, to compromise some things here or there in order to appeal to more people-that is not acceptable to Him. To be His is to be His at the exclusion of all else.
Yet, I hear that there might be some who think this is still too hard of a path to take in following Him and some may question as to why the narrowness and the straightness of following these guidelines as He demands. The answer lies in the simple fact that if we do as He said we are to do-to rid ourselves of those things that hinder us from getting into Heaven and then living a life totally dedicated to Him this will result in a life of Edifying Him completely.
How many Christians are there in this world that would love to edify themselves rather than Christ? How many pastors would love the big churches which can edify them rather than seeking what would edify Christ? How many rich people want to give this or that large donation and have buildings named after them rather than giving secretly just so the cause of Christ can be edified and not them? There is certainly nothing wrong with pastors building large churches; there is nothing wrong about the rich people giving large gifts, but if the desire is not for the complete and total Edifying of Christ then there are dangers afoot.
It is hard, at times, to submerge ourselves in the cause of Christ and to remain anonymous, but if it serves to Edify Him and not us, then that is the only way to go.
All the things that Christ told John and us in these verses to remove lest they hinder us will serve as traps for our souls and will certainly lead to pride and self-glorification. Instead of feeding our pride,; instead of bolstering our self worth at the expense of the gospel, we are to seek to glorify Him-always. What do we do to Edify Him? The answer lies in striping for the race that is set before us and when we come to the end of our race, we can echo Paul’s words, “I have fought a good fight; I have kept the faith and now there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness….” Jesus demands that we strip ourselves of all that would hinder us because following Him means a complete and Exhaustive way of living for Him. Cutting away all that would hinder us means that we live Exclusively for Him. By so doing, by following these words and commands of Him, we will live a life of Edification for His honor. We can do nothing else but to comply with Him on His terms as He set forth in these verses.
*** EFFECTS: If we obey Christ’s commands as best we can in these verses of Holy Writ, and we encounter the results of our obedience to Him, then we can look forward to some helpful EFFECTS that will stem from our decision to be a better person for Him.
The first result I see stemming from our obedience to Him comes in our daily living, the Existentiality: the every day living for Him.
There is something good about being a Christian. Besides the assurance that all is well between our souls and His graces, there are things that just make living for Him a real joy. There is something good about having our sins covered by His Blood. There is something peaceful about knowing that we are headed for a better world. There is great contentment to we who have “cut off” the sinful things from our life so we can be ready to go Home when death finally over takes us.
It is this every day living in His graces that brings real joy to the Christian. For sure, we Christians suffer many things-some more than others. We do suffer from bodily aches and pains. We do suffer from the economy when it goes down; we do loose our jobs. Sometimes we loose some of our friends, even some of our families because we are Christians. We say good by to acquaintances as they move out of our circle of living and move to other locales. We suffer when we say good-by to sons and daughters who go off to war knowing they may never return. We suffer when our health breaks and old age creeps upon us. We suffer when we are misunderstood, and the list goes on and on. Yet amidst our suffering, there is the calm assurance that His presence is still with us.
When we have Excised all things that are not to His glory, we can live in the day to day world, our Existential world and know that He is pleased with us. Oh the daily joy we Christians can have of knowing we have done all we can do to obey Him, regardless of what the enemy of our souls brings against us.
Besides living daily for Him there are other EFFECTS which follow our obedience to Him. One of these results in living with Him Eternally. It is common belief that we Christians will go to Heaven as long as we are in Him and He in us. But have we ever stopped long enough to really contemplate that living for Him here means we will live with Him there?
The disciples lived with Him for three years and they were good years. It would have been nice to have trodden along with that group years ago and to live with Him as they did. Yet, if we constantly seek to avoid all things that hinder our walk with Him on a daily basis now, we will live with Him for ever in the future.
There are some people with whom I would never want to live close to such as Hitler and his ilk. Then there are others whose personality collide with mine as my personality collides with theirs. It is my hope that if this later group and I make it safely Home, Jesus will help us to survive together, Eternally, in peace and harmony. Yet, there is One with whom I wish to live trough out the endless ages yet to come and that is Jesus. I want to live in His presence always. I want to hear His voice; I want to stand and watch Him as He walks. I want to shake His hand and I want to hear Him tell me, “Well done!” My old Theology professor said years ago that he thought one of the benefits of going to Heaven will be that God will constantly reveal more and more of Himself to His followers and we will learn new and wonderful things about Him as the ages pass. I do not know just how Biblical this is, but I think old Prof. Perry was correct. I want to get rid of everything in my life now so I can live and learn more about Him in eternity, regardless of what happens to me, in this life. I want to rid myself of all things unlike Him now so that I can live with Him in Heaven forever.
Another of the EFFECTS that stem from obeying Him is that this process of being a Christian means that all is Evolving, for my benefit
The popular sign reads, “Have patience, God is still working on me,” is so true. While we surrender all to Him and make sure we “cut off “the hindering foot and hand and cast out the “offending eye” we can rest assured that this process of surrendering to Him is an ongoing, daily experience in our lives. We should be better Christians today than we were yesterday. We should be better Christians this year than we were last year. We should be better Christians next year than we are this year, as long as we follow Him. Serving Him is an Evolving process that is always changing us for the better. If we discover that the process has stopped, we had better look and see if that Excised hand or foot has grown back, or if our offending eye has returned. If so go back to step one and begin anew-your future rests upon your actions now. I think John got the message that day: do we get the same message today?
