Grace at the Table
THE TABLE OF THE SON OF GOD (Mark)
Great Commission Church
Intro: The Lord included the Lord’s Supper in four separate NT books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, & 1 Corinthians. But listening to the way the Lord’s Supper is officiated in modern evangelical churches, you might conclude that only one account exists, repeated four times! When God repeats something, He means for us to study it closely and in its proper context. Since Matt, Mark, Luke, & 1 Corinthians each are written with different audiences and purposes in mind, what can we learn about how to think of the Lord’s Supper within the themes of each book? Mark states his most important theme in his very first verse.
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As we read through Mark’s Gospel, the shortest of the four with only 16 chapters, we should expect to see material supporting the deity of Jesus as God’s unique Son.
Four examples will be enough: 1:1; 2:1-12; 2:23-38; 15:39.
A crucial section of Mark stretches from 2:1 to 3:6. The conflict of the story begins there. Five events are covered in those verses, but two of them create the most problems for Jesus.
In Mark 2:12, Jesus heals a paralyzed man who is lowered through the roof of the home where He is preaching. As everyone looks intently at Jesus during the drama, He says something that we celebrate but offended all of them.
Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
Modern Christians read these words and give holy high-fives all around! We even tell others that nothing is more important to hear Jesus say to us than “our sins are forgiven.”
But for devout Jews in first century Israel, this was unheard of sacrilege. No one would dare to claim this.
Mark 2:7 “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Jesus vindicated His lofty claim by performing an undeniably great miracle in full view of everyone.
The crowd was amazed. The text says they glorified God and exclaimed, “We never saw anything like this!” [Jesus: 1 skeptics: 0]
The other event is the final one of chapter 2. Here, Jesus is walking through a grain field with His disciples, and they are plucking heads of grain to eat. But it’s Saturday, the Sabbath when no one shall be done.
So, the religious leaders urge Jesus to correct/rebuke His disciples. But He refuses. Instead, He reminds them of a story from the OT.
David and his soldiers, on the run from King Saul, need food. David approaches a priest at the shrine and asks for food and weapons.
The priest says that the only weapon available is Goliath’s sword, wrapped up and stored in the closet. The only food on hand was the sacred bread on the altar that was not to be eaten since it belonged to the LORD.
This didn’t seem to phase David. He told the priest that he and his soldiers had been following God’s rules for staying consecrated to the LORD. It was therefore acceptable in this unusual circumstance for them to eat the sacred bread (1 Sam 21:3-9).
Keeping that exception in mind, we now understand that Jesus thinks that God’s rules are given to show us what He is like. The exceptions proves the rules and show us His goodness and mercy.
Mark 2:27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Mark 2:28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
What has Jesus claimed in those two events in Mark 2?
(a) He has authority to forgive sins
(b) He has the right to define what it means to properly observe the Sabbath.
These privileges belong only to God. So, what is Jesus claiming about Himself? (He is indeed God!)
One more verse will reinforce Mark’s theme that Jesus is God because He is the Son of God.
As He was dying, nailed to a cross, a Roman soldier was paying close attention. He made a bold confession when Christ died.
Mark 15:39 So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”
Here was a man who must have seen hundreds of crucifixions in service to the emperor. It was just part of the job. Why would Jesus’ execution incite a verbal response from him?
Anyone reading Mark’s Gospel all the way to chapter 15 already knows the answer to this question.
The one who died was also the one who forgives sin and defines the will of God.
When Jesus rose from the dead in Mark 16, He demonstrated once and for all that His claims were valid.
One other major theme appears in the Gospel of Mark. He presents Jesus’ disciples as men who realize who He is but miss what that really means.
In Mark 8, two miracles (feeding 4,000 & healing a blind man) and the way the disciples respond to them makes the theme clear.
For the second time in Mark, the disciples are present when Jesus feeds a astonishingly large crowd with barely any food and even has a sizable surplus left over. First it was 5,000 men plus family in Mark 6. Then it was 4,000 total in Mark 8.
When they board the boat and leave, they notice too late that they forgot to stock up on food for the journey. All they have is one loaf of bread. Jesus uses it as an object lesson and tells them to beware of the leaven of the religious leaders.
Their response? Is He talking about yeast because we didn’t bring enough bread?
Jesus cannot believe how blind they are to what is happening around them. He quizzes them on how the earlier feedings turned out.
Then He reprimands them.
Mark 8:21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”
The next miracle is Jesus’ only “near-miss,” if we dare to call it that.
Christ spits on the eyes of a blind man, lays hands on him, and asks what he sees. The man says, “I see men like trees, walking.”
Like a fighter pilot who did not land in the perfect spot on the aircraft carrier, He takes off and makes another approach.
Mark 8:25 Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.
The blind man now saw clearly, unlike the disciples. They see like the blind man after Jesus’ first approach.
When it comes to the who Christ is, there’s an image but it is blurry to them, like trees walking around. They think He is probably the Messiah, but they do not see His deity yet.
The very next scene in Mark is Jesus asking the disciples about who He is.
Mark 8:29 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”
It is no coincidence that Peter’s famous confession of Jesus as the Messiah comes directly after the two-stage process of Jesus healing the blind man.
As true as it is that Jesus is the Messiah, even that crucial revelation falls short of the goal Mark has for his readers.
At this point on history, devout Jews revered the coming Messiah but did not think He would be equal with God.
Would He be powerful? Yes. Would He be deity? No.
Mark 8:32 …Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.
Mark 8:33 But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
At this point, although His disciples are not completely ignorant about Him, they still do not “get it.” It is yet unclear to them who Jesus is. They see, but they do not yet see clearly.
Application:
The other theme that we must understand to truly grasp the Gospel of Mark is the problem of the proper response to Jesus.
Who responds to Him the right way?
The disciples fail in their response to Him. (“How is it you do not understand?”) And yet they are invited to the Lord’s Table!
Why would Jesus receive such people into table fellowship do not really understand all that it means?
Surely there were better candidates. But who would they have been?
How is it possible for people who only halfway understand Jesus and His work to be welcome at His Table, the table of the Son of God?
The answer is that there are no other candidates. Those who follow Jesus rarely “get it.”
All of us fail to understand fully who Jesus is and the magnitude of what He has done for us. These truths are beyond us, they are strange to our ears. They are outside of our normal life experience.
So, whom else could Jesus have included at His Table? Whom else could He have brought into His fellowship? To whom could He have entrusted His mission to evangelize the world?
But how can He, the Son of God, God Himself, tolerate such people in His fellowship?
The answer: Because Jesus is the Son of God, He is the one who forgives sin. Only God can do that! Only God would do that.
Only the good God, full of grace and mercy, would bring sinners to His Table knowing their failure to understand who He really is.
Only the gracious God would invite people who have regularly failed to trust in Him and love Him to His Table of grace.
What sort of people is the Lord’s Supper for? It is for failures. It is for people who don’t “get it” spiritually. It is for me.
