THE JESUS MARK KNEW

The Gospel of Mark (and all of the other gospels) leads up to Jesus finally standing alone, without anyone really comprehending what He’s talking about when He teaches on the “Reign of God.” Jesus realizes that He has to do it in His flesh. He’s got to stop talking about it. He’s got to let it happen. Maybe you’ve had the experience that it’s not until someone dies that we ask the ultimate questions, and that’s what we mean when we say Jesus had to die for us. It’s not that He had to literally pay God some price (unfortunately, many Christians understand it that way, as if the Father is standing up there in heaven with a big bill, saying, “Until I get some blood, I’m not going to change my mind about the human race.”). That puts us in a terrible position in relation to God, and it can’t be true. As if God could not forgive without payment. It pulled God into our way of loving and forgiving which is always mercenary and tit for tat.

Quite simply, until someone dies, we don’t ask the big questions. We don’t understand in a new way. We don’t break through. The only price that Jesus was paying was to the human soul, so that we could break through to what is real and lasting.