Disciples Must Spread the Gospel
Mark 14:1-2
Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
1 Now the Passover and Unleavened Bread were two days away; and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to seize Him by stealth and kill Him; 2 for they were saying, “Not during the festival, otherwise there might be a riot of the people.”
We live in a materialistic and spiritual world. While our souls are here on Earth, we need a physical body. The Kabbalah, the mystical interpretation of the Scripture, says that the flesh is a part of the soul. It houses the soul, but it is an integral part of it. While living on the Earth, our soul experiences all of the physical needs that our bodies require. Not every person living on the Earth understands that there is a spiritual dimension to our world and to themselves.
Living in the Materialistic World, the conflict between that world and the Spiritual World happens every day. The Kingdom that Jesus was talking about is the spiritual world. The Gospel authors’ saw this as a new idea that Jesus was bringing. Jesus was to initiate the Kingdom. The spiritual world existed; however, most people living in Jesus’s day did not understand it or recognize it. So, Jesus introduced the concept to the people calling it the Kingdom of God.
Jesus made sure that His disciples were ready to bring the Spiritual World into the Materialistic world. Ask yourself, are you ready to be a true disciple of Jesus? Can you say the words that will convince people to join the Kingdom of Heaven?. Jesus commissioned His followers to teach the ways of the Spiritual World, the Kingdom of Heaven, to everyone on Earth. So, are you ready to take up the cross and teach the Kingdom of Heaven?
Now to the question at hand. Can you explain the Kingdom that Jesus was talking about? We learn from this short passage that the religious leaders did not want this concept to be taught. Why might that be? As people learned about the Kingdom of Heaven, they might have left the established religious order to find this new understanding. Instead of learning about what the rabbi from Nazareth was saying, the leaders decided that they needed to quiet him.
Let us go back to the question of explaining the Kingdom. Today, a roadblock is that our society in the United States appears on the surface not to accept that God is an integral and necessary part of our lives. We see this happening when the Ten Commandments are removed from courthouses. When different people complain about the “In God we trust” on our currency, we see this happening. We see this happening when prayer time is removed from government meetings.
Who is this group of persons forcing God out of society? That is a great question and sometimes a mystery. It is the same as asking who are the people pushing “woke.” I read an article that said that when 20% of a population starts to accept a position in society, they start sounding like the majority. The woke people use social media to condemn anything they do not like. Here is a great question, why are we listening and changing things for them? If this group of people does not like our society, let them go to another country and try their wokeness there. However, that is not what is happening.
As followers of Christ, we must challenge the woke people, especially when they attack Christianity. Every Christian needs to be able to explain what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We also need to have the courage to stand up to the woke and not accept their ways. The woke of today is doing the same thing that the religious leaders in Jesus' day did. They tried to shut down Jesus and His followers two thousand years ago. Instead of shutting down Jesus’ followers, they emboldened them. The Holy Spirit empowered Jesus’ followers to spread the Gospel.
Church doctrine says that we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism. If we use the power of the Holy Spirit that is with us, then every Christian can stand up before the forces of the woke and be victorious. Jesus’ words and our actions might even change some of these woke persons!
Christianity needs to unite and stand before the world and shout the Gospel so that everyone can hear it. We need to use what influence we have to stop the tearing down of Christianity and instead build the Church back. The ways of God are found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let me be blunt; becoming woke will not get you into Heaven. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ will.
Enough said.
