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The Good News of Jesus

11/08/2009 - Solve this Riddle, Mark 12:35-40

Who here likes riddles? I enjoy a good riddle. I think the first riddle I ever heard was, "What's black and white and read all over?" Did you ever hear that one? The answer is ... a newspaper! It's black and it's white and its read, r-e-a-d, all over. That's an easy one.

I like riddles, but the trouble with riddles is that you have to have time to solve them. A good riddle usually takes awhile to figure out. And most of us don't have that much time so when we hear a good riddle we usually say, "I don't know. I give up. What's the answer?"

But when you're taking a long trip riddles can be a great way to pass the time. I can remember when I was in college and we would take long bus trips to swim meets, and these were the days before laptops and cell phones, IPods and DVD players. How did we even survive back then? I don't even think we had transistor radios and I know we didn't have earphones. So we would either sleep on the bus, stare out the window, count license plates, or tell riddles.

I can remember one bus trip down to Greenville, South Carolina. That was a long way and I sat in the back of the bus with a bunch of friends and we told riddles for hours. It was a blast and certainly helped pass the time.

This week I went online to check out some riddles and thought I'd share a few with you ...

What is greater than God and more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it you'll die?

Nothing. Nothing is greater than God, nothing is more evil than the devil, the poor have nothing, the rich need nothing and if you eat nothing you'll die.

I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?

The letter e. End, timE, spacE, crEation, Every placE.

What always runs but never walks, often murmurs but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never eats?

A river.

I like a good riddle and I think Jesus liked a good riddle too. In fact, he often spoke in riddles as we've seen in our study through the gospel of Mark. Jesus would often say things that would leave people scratching their heads and wondering, "What did he say? What did he mean by that?"

And today Jesus is going lift a riddle right out of the book of Psalms that's designed to get us scratching our heads and get us going a little deeper in our understanding of who he really is. If you have a Bible turn with me to Mark 12:35 as we continue our series called The Good News of Jesus ... As Told By Mark.

We're in the last week of Jesus' life, the week called Holy Week or Passion Week and we will be for some time because Mark devotes 6 out of 16 chapters to the last week of Jesus' life that will take us all the way to the end of his gospel. The day is Tuesday, the day of questions. Jesus is teaching in the Temple courts and he's been grilled with questions all day long by people and groups that for the most part are out to get him.

So I'm sure by this time he's fatigued and feeling drained emotionally because he's been on the defensive most of the day. But now he decides to play offense and goes to the other side of the line of scrimmage and poses his own question to the crowd in the form of a riddle.

Look at Mark 12:35, While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David?

Remember Jesus had just answered the question of a teacher of the law, a scribe who had come up and asked him, "What's the greatest commandment?" And in response Jesus recited the Great Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. "Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad" is the way it sounds in Hebrew.

The statement that there is only one God is the cornerstone of the Jewish faith. There is not a pantheon of gods for the sun and the moon and the stars and everything else that God created. There is only one God. But as we said last week, embedded in the Great Shema, that's recited by the Jewish people to this day, is the plurality that exists within that one God.

The Hebrew word "echad," the Lord is echad, is the plural form of one, a oneness made up of several parts. Echad is the same word that God uses to describe the goal of marriage when two become one to reflect the image of God.

God is one, but God is not all by himself. God exists in community and what we discover as we read through the New Testament is that that community is actually made up of three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Not three Gods. Not three forms of God, but one God who exists simultaneously as three persons.

If that's hard to understand join the crowd. It's a profound mystery. One theologian said, "The doctrine of the Trinity is both crucial and complex. Those who deny it may lose their soul. But those who struggle too much to understand it may lose their wits."

And who in that crowd at the Temple that day could understand that? I doubt that Jesus' disciples, who had followed him now for over three years, could wrap their minds around that concept. All their lives they had been fiercely taught that there is only one God and anyone who claimed to be God was stoned to death for blasphemy. So Jesus tells them a riddle to try and stretch their thinking about who he really is. But he doesn't make the riddle up. Instead, he quotes Scripture and what King David wrote in Psalm 110.

Look at verse 36, David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' ³⁷David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"

Here's the riddle. How can the Messiah be both David's son and David's Lord? Or in other words, why would David call his son, Lord?

Now nobody would argue that the Messiah was going be David's son. In other words, he was going to be a descendant of King David. This was the clear teaching of the Old Testament in passages like Jeremiah 23:5, "The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land." Using this image, God says that Messiah is going to be a branch on David's family tree.

In the New Testament, the gospel writers Matthew and Luke go to great lengths recording the genealogy of Jesus to show that he was a descendant of David. The apostle Paul would affirm that later in his writings too.

Throughout Mark's gospel we've seen Jesus addressed as the son of David. That's what blind Bartimaeus kept crying out when Jesus passed through Jericho in Mark 10:47, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. That was a Messianic title. No one would argue that. That's the pedigree the nation of Israel was looking for in any would be Messiah.

But not only was Jesus a branch on David's family tree. He was also the root of David's family tree. That's what we read in Revelation 22:16, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you the testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.

By giving this riddle Jesus is raising the corner of the curtain that hides the biggest surprise of all. He's more than a carpenter. He's more than a rabbi. He's more than a prophet. He's more than David's son. He's more than the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King. He is David's Lord. He's part of the echad. He is God come in the flesh.

Later the apostle John would write these words in John 1:1,14, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word, Jesus, was with God. And the Word was God. God himself took on the role that nobody else could have assumed. The Messiah had to be a descendant of David to fulfill Scripture, but he had to be more than a descendant of David to fulfill Scripture and to accomplish his mission of saving and redeeming the world. A human Messiah was not good enough. God had to do the job himself and that was the biggest surprise of all.

This man the disciples had been following for three years, this one that they had eaten with and walked with and talked with and sailed with and camped out with and joked with and laughed with is the one and only God of the universe! He is the Lord of the Great Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one ... and I'm standing right here. This is mind blowing stuff!

How do you convince a people whose whole faith is fiercely built on the fact that there is only one God and you are him without getting yourself killed!? Well you can't because in less than three days Jesus will be killed and blasphemy will be one of the charges leveled against him.

Psalm 110 goes beyond the verse that Jesus quotes and goes on to say that this Lord, this Messiah, this King is also a priest forever. Psalm 110:4, The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."

As a priest forever Jesus has authority over the Temple which gave him the right to cleanse it the day before and in the next chapter gives him the right to pronounce judgment on it and predict its destruction. He has authority to do that because he's not just a rabbi or even just a prophet. He's not just Messiah or even a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He has the right to do that because he is the embodiment of God himself! So by imposing this riddle Jesus is actually answering the question that started off the whole day, "By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you authority to do this?"

This episode is found in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And in each account nobody can answer his question. Nobody can solve the riddle. Instead, in Matthew's gospel it says in Matthew 22:46, No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

At the end of Mark 12:37 we read that, The large crowd listened to him with delight. Another translation reads, The common people heard him gladly. The people loved it when Jesus confounded the scholars. They thought it was great when they were speechless! No one could answer his riddle but he threw it out there as part of this growing revelation that the Messiah was more than a mere man.

Jesus ends the discussion by taking a shot at hypocrisy which is something we all need to be on guard against. Look at verse 38, As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, ³⁹and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁰They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely."

The teachers of the law loved to parade their piety. They loved to wear long, flowing robes that touched the ground as a sign of prestige. It was the kind of robe that no one in a hurry would wear and certainly no one doing manual labor would wear either. Instead, it was a sign of leisure meant to draw attention to themselves. And in keeping with the Jewish law, at the edge of their robe they wore long prayer tassels that would remind everyone how pious they were.

They loved to be seen at the mall and be greeted with honor and respect. They loved to sit at the head table at banquets and in the most important seats in the synagogue. In most synagogues at that time there was always a bench up front that faced the congregation where the most important people sat so they could be seen and admired by everyone.

They loved to pray long winded prayers to impress people while at the same time, Jesus says, they were devouring widows' houses. As I mentioned last week the teachers of the law drew up contracts and were involved in business transactions because they knew how to write. And in a society where many were illiterate, especially women, they would use that skill to take advantage of widows and sign their property over to themselves to line their pockets. And Jesus said, "These men will be punished most severely."

I like what Tom Wright says in his comments on these verses because we see it everyday played out in the news. "Generations of preachers have used this passage to criticize church leaders who like to dress up and be seen in public. That's fair enough. But we shouldn't forget that the scribes and Pharisees were not simply what we would call 'religious' leaders. They were, just as much, what we would call social and political leaders. What are today's equivalents? Some might be the leaders, whether elected or unelected, in our wider societies, who give themselves airs on the media, who rejoice in their 'celebrity' status, who make grand pronouncements about public values while running lucrative but shady businesses on the side, who use their position to gain influence for their families and friends, and who allow their private interests to secretly determine their public policy. Let's be clear that the problem Jesus identified is not confined to churches, but runs through most modern societies from top to bottom." These will be punished most severely.

In the parallel passage of this account found in Matthew's gospel Jesus says in Matthew 23:11-12, The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

That's a good reminder for all of us. When we worship we are not worshiping to be seen. Instead, we're worshiping an audience of One. When we pray we are not praying to seen. Instead, we are praying to an audience of One. When we serve, we are not serving to be seen. Instead, we are serving an audience of One. When we give, we are not giving to be seen. Instead, we are giving to an audience of One.

The humility of Jesus, the God of the universe who laid aside his glory and came down dressed up as a servant is our model. While the teachers of the law over dressed to make sure they were noticed and looked like more than they really were. Jesus underdressed to look less than he really was. And the humility of Jesus is the better way to live.

The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.