King's Cross by Timothy Keller

This is my second read of this book and it looks at Mark's gospel highlighting specific verses of relevance to help in understanding the life and death of the Son of God.

Really Mark's gospel is all about Peter, Jesus' disciple, you remember the one who denied Jesus 3 times. Mark was a secretary and translator for Peter. Nothing happens in this book without Peter being present. It is almost certainly the eyewitness testimony of Peter.

Timothy Keller makes the point that throughout the book of Mark you will find it written in the present tense. He was conveying the point that Jesus is a living reality, a person who addresses us today. Mark wants us to see that the coming of Jesus calls for decisive action. Jesus is a man of action, moving quickly and decisively from event to event. Mark is all about Jesus' actions rather than his teaching.

Why call this book King's Cross? Well chapters 1 to 8 show us Jesus' identity as King over all things and chapters 9 to 16 show his purpose in dying on the cross.

Timothy Keller tells his own testimony in the opening introduction. He states that as a youth he had believed the bible was the Word of the Lord but until he met him personally the Gospels never became real.

There are only selective texts used throughout his book but each chapter is like a sermon in itself and having only read the introduction and first chapter I am filled with excitement to hear a first hand account of someone who lived and walked with Jesus.

Bible journaling for me is not about highlighting or underscoring words and writing in the column without really understanding what I have read. I like to understand and apply scripture.

Mark in his opening verse wanted everyone to know who Jesus is. He describes him as "Christ" which too often today is taken as a swear word and makes my skin crawl when I hear people use it that way. Christos was a Greek word meaning an anointed royal figure, another way of referring to the Messiah. That title was important to the Jewish world as they believed such a person would come and administer God's rule on earth and rescue Israel from all its oppressors and troubles. Not just a king but The King!

Mark also refers to him as "the Son of God". It was a claim of outright divinity.

Then Mark quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. It never ceases to amaze me how scripture quotes scripture, like a jigsaw puzzle being put together. Remember that was what the Jews had in those days, they were taught these scriptures from childhood. Mark quotes scripture which refers to John the Baptist. Basically he is saying that if John was the one come to prepare the way then Jesus must be the Lord himself. Jesus and the Lord are one and the same. Jesus fulfils all your Old Testament prophecy Mark is saying and he is come to rule and renew the entire universe.

Further on down in this chapter Mark tells us more about Jesus. He came from Nazareth and was baptised by John. This event was special because all 3 persons of the Godhead were present. God the Father (he spoke from heaven), God's Spirit (in the form of a dove hovering or fluttering) and Jesus.

Timothy Keller points out that with the Spirit being represented as a dove it points us back to Genesis 1 when the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters like a dove. The same 3 people were present at the creation of the world as they are here at Jesus' baptism.

Mark is giving us a glimpse into the very heart of reality, the meaning of life, the essence of the universe. Every person of the Trinity glorifies the other. Surely in return we want to honour and glorify God, to thank him for Jesus and what he did on Calvary?

Immediately after Jesus was baptised he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. Surely there is a parallel to Adam and Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden.

Notice it says Jesus "was with the wild beasts". A description of a battle! Satan is real, not a myth. Satan never stops tempting us even today. Mark only gives 1 verse to the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness but Matthew gives more. Satan basically wanted Jesus to step out of orbit around the Father and the Spirit and around us. To make sure everyone else centers on him, Satan and to protect himself.

Jesus continued to be assaulted by Satan throughout his ministry and it finished in another garden, the Garden of Gethsemane.

In the Garden of Eden Adam's fall centred around a tree. A tree he was not to touch, he was to obey God in this one thing. Jesus had to face a tree, the cross and he obeyed his Father. He now offers salvation through his death on that tree.

When we are in the deepest battle, when we are tempted and hurt and weak we will hear the same words Jesus heard "This is my beloved child - you are my beloved child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

How amazing, how wonderful. All this within the first chapter of Timothy Keller's book King's Cross. This is why I love to read and be able to sit at the feet of some of the great commentary writers of this day and age.

"Some people might say I am fanatical about my faith, some might say I don't go far enough but they are missing the whole point of the gospel. It's the good news that you don't need to earn your way to God; Jesus has already done it for you. And it's a gift you receive by sheer grace - through God's thoroughly unmerited favour. If I seize that gift and keep holding on I will not be called into fanaticism or moderation.

I am passionate to make Jesus my absolute goal and priority. When I meet people with a different set of priorities or faith I will not assume they are inferior to me. I have instead sought to serve them rather than oppress them."

 

"God is God and since he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in his will and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to."

Elisabeth Elliot

 

Mark 4 the storm stilled. You know this story so well and yet we should not let its familiarity wash over important truths. Jesus is in the boat with his disciples and a storm gets up. Jesus is sound asleep and they have to waken him. Remember these were seasoned fishermen, they should know what to do in a storm but no they are so frightened that it makes them unable to do anything.

For me it's the lesson that when the disciples went to waken Jesus their boat was already full of water. Secondly they were actually more afraid after the storm stilled.

Sometimes in life we feel God seems to be asleep, absent or unaware. The disciples thought if Jesus loved them then he wouldn't let them go through this. God allows us to go through storms. We have no need to be afraid when we are in the storm. He has not abandoned us, he is right beside us through that storm. That is the reality of faith and I can testify to that personally.

 

I am constantly amazed by women in scripture who showed great faith in Jesus. This story in Mark 7 is one such story. It is of a woman who lived in Tyre. Jesus went there to get some rest but this woman burst into the house he was staying in. She had one purpose in mind - that Jesus would cast out a demon from her daughter.

She recognised that she was not accepted - She was a foreigner, a woman, not a believer, had a daughter with an unclean spirit and she begged for help. Her approach was all wrong ... in our opinion. Jesus told her clearly that he had come to reach the Jewish nation first. She had to wait her turn but she was bold. She challenged Jesus asking him to treat her now. She had the utmost respect for Jesus but she also had faith. She recognised who he was and what his mission was. She had such boldness but as a mother she was desperate to see her daughter restored.

Martin Luther saw a picture of the gospel in this story. We are more wicked than we ever believed, but at the same time more loved and accepted than we ever dared to hope.

We can fail in 2 ways in letting Jesus be our Saviour - either we think we are too good or we think we are too bad. How sad to reject the love of God and yet so many do it today