Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 16th November 2008 by the Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Isaiah 49:1-6 and Mark 8:34-9:1.


The season of Advent is two weeks away. But I would like to give the first sermon of this year’s Advent series of sermons this Sunday instead of the first Sunday in Advent which falls on the 30th of November. It is because on that Sunday, we are going to conduct a special service to induct Phyllis Wong as the 17th minister of Kowloon Union Church.

I was an active youth counselor in my home church half-a-century ago. One of the games I liked to play with youth groups was called “Tell me what I said.” It was a simple game. Participants were divided evenly into two groups. Each group was asked to line up in a straight line. I then whispered a sentence of around 10 words to the first person on my right and then the same to the person on my left. They were asked to whisper and pass the same sentence to the next person until the very end. Then the last two persons were asked to repeat what they heard. Invariably, both were very distorted from my original sentence.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been preached for 2,000 years. The Gospel has been adopted in many different cultures. From Jewish to Greek, to Anglo-Saxon, to Chinese and now to many of us in Hong Kong. Obviously like the game of “What did I say”, there were many intentional as well as unintentional distortions. So from time to time we must go back to the origin of the Gospel: What did Jesus say and do as handed down orally and then in written form by his disciples and the people who were close to Jesus.

Jesus was the first one who preached the Gospel. In fact Jesus was the Gospel (Mk 1:1). But Jesus did not write down anything we know of. Our primary written source about Jesus Christ were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Of these four, the Gospel according to Mark was the earliest.

The person Mark was not a disciple of Jesus. In fact Mark might not have met Jesus in person. But Mark was a follower of both Peter and Paul in Rome. According to Church tradition Peter and Paul were the two most important personalities after Jesus. Peter was the first among equal of Jesus’ disciples. Since his encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul had become the most faithful follower of Jesus. What did Peter and Paul preach about Jesus? The Acts of the Apostles had recorded five sermons given by Peter in Acts 2:14-40; 3:12-26; 4:9-12; 5:29-32 and 10:34-43; as well Paul’s sermon in 13:16-41. These are generally labeled as Apostolic preaching. As we analyze these six sermons, we can easily detect there is only one thing in common among them: Jesus was put on a cross to die, but “God had raised him to life” (Acts 2:32; 3:16; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40 and 13:30). The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ had become the core of the Kerygma or the Christian Gospel.

Peter did not write anything to pass on to us. But Paul did. At least he wrote seven letters (Galatians, I Thessalonians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians). From Paul’s writings we could see that he developed his theology around Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice. Thus Paul’s theology was generally labeled as the “Cross theology”.

Peter also subscribed to the utter importance of the Cross. There was one tradition saying that when Peter was persecuted and put to death on a cross, out of respect to Jesus, he insisted that his cross be put upside down.

Anyway, the composer of Mark’s Gospel used the core of the Apostolic preaching as the outline of his gospel. In other words, Mark’s gospel was centred around the Cross. That explains why a-third of the gospel (chapters 11-16) was devoted to Jesus’ last days of intensive suffering in Jerusalem. This is generally known as the extended passion narrative of Jesus. Mark also used 120 verses in chapters 14 and 15 to describe in minute details about Jesus’ suffering: Jesus’ betrayal, his arrest, the trial in the Sanhedrin (the assembly of the Jewish leaders); the trial before Pontius Pilate, being humiliated… and finally nailed on a cross.

Moreover, when we read Mark’s Gospel carefully, we can detect Mark wanted to relate to us the whole ministry of Jesus had centred around the cross. For example, in Jesus’ baptism, Mark quoted Psalm 2 “You are my son, my beloved, my favour rests in you” (Mk 1:11). This alluded to the suffering servant as described in the servant songs in II Isaiah (42:1-4, especially 52:13-53:12). Mark described in detail the execution of John the baptizer by Herod (6:14-29). The other gospel which recorded the same but much shorter was Mt 14:3-12. The reason is obvious. If John as Jesus’ pioneer had to die so tragically, Jesus who followed John’s footsteps could not avoid the same fate. Mark also recorded in detail Jesus’ anointment at Bethany by a woman (14:3-9; c.f. Mt 26:6-13). This certainly was a premonition about the death of Jesus. Similarly Jesus’ transfiguration (Mk 9:2-8 c.f. Mt 17:1-8 and Lk 9:28-36) was a premonition about Jesus’ resurrection. Moreover, Mark recorded Jesus’ own prediction of his suffering three times (8:31, 9:31 and 10:33-34).

Of course Mark also tried to provide an answer to one of the most vital questions the Early Church asked: “Why must Jesus die?”.

First, the Jewish leadership at the time wanted Jesus to die. It was because the priests, the rabbis, the Pharisees, etc. could not accept Jesus’ challenge to their authority, which was built on their rigid interpretation of the Jewish Law and customs. For example, they insisted on Sabbath, people should not work. But Jesus did. He cured a man with a withered hand. Furthermore, Jesus used this incident to reinterpret the Sabbath law by saying that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath”. In Mark there were 15 such controversies with the Jewish establishment standing on one side and Jesus on the other. Mark specifically recorded in Jesus’ early ministry in Galilee and also when he entered Jerusalem, “they went out and began at once to plot against him, discussing how to destroy Jesus.” (3:7 and 11:8).

Yet, the sacrifice of Jesus had cosmic implications. Just like Job, the servant in Isaiah and Prophet Jeremiah, they suffered on behalf of the humankind so that people got to know the meaning of suffering. Suffering was not in vain, it had a healing power. Precisely, that was why when Jesus breathed his last, the veil of the Temple was torn right down the middle (Mk 15:38// Mt 27:51// Lk 23:45), symbolizing the reconciliation between God and the rebellious human beings.

Jesus’ suffering also unveiled the deep secret of life. Only the cross could have brought forth the empty tomb. Or to put in another way, the resurrected or eternal life only can come about if people decide to live a shared life, a life which is for the welfare of others. This was what Mark summed up about the Gospel of Jesus Christ: If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up the cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it.” (Mk 8:34-35). For Mark, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of RENUNCIATION.

The gospel which churches like to preach is: if you believe in Jesus, you may have eternal life (Jn 3:16). We must examine carefully what is the meaning and the implication of believing in Jesus, or having a personal relationship with Jesus. It certainly does not mean we accept Jesus as our Saviour notionally or conceptually. Rather, it means we are committed to carry the cross and follow Jesus. It implies that we decide to renounce or give up what we once attempted to seek and to live for for the sake of the people Jesus loves, especially the weak and the young; as well as for the well being of the poor and the marginalized whom Jesus fully identified with.

The Christian Gospel is the Gospel of Renunciation. It is the Gospel of the Cross of Jesus Christ. But unfortunately, the Church to-day has turned it into the gospel for self-benefit or self-possession. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been privatized.

We are all struck by the recent global financial tsunami which began in the collapse of the affluent property market in the U.S.A. Many experts predict that the effects of it will last for months, perhaps even a couple of years. In Hong Kong this economic downturn will make everyone, especially the poor suffer immeasurably. Small and medium business enterprises will go broke because of fewer customers and worse still banks will not lend them money. Unemployment and underemployment rate will surge. It is predicted that this financial crisis is worse than the SARS endemic in 2003!

Why all this? Is it because of human greed? Is it because the predominant mindset nowadays is “everybody for themselves”? More than ever, this world needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

The golden verse for the Gospel of Mark is in 1:15: “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel”. We all need to repent, to turn back from self-centeredness to God-centered, that is from a life disconnected with God to a life reconnected to God again.

To follow Jesus is never easy. Even the disciples failed miserably. Mark specifically recorded after Jesus had given his disciples the meaning of his gospel, they fought among themselves about who was the greatest (9:33-37) and moments later, James and John requested Jesus to grant them high positions, one sitting on Jesus’ right and the other on Jesus’ left (10:35-41)!

Many of us are eager to preach the gospel to the non-believers. But have we grasped the real meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Can we sell the gospel of Renunciation to ourselves?

One of the most important world mission conferences was the one held in Melbourne in 1980. I happened to be a delegate in that conference. One of the key points the conference dealt with was “Self-evangelism”. Before we share the gospel with others, we must first of all be able to internalize and live by the same gospel.

Mark’s Gospel was written around 64 A.D. That was the year Peter was put to death. Mark recognized that with Jesus’ disciples departed one by one, there was the urgency to write down what Jesus said and did as handed down orally by Jesus’ disciples. Yet, there must be another reason why the urgency of Mark’s Gospel. It was because in 63 A.D. Rome was burnt to the ground. The Roman authorities blamed it all on the Christians and started to persecute them. There was one theory saying that the Roman authorities had set the fire intentionally so as to give an excuse to get rid of the Jews, including Jewish Christians who were controlling the Roman economy. Nevertheless, Mark would want to help the Christians of the first century to conquer fear and anxiety. Mark insisted that Jesus Christ through his death had opened the gates of eternal life for all human beings. The intention was to empower Christians who faced persecution, even death.

We often think that to live a full life is to seek for more power and influence in order to safeguard our own interests: the power over others, the power to get what we want, such as wealth, status, fame, popularity, success, and so on. This is a very distorted viewpoint of what life is all about. In thinking along that line, we have in fact lost contact with the real meaning and purpose of life.

A fulfilled life as demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ is about the cross. The cross is about how to sacrifice or die our death for the sake of others (quoting Paul in II Cor 4:12). The cross is also about how to embrace prosperity and adversaries (“In the days of prosperity be joyful, but in the days of adversity, consider” – Ecc. 7:14). The cross has taught us to embrace the totality of life or the life as it is given by God. This new or resurrected life as brought forth by Jesus Christ is the eternal life or the abundant life.

Praise be our Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen.