Sermons

Mark 1:11 - Who is Jesus? He's the Beloved Son.

December 16, 2012 Speaker: Series: Advent 2012

Topic: Sunday Worship Passage: Mark 1:11–1:11

[Primary texts: Mark 1:11; 15:39, Romans 8:12-17] “Who is Jesus? He’s the Beloved.”

In this Advent season, celebrating the first coming of Jesus, we’ve been considering the question “Who is Jesus?” Today, we’ll hear the Scriptures answer that he is the beloved, well pleasing Son of God. But before we get there I want us to consider a couple of questions connected to this issue of life as a beloved child. Beloved children live in security and confidence in their father’s love. So,…

1. What does it look like to live a life of security and confidence?

Let’s think about it from a child’s perspective. If a child is secure and confident in the love of her father, how does that child think, feel, and act?

How will she think when her father does something that could be interpreted in different ways? Dad sets the food on the table and covering roughly one quarter of the plate is this strange smelling food that looks a little like a tiny green tree. There’s no cheese covering for it. There’s no butter saturating it. The child recognizes it as pure, unadulterated broccoli. Now, if the child doubts her father’s love (and is otherwise sane), then she would, of course, be highly suspicious of eating such a thing. But if she is secure and confident in her father’s love, how might that change the way she thinks about this affront to 4 out of her 5 senses? If she is secure and confident, then she’ll think, “This thing doesn’t seem very pleasing right now. I don’t really like this at all. But my father thinks this is good for me, so I’ll trust him and eat it.” And then with great effort and suffering on her part she’ll eat the broccoli – except for maybe the stalk. I mean, really! Who eats the stalk?

In the same way, children who are secure and confident in the love of the Heavenly Father will trust the Father even when they can’t really see the good for themselves. No matter what trial – be it broccoli or unemployment, sickness or persecution, loneliness or loss – no matter what the Father sets in front of the children, they receive it from the Father and know that their difficult circumstances do not mean they have lost the Father’s love. So they trust the Father’s love thinking that this pain will somehow – even if they can’t see it – be used for their good. Secure and confident children think, “My Father loves me and has never done anything to hurt me. I’ll trust him now, too.”

And how do secure and confident children feel? I think we can safely say that they feel “secure” and “confident.” But what does that actually mean? It means they can, without fear, crawl into Mom and Dad’s bed at 3 AM for refuge from the bad dreams. It means they feel the freedom to, at any time, sit on their father’s lap and ask for ice cream at breakfast. They know they might not get it if the Father thinks it isn’t good for them, but they feel free to ask anyway because there is no lingering doubt about their Father’s desire for their joy.

How do the children of God feel when they think about the love of their Father, as they remember the love he has already shown to them? As their minds engage their hearts, there grows a fire that can warm the chill of doubt away. The love of the Father stirs up feelings of joy (not always happiness but joy) that can and does persist in the midst of pain. And there is a feeling of peace that they can’t really explain to themselves or to anyone else but they know that it is theirs because of the Father’s love. But more than anything, the children of God that rest secure and confident in the Father’s love feel love for their Father, too. The Father’s love actually creates and draws out love from His children.

I knew a little girl who was secure in her father’s love and gave it back to him. She told her daddy in great sincerity,

“Daddy, I love you 150 calories.”

“150 calories?!?” he asked, “So, you love me a banana and a half?”

“Yes, Daddy, I love you a banana and a half.”

She was 5 and that’s how she could express her love. It was childish and simple but her father rejoiced in her simple love. She was his beloved daughter and she loved him back “a banana and a half.” That was enough for him.

And how does the secure and confident love of the Father lead the children of God to act? How do their thoughts and feelings spill out into action? As the children grow they, more often than not, will act a great deal like their Father – walking in love the way He walks, speaking graciously like Him when they talk. And over time the Father’s love begins to transform the way the child loves everyone else in their life; brothers, sisters and strangers alike.

Thinking, feeling and acting in that kind of security and confidence in the love of God is what we were made for! If you’re like me you deeply desire to live that way, so…

2. Why can't we do it?

When the Scripture records Jesus’ genealogy in Luke 3, it goes all the way back in the beginning to “the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” When God created humanity, Genesis 1 says that “in the image of God he created them.” That means in the beginning, Adam “imaged” God; it means he looked like his Maker and enjoyed true intimacy with God in a special Father-son relationship. Now there are other ways of talking about their relationship, of course: Creator-creation, King-vassal, etc. But in that relationship with God as his Father Adam thrived, enjoying all of the security and confidence the love of God could give.

But then he tried to find security and confidence apart from his Father. He believed the lie of the serpent and rebelled against his Father. And when he disobeyed his Father he found that security and confidence don’t exist apart from God. In his desire to find them on his own terms, he lost them all together.

Later – as the Story of Redemption was picking up speed – God rescued Israel from Egypt because He had called them to be His special people. And He called Israel His “son,” reestablishing that special Father-son relationship with them and promising that in this special relationship with Him (called the Covenant) they would again find the security and confidence lost in the Garden.

But the sin and rebellion of Adam lived on in Israel’s hearts. So, just like their earthly father, Adam, Israel – the special son of God – tried to find security and confidence apart from their God. And so they as a people became rebellious children (to use the words of the prophets). Sure, they went through the motions of loving God as their Father sometimes, but when it came down to it, most of the time Israel was putting more confidence in military strength than in their Father’s protective love. They found more security in the gifts of God than in God Himself. And though they lived this way for centuries, those things that Israel had substituted for God failed to give them the security and confidence they wanted. Instead, they lived in fear and uncertainty.

Still, the longing for security and confidence would never go away and the children of Adam and their children’s children on down to us still search for the love and security and confidence we threw away in the beginning. The problem is that we are still trying to find them in the same broken ways that Adam tried. We take things that God has made – good gifts from our Father – and we turn them into little gods and look to them for security and confidence. Maybe it is through sex (real or fantasy) or political power or financial status or social popularity or reputations or “being the perfect mom” or “having the right body” or eating the right foods or eating too much food – whatever we chose instead of God to give us security and confidence is following Adam’s choice of fruit over his loving Father.

The problem is that although those things may, for a fleeting moment, satisfy the longing of our heart, looking to them for security and confidence is like an ocean castaway drinking the salt water that surrounds them. Though their parched throat is wet for a moment, in the end they have drunk deeply from something that can only lead them to an agonizing death.

God made us to live in security and confidence as His children, but our rebel hearts still try to find those things anywhere but with the Father. And it is killing us.

3. So, where is there hope?

When Mark begins his Gospel, he says it is the good news “of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark’s main desire for his audience is that they recognize and believe that Jesus is the True Son of God who has come. And so the very first story that he presents is of John the Baptizer, the messenger promised to go ahead of the Lord. John was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and people from all over the country were coming and being baptized by John, embracing this symbol of the cleansing work of God as they confessed that they were rebellious children of the Lord. But John told them, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And then the Mighty One John spoke of showed up – to be baptized!

Mark writes (in vv. 9-11), “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus was baptized by John in this baptism of repentance but it wasn’t because Jesus was a sinner in need of forgiveness. This was Jesus identifying himself with sinners, the True Son becoming like us in every way yet without sin. This is how Jesus, the Son of God, began his ministry in this world: by identifying himself with rebellious children.

And then three things happened, all of which were understood in Jewish culture at the time to mean that the long awaited return of the Lord was happening.

First, the heavens opened. The word translated as “opened” literally means “to split or tear an object into at least two parts.” At the baptism of Jesus, the longing of Isaiah expressed centuries earlier was satisfied; “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down…” Heaven had broken through at last.

Second, heaven broke through so that the Spirit of God would return to the people of God. The Spirit of God had been absent from the people for nearly 400 years as no new word from the LORD had come and the people waited for His return. Now, as Jesus was baptized the Spirit returned and rested on Jesus himself. The people had a prophet of God (and more than a prophet) among them again.

We must realize that Jesus is more than a prophet because not only did the heavens tear open and the Spirit descend, but third, a voice from heaven, the voice of God spoke and said to Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

As the voice from heaven announces that Jesus is the beloved, well pleasing Son, it is announcing that Jesus is what Israel was meant to be as a nation but failed to be. Jesus is what we were meant to be in the beginning but rebelled against. Jesus is the True Israel, the True Son of God and he is pleasing to the Father as…he identifies himself with sinners!

What we see in Jesus, the True Son of God, is a life of security and confidence in the love of the Father. He thinks in line with that love. He feels righteous anger and compassion alike in line with the Father’s love. And all of his actions flow out of the security and confidence he has in his Father.

But think about where all of that led him.

Mark begins his Gospel proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God. It’s his main point and yet, like a good writer, he lets the story prove it more than endlessly repeating his point. So, the phrase “Son of God” appears only twice more in Mark. In chapter 5, a demon Jesus is casting out recognizes who Jesus is and calls Jesus the “Son of the Most High God.” But it isn’t until the end of Mark’s Gospel that we hear the phrase again.

In Mark 15 we see the beloved and well pleasing Son of God wrongly condemned, mocked and crucified. Verse 33 picks up with the story,

“33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 35 And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, he is calling Elijah." 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down." 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’"

One of the ironies of Mark’s Gospel is that although Jesus is the Son of God, none of his followers fully recognize what that means until after the resurrection. Instead a demon and a Roman centurion are the only ones who speak the truth: Jesus is the Son of God.

This part of Mark’s Gospel, however, is a beautiful mirror to the beginning. In his baptism in the Jordan, the Son of God identifies himself with rebellious children and is called the beloved and well pleasing Son. And now we again see the beloved and well pleasing Son of God identifying with sinners. But here the Father had called him to identify with us so fully as to become sin itself, bearing the curse and punishment for sin that rebellious and stubborn children like us deserve.

And on the cross, the Beloved Son was forsaken by the Father. For the first time in eternity, Jesus did not know God as a loving Father. Instead he knew him only as the Holy God who cannot look upon sin. And sin is exactly what Jesus was in that moment of darkness as the sins of all the rebellious children of God rested on Jesus’ shoulders.

For every time I have tried to find security and confidence in something other than God, for every time you or I have drunk deeply of salt water instead of the fountain of life, for every time a human ran away from God thinking that something else could satisfy – Jesus, the Son of God, suffered, “uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.”

And when the justice of God the Father against his rebellious children was satisfied in the death of God’s beloved and well pleasing Son, Mark writes about something happening that encapsulates the hope given in that moment to rebels like us who lived for so long without any security or confidence.

Verse 38 says that after Jesus breathed his last, “…the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” The curtain of the temple separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, the latter being the resting place of the ark of the covenant, the symbol of the presence of God with his people. It was the functional symbol that kept sinful men separated from the Holy Perfection of God. But in the death of Jesus the symbol and very real separation between the Holy God and His sinful children was torn apart just as the skies were torn open at Jesus’ baptism.

Mark’s Gospel ends with astonished and fearful followers of Jesus hearing that the crucified Son of God has risen. But what did this all mean – the death of the Son of God, the tearing of the curtain, Jesus’ resurrection – what did it all mean? After Jesus’ resurrection, the Holy Spirit helped the apostles understand what that actually meant for the people of God.

It meant heaven had broken through to rescue the rebellious children of God. Because the Son of God died and rose again, sinners could become sons again and rest in the security and confidence only a true child of God can have.

Paul writes in Romans 8:12-17, which we read earlier,

“12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Paul’s message is that when we turn away from all those other ways of trying to find security and confidence – the ways of outright rebellion or of trying to earn the Father’s love through religion – when we turn away from those things and simply direct our faith toward Jesus alone, then we are living by the Spirit. Because it is the Spirit of God – the Spirit with which Jesus baptizes us as John said – it is the Spirit of God within us that changes us and makes us new. It is the Spirit who leads us into this new life of security and confidence won for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus as he paid for our sins on the cross and won our adoption for us.

Listen to Paul as he tells you that in Christ you have found the security and confidence for which you have longed your entire life. He says you don’t have to be afraid anymore because God has adopted you as His Son. By the Spirit of Christ He has given to you, you may approach him again in the confidence of a son saying, “Abba! Daddy!” By faith in Christ you are given the Spirit that testifies to you that you belong to the Father now by adoption and are secure as His child. You are so secure, God says to you now, that you are a fellow heir – a legal, full son with Christ himself! That will involve suffering for a season, just as Jesus, the beloved and well pleasing Son of God, suffered. But the final state of the children of God will be one in the same as their older brother, Jesus. Suffering ends and is forever replaced by glory.

Christ, the Beloved, removed by his death the barrier we set up between God and us. Now the veil is torn, heaven broke through and forgiveness and righteousness and adoption are ours. Now, in Christ, you may rest in the security and confidence of your Father’s love, letting it transform the way you think, feel and act. Because now, in Christ, God the Father says to you, “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”

[Pray – Father, some of us have been running away from you for so long we’re afraid we’ll never know what security or confidence in your love feels like. And some of us have searched for security and confidence but we’ve tried to earn them and earn your love for ourselves through the things we do. For each of us, Father, we praise you for this good news that Jesus your Son did what we could never do and opened the way for us to be back home again with you our Father. Thank you for the gift of faith that helps us to look to our older Brother, Jesus, and thank you that in him we are so secure in your love that we can never lose it again. Amen.]

 

[Benediction]

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

(Numbers 6:24-26 ESV)

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