A New Perspective!

Mark 11:11 states: “Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything.”

We find another often overlooked detail in the clamor of Palm Sunday in the last verse  At the end of this incredible day. He is at the Temple and the commotion is everywhere and he sees the money changes and the lack of people paying attention to what is right in the eyes of God. The people are out of perspective of God’s provision, direction, and ultimately relationship.

Perspective is defined as: “a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view:”

Jesus does not set up a command center in Jerusalem that night … He leaves the city and goes to the suburb of Bethany…we assume to spend the night with His beloved friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Jesus was not the kind of Messiah the people of Jerusalem expected, and yet they were right to greet Him as a king. Jesus, God’s son, enters he bring the perspective of mercy. He won’t release the people from Roman occupation or take revenge upon their enemies, but He will offer them redemption!

A young couple rented a vacation cottage for a week. One afternoon the husband looked out a window at the swimming pool and exclaimed, "Let's change our clothes and go get some exercise!" His wife, who was washing the dishes in the kitchen and looking out the window watching some people play tennis, quickly agreed. While she dressed for a tennis match, he put on his swimming trunks. The window a person chooses to look out at the world often determines that individual's perception of reality. 

Jesus said in Matthew 6:33-34; "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

When Jesus enters our perspective is changed to seek His Kingdom and His Righteousness. 

You know I love ya, Don

Perspectives - Mark 3:31-35

Mark 3:31-35 - "Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

If a relationship with God the Father is the most important relationship someone can have, it makes sense that those who are also sons of God the Father are those that you will align yourself with, share your life with, be accountable to, and love with concrete loyalty and sacrifice.

For whom would this redrawing of the boundary of family be comforting news? For whom would it be unwelcome?

This would be comforting for those who have known a broken family, in which instead of love and security, there was strife and anger and hurt; who know that even family, who are supposed to be the ones to love and protect you, can let you down. For those even with a good family background, who know their sinfulness, their tendencies to want to indulge in the coziness and comfort of just a nuclear family, who know that even these good things and relationships can become a curse and idol when not submitted under the lordship of Christ, and who know that they need the church, people to be accountable to with their struggles, so that they could even build up their family to honor and glorify God in the way that it was meant to by being truly a place of love and peace and forgiveness, through which an open home and family could also draw others to experience the love of God – they would also welcome this.

The Mark passage would be unwelcome news for those who want to make their own circle of their nuclear family the center of their lives, even at the expense of doing God’s will and opening up their lives to be in open community with those outside just their own nuclear family.

Truly Jesus is talking about a worldly perspective verses a Christ-centered perspective. Jesus is not against his family because we see Jesus take care of his mother at the cross. Yet, in this passage his family is trying to help him by giving him advice to be more politically correct. The reality is that in the passage as a whole, Jesus is the new "Heavenly" correct. Having that perspective changes actions, loyalties, responses, and eternal destinations...

More on this to come. You know I love ya, Don

The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Mk 3:31–4:1). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.