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“Wow, he looks familiar?” I told myself. And I then thought nothing of it. We were eating at the local Methodist church, FUMC, that gave free lunches to college students on Wednesdays. He was at the front taking donations, but I didn’t stop to say “hi.” I was a hungry…
A few days later, I saw the same guy working behind the counter at Starbucks. “That’s where I see Josh!” I studied about four times a week at that Starbucks and saw him often. Strangely, neither of us recognized each other at the church.
I spoke with Josh saying, “Hey, I think we saw each other at FUMC.” “I think we did too! My dad is the pastor there.” We definitely saw each other, but didn’t realize it…we were in a different context.
Mark, the author of the second Gospel in the New Testament is asking, “If God came to earth what would he look like?” “Would we recognize him in our context?” In Mark’s first-century, Roman context, people thought of superhuman stories about Zeus and even exalted Caesar as a son of the gods.
In our day, it’s not a question we ask or care about, but we love the Marvel movies.
Mark is saying God has become human and entered into our context. As Jesus walked among us, no one recognized him—he seemed normal…except for the way he cared for people, spoke, and performed miracles for the sake of others’ good.
So Mark has to get it straight—his first words read, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Otherwise, we might get it wrong.
Mark then proceeds to answer the question, “What does a Son of God do when he comes to earth?” He shows what it is like when God is king (as N. T. Wright often says).
Mark connects Jesus’ story to the God of Israel claiming “this is the One who said He would come and here He is!”
In Jesus’ kingdom, blind eyes are healed, lame people walk, and the poor are made rich. The king has given hints of the blessing to come.
But it was different ground for a God to walk on and none understood. At least none understood until the God was hung on a cross about to die. As Jesus breathed his last, we hear the words from a Roman army captain, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.” Jesus’ Son-of-God-ness was not recognized until he was nailed on a cross.
After Jesus’ death and burial, Mark doesn’t say much. Women go to his tomb, see a rolled stone, a young man (presumably an angel), and no body. Jesus wasn’t there. Afterward, Jesus himself appeared to his small group of followers and sent them into every context to proclaim that that the Son of God has come among us to invite us into his kingdom.
And so he has. Suffering unjustly on a Roman cross is the last place we would expect the Son of God. In doing this, he absorbed the evil of the world onto himself in order that his God-ness may enter our world more fully—that we may live and be as we were meant to—as he meant when he made us.
Thanks for Reading,
Aaron