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Series: The Gospel of Mark
Speaker: Aaron Robertson
Hope Community Church - Heights
For more resources or to learn more about Hope Heights, visit hopecc.com/heights.
A weekly message of Hope Community Church: Heights, located in Columbia Heights, MN.
Good morning once again. It really is a special thing to be gathered here this morning. Even coming off the men's and the women's retreats, I feel like there's always, another level of connection, I feel at least, after those retreats coming in and the inside jokes and the things we laughed about over the past few days kind of running through my mind. Seeing Jeremy on a tractor. He wasn't the one that crashed it. We kind of wish it would have been. We had fun with that idea, starting a capital campaign to replace the tractor that Jeremy broke. But that doesn't have to happen. So I'm feeling really bittersweet about today's service. As we've been working and getting ready over at St. Tim's, There's this excitement, kind of a celebratory spirit almost as we think and dream about what God will do there, like the opportunities to meet, not just on a Sunday morning, to, have different kids' ministries and Bible studies and all sorts of stuff that we're praying and dreaming and planning for. There's this excitement. And then as we got into this week, it's like, boy, a lot of things have happened here. And not just here but in the time we've been here and we heard from a couple folks this morning about some of those memories I shared briefly, I hadn't really thought about like a favorite memory but I have these little like vignettes little just quick images of different things not like big specific things but I remember a couple years ago, And seeing Stan and his faithfulness in serving in children's ministry, his kids have kids. He probably was working in nurseries when I was in a nursery, maybe. And he's in the gym running around playing games with kids so he can love on them and help them have a good time. And then just a couple weeks ago, I was walking down the hallway and I hear Stan leading our fourth and fifth graders and his pastoral wisdom and his teaching ability and all these things just like on full display. And I don't know if those fourth and fifth graders realize like what a gift and a treasure they have from Stan. But I have so many other images of so many other people in those kind of situations. Rhi, I was sharing, you know, sitting back and kind of in the same corner often and sometimes hearing her needles at work as she's knitting. And just the beauty, like that's part of the experience of our church, of our community. And then she was kind of embarrassed, like, oh, you hear them? And I was like, it's so beautiful. It's so perfect. It's us bringing ourselves to be together. And I'm so grateful. We've shared coffee. We've shared treats and laughter. A lot of babies. We've seen weddings. Aaron, I believe, was maybe just, had just left for college when. Angie, you would know. I don't know when you started, but had just left for college as Jared and Natty's oldest when we started Hope Heights and now he's back here and he has a baby. He's married. He's like... So many beautiful things like that. And I also was thinking around a dozen of us have lost parents in these last years. Incredibly hard. The tears we've shared. We've seen jobs lost. We've seen jobs found. We've seen relationships broken and healed. We've seen the full scope of human experience, health, illness, so many other things. And yeah, I didn't think I was going to cry, but it's powerful to have been here. But it's far more meaningful to have been with you all, to share those things, to have that laughter and have those tears, rejoice with those who are rejoicing, and mourn with those who are mourning. And we have seen all of that. And God has blessed us in that. We have new faces and new stories, and not just in terms of babies. We had six guys this weekend. It was their first time on the guys' retreat. New faces, new stories, new ways God is bringing us together. And slowly but surely, he continues to do that. And so as we look at this next chapter at St. Tim's. I do have a little bit of kind of melancholy, or maybe that's not the right word. There's a bittersweetness to it. The joys we've shared, the sorrows we've shared. And it's not about this space. And St. Tim's, when we meet there, it won't be about the space. It'll be about us together in Christ, his work in our lives, the continued sharing of laughter and of tears. And I am so tremendously grateful to each of you. I have images and little vignettes, like I said, of just about all of you, through our years here and I know that'll continue. And so I just want to pray again. It's meaningful, it's significant that God has used this space but that God has had us together through the years. And so I just want to pray as we begin again. Boy, Father, I think in my own journey, the joys, the tears. My youngest was just turning three when we started this thing. No, just turning two when we were, had just turned two when we started our meetings. Losing a parent. Losing a parent. I've seen so many young ones bring joy and laughter and chaos to this space. Small groups that have loved one another well. Meal trains. Baptisms. A number of us having baptized our own children. You've been so, so good to us. And this space has been a part of that, but there's so much more to be grateful for, Father. I just want to thank you this morning for these people brought together through the blood of your Son, uniting us, redeeming us, healing us, restoring us. It's for your name's sake. It's for your glory that this is all happening. So just a very full and grateful heart this morning that you have been so good to us. In the midst of the good, the bad, and the ugly father. You are faithful, you are loving, and we just want to thank you for that this morning. Amen. All right. I don't cry much, but it feels good sometimes. Thank you all. As pastors, shepherds, elders thank you it's a joy a privilege, it's a beautiful thing I'm going to make Drew cry too. You can stand up and hug someone too if you need a hug break quick, that's okay I won't be offended. Yeah, as I was getting ready this week, we're in Mark 14. I was kind of wishing for the perfect passage that fit this season we're in, right? This moment of transition, of change, of a new space. And we don't have a passage that fits perfectly. And that's okay. I think as I spent time thinking and praying and meditating, there are a couple things that are meaningful, I think, for this occasion, for this moment we're in. So we're in Mark 14. Remember from last week, Jesus and the disciples have had the Last Supper. Judas has already left to the high priest to betray Jesus. And they're in the Garden of Gethsemane. They're just outside Jerusalem. Jesus said he is in anguish to the point of death. He's anticipating. He knows. What's coming next. Last week we looked at three different times, Peter, James, and John. They're caught sleeping on the job, right? Jesus had asked them, come, be awake, be attentive while I pray. He wanted their presence with them. He wanted, what we get to experience each week of being present with one another. And three times they fall asleep while he prays. So I'm going to pick up today verse 41 in Mark 14. And it came the third time and said to them, Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests to teachers of the laws and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them. The one that kisses the man, arrest him and lead him away under guard. Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, Rabbi, and kissed him. The men seized Jesus and arrested him. Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Am I a leader in rebellion, said Jesus, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the scriptures must be fulfilled. Then everyone deserted him and fled. A young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders, and the teachers of the law came together. Peter followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire. The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him. We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made with human hands. In three days, we'll build another not made with hands. Yet even then, the testimony did not agree. Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you? But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? I am, said Jesus, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. The high priest tore his clothes. Why do we need any more witnesses, he asked. You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think? They all condemned him as worthy of death. Then some began to spit at him. They blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, prophesy and the guards took him and beat him. I want to make a Vanessa keep it short because we've had extra sharing. So we're going to walk through this really quickly before I just make a couple of observations. Disciples are sleeping on the job, right? And the way this plays out, they're in the garden. It's the middle of the night, and a crowd comes, armed crowd, right? And they're sent from the chief priests. I thought it was very interesting. It wasn't the chief priests. It wasn't the elders, the teachers of the law themselves. They sent others. There might have been some priests and elders and teachers among them, but they had security. They had guards and they had you know soldiers of different sorts they sent someone else to do this work they do it in the dead of night um, they don't want to be seen they don't want to be noticed they don't want the crowd the general population to know this is what we're doing they want it hidden in the dark um. And in that moment, one of the darkest scenes, the vilest things that the world has seen happens. Judas, who's walked with Jesus, who's broken bread with Jesus, who is, taught alongside or listened under Jesus' teaching, goes up to him and betrays him, betrays him with a kiss. The scene here in this act is one of great familiarity, a deep intimacy, a friendship of a respect. And that's the act that Judas uses to betray Jesus into the high priest's hand. Jesus in this moment remains Jesus as he always does. The unfairness, the revolting disgust that you'd feel over this kind of betrayal. He carries it. He holds it because that's who he is. He goes to these leaders. Am I leading a rebellion? You're armed. Every day, every single day, four hours at a time, I was amongst you. I was in the temple. I was teaching. I was preaching. I was healing. All these things. You had time. And in this, he's calling out the hidden nature of what they're doing, the deceptive nature, the underhanded way that they're doing this. And even that doesn't stop the crowd. But scriptures must be fulfilled. And in this moment, everyone deserts Jesus. They flee. They all run away. They all abandon him. He's been betrayed, and now he's been rejected, left alone, exposed, vulnerable, all by himself. And I love verse 51, 52. They're just kind of an odd detail. Young man, wearing nothing but a little garment, maybe just snuck out in the night to get away. like, oh, something's happening, I want to see this, gets grabbed, and his clothes come off, and he runs away naked. It's generally believed that this young man may have been Mark himself. And Mark was also kind of church tradition, history, thought to be the secretary for Peter, and so a lot of the Gospel of Mark is kind of believed to have been Peter and Mark working to write this out. And I imagine Mark, like, bugging Peter through this story. I was there. Put me in. Like, tell my story. And this is the moment Peter says, all right, we'll throw you in. Yeah, you were there for that. Remember that? You ran away naked? You happy now? I don't know that it happened that way, but it is just a fun detail in here. But he too, he flees. He's around, he's near, and as the pressure escalates, wants nothing to do with Jesus, will not share in that same thing that Jesus is headed to. This whole next scene is... A massive miscarriage of justice in a cosmic eternal sense, but even in just a Jewish tradition sense, right? They came to him the night. That's not standard practice. They didn't bring him to a normal jail or to the temple or any normal place. They actually brought him to the house of the high priest. They were hiding everything that they were doing. They brought him to the high priest's house. They come before him. They're looking for testimony. They don't even have charges to put on him as they bring him in. They're just trying to find something. Start throwing it out there. Let's see what sticks. But they can't get their stories right. Over and over, they give testimony, but their statements don't agree. Even when they have a storyline, they can say, hey, we heard him say this about the temple. They can't get their stories right. Over and over, they're throwing things at Jesus. And the high priest says, hey, answer to this. Answer to this. And it's all lies. It's all confusion. It's all deception coming from these other leaders and elders. Remains silent, gives no answer. And then we get to verse 61. And he asks the question, like capital letters, the question. The question that kind of hangs over everyone who's lived, everyone who's heard the gospel, for everyone who's heard the name of Jesus. Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One? And for the first time, Jesus responds. The priest is asking the most direct question. This question is loaded with all of the promises of God, the full weight of the Hebrew scriptures and history. Are you the one? Are you the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Restorer, the one who will bring us out of sin, the one who will restore us to God, all of these different things, the promises of God? But it was also loaded with all of their cultural expectations, all the things that they had added that didn't belong to the Messiah. He wasn't going to restore Israel in a political sense and kick out the Romans. He wasn't going to do a lot of the other things that people would have expected of the Messiah. He was there to redeem the Messiah. Jesus responds, I'm the one. I am. And you'll see the Son of Man, again, that title, that name, is bringing in all these promises, all these prophecies into play. Jesus says, I am that person. I am that Messiah. I am the Redeemer. I am the Restorer. All of these things. He's using language from Daniel, from Isaiah, and different places. And you'll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, a place of power, of authority. and he's coming on the clouds. That imagery there is one from the Old Testament. It's, I'm going to be the one who comes in judgment. He's standing before all these religious leaders, the priests, the elders, teachers of the law. They are putting on a sham trial for him. They're examining him. He's being judged. They're trying to make something stick. And he's saying, I am that Messiah and I will come again as the judge. He's flipping the table on what everyone else is expecting. They think that in that moment and in asking that question, they think they are judging Jesus. Are you the Messiah? He says, I am that Messiah. And one day I will judge your response to that question. Do you see me as that Messiah, as the Son of the Blessed Word, as the one sitting at the right hand of the Father above who will come again in judgment? judgment. In that moment, it's their judgment that hangs in the balance. Do they see him as the Messiah? He is that Messiah. The high priest, he tears his clothes. Do we need any more witnesses? There was no one at any point that actually had come with a clear testimony against him. None of the facts lined up. Nothing was true except Jesus says, I am. And in that moment, the high priest says, that's blasphemy. It actually wasn't blasphemy. According to Jewish law, he did not speak against God, but his claiming to be God was the offense. And because the priests, because the elders, because of the teachers of law, rejected him as that Messiah, as that promised one, as that redeemer, as that deliverer, they said, you've blasphemed. In saying that, though, it was actually them that was blaspheming. It was them that were saying, you're not God. You are not the Messiah. You're not the Redeemer. The high priest in that moment was the one blaspheming, denying Christ, denying God's chosen one. And so they condemn him to death in that moment. This whole sham trial, done in the dark, done in secret, not observing any of things. Typically, you need multiple witnesses with their stories line. Typically it needs to be done in the day and then they follow up the next day actually was the custom to make sure everything was done right. Every process and procedure. That these Jewish leaders should have observed was thrown to the side so they could condemn Jesus. It's a hard passage to see the deception of sin in the hearts and minds of people that should have seen Jesus and said, you are the Messiah. It's a hard scene to read through and see even Peter, who has said, I'll go to the death with you, Jesus, starting to distance himself. His betrayal, his abandonment by others. It's a hard passage. And it's actually hard if you could kind of read through the previous two chapters, 13 and 14. The weight of this is even bigger. In chapter 13, Jesus is talking about end times and coming of ages and all these different things, these prophecies. And he's talking about big kind of end time things, but it is also a undertone of speaking about himself and what is coming more immediately. And he closes chapter 13 with these verses, 35 to 37. Therefore stay awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or in the morning, lest he come and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. You remember last week, and then again next week we'll see, we hear about a rooster crowing. We hear about, disciples falling asleep, not being attentive. We do not know the hour. All those things happen. And a few other pieces then from chapter 14 the last couple weeks add to the weightiness of today's passage. In bethany he's anointed with this expensive perfume he says i'm going to die and be buried what she has done for me is a beautiful thing, Death is coming, and the disciples are like, yeah, okay, Jesus, right? They don't get it. Judas is having secret meetings with priests to arrange the betrayal. At the Passover, Jesus institutes communion. My body is going to be broken. My blood is going to be shed. He predicts betrayal and abandonment by all of his followers. He calls Peter, James, and John, stay with me, stay awake, stay alert. And they don't. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. His soul is that deepest anguish to the point of death. He's done everything he can to let the disciples, let his followers know what's happening, and they don't get it. In his greatest moment of trial, he asked them, be there, and they fail him. There's like red flags for friendship. His followers have just raised all of them. He's told them, it's serious. Stay awake. The stakes are high. I need you. I want you with me. And he also says, you're going to leave me. I know this. And so you get to this passage and you see it all happening in real time, immediately after he's shared all these things. It's happening. That's kind of the first observation is, the stakes of this, the heaviness of this scene, the weight of this, that abandonment, that aloneness, the standing alone in judgment before others, all these false testimonies. And Jesus does that. He goes there. He does that for us. The second observation from this passage is regarding hiding. We see it with the disciples. They all sleep. They're hiding. They don't want to be associated with Jesus, but we also see it in the way the leaders go about things. They want this whole thing hidden. They don't want it known how they went about their business. It's all hidden. And in that same moment, Jesus is totally exposed, completely vulnerable, open to everyone and everything, and he allows it to happen. The author of life who sits at the right hand of God Thank you. Sets that power and majesty aside and allows himself to be taken to that place of complete exposure, of abandonment. But this idea of being hidden, it points back to Genesis, the Garden of Eden. If you remember, sin enters, Adam and Eve take and eat of the fruit that they were not supposed to, and they hide. Again, we find ourselves in a garden and we see sinners hiding, walking away from God. This passage has a warning about hiding, about hidden things in our lives. And we all hide in all sorts of ways. We all have, maybe not all, maybe some of us are wise and brave enough to not have any social media, but we have a persona, a public face, things that are exposed, but we don't expose everything. There are hidden areas of life. And part of that is healthy. That you don't need to put everything out on social media. But we have other ways we do that in our lives. Hidden sins, hidden realities that feel too heavy or dark or shameful that we keep hidden. And this passage screams that hiding leads to death. The hiddenness, the leaving, walking away, hiding from God, separating from Christ, it leads to death. And we learn now, so in Scripture, all things are going to be unhidden. All things will be exposed. All things will be brought to light. And that is true because Jesus himself. Was willing to be fully exposed, completely vulnerable to these false accusations, to the sham trial, to crucifixion, to death on the cross. And as he comes in judgment, all those things are revealed. In this passage, he's saying, you'll see him coming again on the clouds, is pointing to that moment where that hiddenness is going to be exposed. Things will be brought into light. It's a heavy passage. A dark passage. But I think this final observation, it connects a little bit with our moment as a church. It points to hope. It points to the beauty inside this passage, right? Throughout this passage, we see this breakdown of relationships. The Jewish leaders, their failures. The disciples, their abandonment. Judas, his betrayal. We see this breakdown of relationships. The connections to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, and he's left alone. The one person everyone should run to is abandoned. It's just like the Garden of Eden. There's this separation. The disciples scatter. Jesus is utterly alone. He faces his trial alone. He faces the cross alone. And actually we hear when he's on the cross, and at that moment of death, he cries out, that even God has forsaken them. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I bring this up. That's heavy. That's dark. That's the full weight of sin. And I bring that up because Jesus went there and did that for us. We will never have a moment in our lives where we are alone and exposed and vulnerable and facing that kind of judgment because Jesus has done it. He went there. He exposed himself to all those things for our sake. And he did that, took on our punishment so that our loneliness, our hiddenness, our brokenness can all be undone. And I think it's the Jesus storybook Bible talks about how all sad things will become untrue. That, yeah, I love that line. And Jesus, in taking on the worst and the darkest and the most vile of things in this moment, is doing it so it becomes undone. In this moment, that's the beauty in this. There's a heaviness that hangs in it. But we've read past this chapter. We know what comes next. He does all of this so that our hiddenness, our brokenness, our aloneness can be undone. He's abandoned. He's broken. He's left alone. And he does that so we can be reunited. We can be healed. We can be brought together. And this is the beauty, the joy, the hope I found in the passage this week. Jesus did those things for us. we each have to answer that question, right? Is Jesus the Messiah, the Son of the Mighty One, right? And the Son of the Blessed One? We each do that individually, but Jesus didn't do this just to save individuals. He did this to create a family, to create a body of believers, to create a royal priesthood, a holy nation. He does this so that he will have a people. He's not going to have a bunch of persons in heaven. He's going to have a people for himself, right? All of this darkness, this heaviness, this aloneness, the betrayal, the abandonment, the brokenness, the abuse, the lies that he takes on. He does it for us, but he does it for us collectively. He does it for us together. He does it to unite us, to bring us to the same place before the foot of the cross. And so even as the heaviness, the darkness of the passage this week hit me, I was struck by there's a purpose behind this. This isn't arbitrary. It is the Father's will that the Son should be crushed so that we can be bought and purchased to be united together in him. And so when we gather each week, as we have done here in high school for the last five years, as we continue to gather at St. Tim's, our gathering, it's not just for our own good, although it is for our own good. It's not just something that we're supposed to do or feel like, okay, I got to go to church. Every time we come together, every prayer, every celebration, every tear, every hardship we share in, it's a demonstration of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we do those things together, it screams, Jesus went there and took that on so we can do this together. We're not alone. He was. He was abandoned, rejected, carried all that weight so we can do this together. The mere fact of our gathering here and now at St. James, it gives glory to God. He sent his son in order to bring his people together. In Revelation, we read, God. The dwelling place of God is with man, and he shall be our God. We shall be his people. When you dwell with someone, we're not just like kind of going to sit around like there's a heavenly home. We're going to have roommates. We're going to be roommates forever. You better start doing dishes, Drew. No, we're together. That's the point of this abandonment, this rejection, this aloneness, this suffering that Christ faces. This is that we never have to experience that again. That from the moment he comes up out of the grave, he dies, he comes out of the grave, we get to be together because of him. Because he went to that place, alone. He went to the cross alone. And every time we gather here, it shouts out that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Son of the Blessed One. He redeems, he restores, and he brings us back together. He has reconciled us to him and us to one another. And that loneliness, that rejection that Jesus faced was to unite us. So as we celebrate our year's meeting here in the schools, each week we brought our own brokenness. We didn't come in cleaned up. We didn't come in with things figured out. We came with brokenness, with tears and struggles, a feeling of loneliness. We came with hidden things in our lives and so much more. But in all of that, bringing that here together, the simple fact that we gathered, to worship, to look to Jesus, it gives testimony to God's goodness and faithfulness. Even in the weeks when we have to, like, drag ourselves here, the fact that we came here to be together points to the fact that Jesus truly is the Messiah that we in the world needs. So moving is a big deal. We've had a lot of beautiful things here, but it's not that big a deal. It feels that way sometimes. We've had to spend extra money and give extra work and all sorts of things. We've got new opportunities, new ways to love our community, all sorts of stuff. That space will bless us. It will bless our city. But even as it reflected on our years together here this morning, as I think about our years ahead, it's these bodies, these peoples, these stories sitting in this room and the stories that God's going to write into our stories, that togetherness in Christ. We could meet in the parking lot and see that same beauty play out in our lives, the power of the gospel. We could meet in our homes. We do. We could meet anywhere. And that same beauty and power of the gospel would be at work in our lives. And I'm so excited we get to continue to do that. I've got a couple. I didn't, I kind of just started going through. So I had slides for, staying awake and for hiding. And then that's all of us together. But I forgot to go through this. But just a couple questions for us as we close. The band can come up, worship team. How wakeful and attentive have you been to matters of faith? There's a warning in this passage, in this series of scenes with Jesus. There's a watchfulness, a wakefulness that ought to be a part of our lives. And sometimes we need others to set alarm clocks for us, right? Who is checking in with you? Who is that alarm clock for you that says, hey, have you considered? How is this transformed by the gospel? What is hidden in your life? Let's not pretend, any of us, me included, that there's nothing that might not be hidden, that might not need to be brought into the light. Have you answered that question? Jesus says he is the Messiah, son of the blessed one. Have you considered that? Jesus gave his answer and he's waiting for ours. If you haven't and would like to answer that question, we would rejoice with you to have a conversation about that. And then who needs encouragement or even just the opportunity to join in our church community or a church community? Who doesn't know yet that the beauty of church is not in the building, the stained glass, even the worship, even though we're blessed with tremendous musicians. The beauty is in our stories written together and the fact that we worship together. We could all be off-key and out of rhythm, and the Lord would still receive our praise. And we'd do it together joyfully because of who we serve. Who else needs to know that? Who might want to be a part of that experience, that joy, that beauty? I'm going to quick pray and then we'll close in worship. Father, you're good. You're faithful. You went, you sent your son. He went to the cross alone, rejected, abandoned, betrayed, beaten, scorned, lied about, miscarriage of justice. And you went to the cross so that your justice for the penalty of sin could be dealt with. We rejoice that in the darkness of this scene, there is life, there is hope, there is beauty, knowing that you rose from the grave, you bought a people for yourself, and we are being redeemed and restored together through the work of your Spirit. We thank you for that and just ask you to bless our morning Amen.