Mark 1:1-8 - Big plans, big news

Have you ever had big plans and not been able to carry them out?  This morning I had tons of stuff on my 'to do' list and I've blasted through a lot of them but not managed one of the biggest tasks of all because I kept putting it off.  Often we're too ambitious for our own good and we bite off more than we can chew.  Thankfully when it comes to God, this is never the case...

Mark 1:1-8

There's expectation in this passage.  God has a plan to rescue his people from sin and for hundreds of years the Jews had been awaiting a 'Messiah' or chosen one who would be sent by God to save them.  Isaiah had prophesied about this moment and now it was actually happening!  God had not forgotten his people or his promises to them.

God's plan is too big for our brains.  It's a massive operation spanning thousands of years (or even millions depending on your creation theology).  God loves the people he made and wants to put things right between us and him and Mark starts his gospel with the moment this Messiah was announced.

The thing is, the one who's doing the announcing isn't what you might expect.  He's scruffy, wild-looking and eats bugs for breakfast.  Not exactly the kind of MC you'd choose to announce God's arrival, even 2000 years ago.  But God knows exactly what he's doing and it seems he doesn't mind who he uses as part of his plan (just as well for me).  Anyone can be part of his big story.

John's message was about repentance - making a decision to turn away from sin.  People clearly believed that John was from God and believed his message and wanted to respond by changing their lives and getting dunked in water in public as a sign to everyone watching.

John had the people's attention but he didn't want to keep it for long.  He was setting the scene and pointing to the one who would come after him - the Messiah.  His life and message was to prepare people's hearts and attitudes for the coming of Jesus.  He knows that Jesus is greater than he is and that when he comes, he will immerse his followers in something better than water... in God himself!

Consider: What's your plan for your life and how much does it have to do with God's big plan?

Maybe your life is about your own story and you make it up as you go along.  The problem is, if we're honest, we know we're all a long way from perfect and we let ourselves and others down regularly.  We have this instinctive desire for a world better than it is now and for ourselves to be better too.  Let's prepare our hearts and minds to meet Jesus in Mark's gospel by repenting as John suggested.  Say sorry to God and decide to live a life that's part of his big story, rather than our own tiny monologue.

Mark blog

Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith (1 Corinthians 15:14).

So what about the resurrection of Jesus?  It’s kind of important to the Christian faith (!!!) but did it really happen?  Dead people normally stay dead.  What evidence is there to support this crazy story?  

In order to answer these questions, it’s worth remembering how reliable the gospels are as historical documents (see the article on ‘Evidence for the Reliability of the Gospels’).  The best way to explore the evidence is probably to look at the three main theories put forward by sceptics to try and explain it all away...

1. Stolen Body Theory
One thing the gospels talk about is the empty tomb.  This theory says that after Jesus was killed on the cross and then buried in the tomb, his disciples later came and stole the dead body and claimed that he had risen from the dead.  There are several problems with this theory...
  • Firstly, the Roman authorities saw this idea coming a mile off.  They knew this Jesus had developed a dangerously large number of followers and that there could be an uprising amongst the people.  They also knew Jesus’ followers hoped he might be raised from the dead and they wanted to make sure no-one could claim that he actually did!  This is why a guard was posted on the tomb (Mt 27:62-66).  This guard would have guarded the tomb with the knowledge that he would be killed if he failed in his duty as a Roman soldier. 
  • Secondly, even if the disciples did manage to steal the dead body of Jesus, the Romans would have been hunting for it everywhere to expose the dangerous new movement as a sham but they couldn’t find any dead Jesus!  No dead body of Jesus was ever found. 
  • Thirdly, hundreds of Jesus’ followers faced torture and execution for being part of the new movement based on his death and resurrection.  They had to be convinced they were telling the truth.  Not many people would be willing to die for something they knew to be a hoax.  Surely someone would have let the cat out of the bag at some point.  But it didn’t happen.  Probably because the people who were martyred were genuinely convinced that Jesus was alive. 
2. Seeing Things Theory
Another thing the gospels tell us is that people saw Jesus alive after he died (Jn 20:27, 21:12-13, Lk 24:13-35, 36-39, Mk 16:9-14 and others too).  In fact, Paul (one of the earliest church leaders in the New Testament) says that a crowd of over 500 people saw Jesus alive after he died (1 Cor 15:3-7). Others even ate meals with Jesus and were convinced he couldn’t be a ghost (Lk 24:37-43).  The ‘seeing things’ theory says that because of the disciples’ extreme grief and despair, their minds were playing tricks on them and they thought they saw Jesus but in reality it was just psychological.  It often happens to people following a particularly painful bereavement.  Again, there are several problems with this theory...
  •  Firstly, although it’s true that one person might imagine they see their dead loved one after they recently died, it’s just ridiculous to claim that a crowd of over 500 people were suffering from the same delusion at the same time.  This kind of mass scale hallucination just doesn’t happen. 
  • Secondly, remember the Romans were keen to make sure no-one thought Jesus had actually risen from the dead because of the potential uprising amongst the people.  If people were just seeing things and Jesus was really still dead in the tomb, it would have been easy for the Romans to prove by producing the dead body of Jesus.  But they couldn’t do this, because no body could ever be found.
3. Swoon Theory
This theory says that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross.  It says he just fainted and then later on in the tomb, he revived and escaped.  This is probably the most ridiculous theory of all...
  • Firstly, the Romans were expert killers and crucifixion was one of the most torturous ways to die.  They knew exactly what they were doing.  Jesus had already been flogged and made to carry the cross.  He didn’t even make it all the way because he was so exhausted from the beatings.  And when they put him on the cross, he was nailed through his wrists and feet to hold him up.  Most victims of crucifixion died from suffocation because breathing involved the massive effort of heaving their body weight up on the nails in order to catch breath.  There was only so long a person could go on before they gave up and died.  We also have the account of Roman soldiers piercing Jesus’ side and a mixture of blood and water flowing out (Jn 19:31-37), which is clinical proof of death.  They did this to make sure people were dead before taking them down from the cross.  There’s no way Jesus would have survived it. 
  • Secondly, even if Jesus somehow managed to make it to the tomb alive, the stone that blocked the entrance would have taken at least 2-3 people to move it.  There’s no way a half dead Jesus could have managed it and then taken on the Roman guard as well!  Not possible and no evidence for it either. 
  • Thirdly, if Jesus did manage to escape all this, he would have died again at some point and the Romans would have been able to produce his body and stop the underground movement of Christians in its tracks.  But... no body could be found.
Conclusion
So, we’ve got reliable accounts of Jesus expertly tortured and killed by Romans, an empty tomb and no dead body ever found, plus hundreds of eye witnesses claiming to have seen Jesus alive after he died and plenty more willing to die for their conviction about the events that all happened within their lifetime.  The evidence really does stack up in favour of the resurrection of Jesus and that must cause us to take seriously the things he claimed about himself – that he really was and is the Son of God (Mt 16:13-20) who came into our world to save us (1 Tim 1:15) and forgive us (Mt 26:28) so we could have a fresh start with God (Col 1:21-23), life to the full (Jn 10:10) and life forever (Jn 3:16).

Did the resurrection really happen in history? - More from a qualified expert

Back to 'Why follow Jesus?'

Evidence for the reliability of the gospels

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever (Isaiah 40:8).

So are the gospels made up nonsense from people who should know better or is it like Chinese whispers where the facts get distorted and exaggerated along the way?  How do we know we have the true stories of Jesus and what he actually said and did?

When were the gospels written? 
The gospels are dated within living memory of Jesus.  Most scholars (Christian or otherwise) agree it was probably: Mark 65-70AD, then Matthew and Luke 80-85AD and finally John 90-100AD.  Remember Jesus died aged around 33 in something like 30-33AD so this means the first gospel account was written within 32-40 years after his death and the last gospel was done 57-70 years after. 

So not long for myth or legend to creep in.  It would be like someone writing a book now about John Lennon saying he walked on water, healed the sick and rose from the dead.  John Lennon’s family would sue the author and the book would be widely discredited and quickly forgotten.

How were they written?
Luke is a great one for taking a careful approach to writing his version down.  At the outset, he says:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)
Remember Luke was writing something like 47-55 years after Jesus died and he would have been able to interview eyewitnesses to get his facts straight.  He was clearly concerned that things could be exaggerated or made up completely, so he was out to write an accurate account that would stand up to scrutiny from Jesus’ family, friends and other witnesses who would have been still around at the time he was writing.

How do we know what we’ve got now is what they wrote in the first place?
We don't have the original copies of the gospels.  They're long lost.  What we do have is copies of copies of copies… you get the idea!  This is how people used to preserve important documents.  So how can we know that what we have is anything like the original stuff Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote 2000 years ago?  Chinese whispers, right?

Actually it’s the same kind of problem we have with lots of other historical writings like all the stuff we have about Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Aristotle, Plato, Pliny the Younger and people like that.  It’s copies of copies of copies.  It’s a bit like a family tree.  There’s Luke’s original (which we don’t have) and then there’s tons of copies (most of which we don’t have either) but we do have a certain number of copies to look at.  It’s like a family tree of copies...


Historians can look at all sorts of things to test how reliable the copies we have actually are.  How early is the earliest copy?  How many copies do we have?  Who copied them?  How diligent were they?  Are there other early documents that contain big sections of the text?

The earlier a copy is, the better and the more copies we have to compare, the better too.  Using the diagram above, if we have the circled documents, L5 would be the earliest one and we’d also compare it with L10, L13, L17 and L18.  If they’re all the same, then we know they’re all pretty close to the original document.  

So how early are the gospel copies we have?  Well, they're pretty early.  The earliest complete copies we have (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus) come from the 3rd-4th Centuries, so not long after the originals were written when compared to other ancient writings.  For the works of Caesar, Plato and Aristotle, the time lapse between the originals and the earliest copy we have today is over 1000 in each case.  And we have fragments of the gospels that date much earlier than this.  And when it comes to numbers of copies, we have plenty to look at too.  Including fragments, the figure is more than 40,000, so there is an overwhelming amount of data to analyse to establish what is reliable copy and what is not.

So, the evidence shows us that...
  • The gospels were written with the clear intention of providing accurate and trustworthy accounts about Jesus so people could believe in him (Luke 1:1-4, John 20:31-31). 
  • The original gospels were all written well within living memory of Jesus and this adds to their credibility. 
  • We can be confident that the gospel accounts we have in our Bibles today are actually what was originally written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  

How do we know Luke's account of Jesus' life is reliable? - More from a qualified expert
Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead

What else do we know about the gospels? 

Back to 'Why follow Jesus?'

Mark Blog - THE ACTION IS GO

It's been a while and I need to read my Bible more so as ever if no-one else reads this, it'll at least help me get into some kind of habit of listening to God speak and maybe others might find it helpful too.  Let's see!

I've picked Mark's gospel because it's all about Jesus (kind of obvious really) and because it's the shortest, fastest, most action-packed gospel out of the four.  Mark doesn't even bother with the nativity, he's all about the action of the last three years of Jesus' life and focuses on that.

If Mark was writing a life bio of Jesus, it would be pretty rubbish as he's missed out most of Jesus' life aged 0-30!  But Mark's not writing a biography!  He's writing the 'gospel' or 'good news' about Jesus and that's why he narrows it down a bit.  Does it mean that it's any less reliable as a historical account just because it doesn't tell us about Jesus' birth, childhood, teenage years, twenties, etc?  Of course not.  Historical reliability can't be settled that way.

Anyway I might be rambling slightly.  Watch this space for some blogging on Mark.  It'll be exciting and potentially life changing (encountering Jesus always tends to change us).

For now, if you're interested, here's a couple of short articles I've done about...

Evidence for the reliability of the gospels
Evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead

Mark blog

Sponsor me in the Great West Run for WaterAid!

I'm training hard and running in the Great West Run on 2nd May 2010, raising money for WaterAid.  For more info and to sponsor me, please click on the link below or here...














More blogs and that

Youth Bible School 23rd Jan 2010


Youth Bible School - Listen closer, go deeper, live better!

Mark Barlow on 1 Thessalonians, Bible teaching, practical interactive workshops, worship, cafe.

Saturday 23rd Jan 2010, 1.45-6pm, cost £2.

At Belmont Chapel, Western Way, Exeter, EX1 2DB.

For more information or to let us know you're coming, sign up on the Facebook event or contact us at ybs.exeter@yahoo.co.uk.

This event is aimed at young people aged 14+ and is organised by youth leaders from Beacon Heath Church, Belmont Chapel and St Leonard's Church.