change

Mark's account of Jesus' ministry is pretty action packed.

The sort of running narrative where you start to hold your breath a bit and wonder where the whole thing's going to lead you.

It's powerful stuff. And it's meant, I suppose, to wake us all up and to start taking notice of Jesus. Not that he's someone you'd really presume to ignore.

In these weeks leading on up to Easter, in our Wednesday lunch-time services, we're taking the chance to read through the long final portion of Mark's very graphic account. The part where he focusses down on the last, crucial week of Jesus' ministry. Like all the gospel writers, Mark gives over a third of his book to these last few days of Jesus' earthly living.

It's sobering stuff, for sure. We started last week with the bit where we're told "they were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way...".

A gentle introduction with the reassuring message that he hasn't come to be served but to serve. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks. Not once, but twice - in two successive incidents.

This is the way we like our God. At our service. Ready to do our bidding. Helping us out. Meeting our needs. Prospering our agenda.

Isn't this Jesus just great! How gladly we sing of the servant king!

But then we turn the page and we're given the stark reminder .. er, he is the king. The servant king, for sure: but still the king.

King is the noun in the sentence, servant is the adjective. He's not a regal servant: he's the servant king.

It was that we were seeing today at the lunch-time service. Not just the fact of his kingship. But what that kingship means.

Which is where it all gets rather disturbing. A fig tree is cursed and then withers. The tables get turned in the temple (in more than one way), and all the busy bustle of religion is being suddenly, and none too ceremoniously, knocked for six.

Excuse me, Jesus. What do you think you are doing?

Silly question. The King has come. And he's starting to sort things out and put things right and ... well, it's not exactly pretty.

Privilege counts for nothing if there isn't any fruit to show from it. Fig trees are a waste of space if all there is to show from them is leaves and no real fruit.

Be warned. The King, when he comes, means business.

But not business as usual. As the folk in the temple discovered.

Reformation kicked in. Quite literally.

Jesus brings change. Radical, root-and-branch change.

It's exciting to watch from the touchlines of time as we do: it's great spectator sport!

Except it's not a spectator sport at all. It's not just Jerusalem's temple he comes to reform. It's the temple as well of our lives. Each and every one of us.

And all of a sudden the smiles disappear from our faces. The King has the nerve to jump out from the pages of Scripture and arrive on our doorsteps today.

He's intent on change. Renewing, reforming our lives. And our life, the life that we share as his people.

Change. It isn't ever easy.

And there's a lot of such change going on. When the King comes along it's disturbing.

There's a good deal of change going on in the life the fellowship here these days. Which is highly unsettling, often disturbing, and sometimes quite upsetting.

The temple's not a comfortable place to be when Jesus pitches up. Like school without the children, Christianity without Jesus would be a dawdle!

There's change that's needed as well, though, in people's personal lives. And since that's really all of us, I'm involved with such change really all of the time as I meet with and work with a whole range of people from all walks of life in all sorts of situations.

Sometimes the change that's required is a moral change. A change in basic attitudes, the habits of a lifetime in the case of some.

Can a leopard change its spots?

It's a question which pretty much answers itself, of course. Er, no.

We tend to shrug our shoulders and adopt the lazy, rather pessimistic que sera sera approach. Some things will simply never change.

But the King who can turn over tables and spring-clean the temple of God is the King who can also turn all of our lives upside down. And put them right way up.

Attitudes as well. Habits of a lifetime as well.

Prayer is basic. He is the one who does it. We ask him, beg him, plead with him to do it.

The Word is important. God's Word is commanding and through its commands is always creative as well.

Light appears in the darkness when the word of God is spoken. A child is formed in the womb of a virgin woman when the word of God is spoken. Those who are dead and buried walk out of the tomb when the word of God is spoken.

Change happens. Light, life, resurrection.

The Word of God effects such change. We learn to release that Word.

Moral reformation and renewal is the business of the King.

But what about physical change? The re-formation of a person's dis-eased body?

I get to see folk like that as well each day. And today was just the same. A person who's struggled with a highly debilitating physical ailment for months on end.

When the King comes along to the temple of this person's life, may I dare to look for re-formation in the make-up of her body?

Can the King put things right in this 'temple' as well? Of course he can.

One day he will for us all. The day of resurrection. When all things are renewed.

But there are pointers to that future day in the present here and now. Reformation, renewal, rebirth.

So I pray with such people. And I pray to that end.

And I pray with an earnest expectancy. I pray for the King to come in. I pray for his cleansing of grace. I pray for some more of his table-turning boldness and his life-transforming power. I pray for change. I pray for light at the end of the tunnel. I pray for hope in the midst of the darkness. I pray for the door of the tomb to be opened. I pray that a person laid low may rise up once again and step out of the tomb of their pain.

I pray, I plead, I speak the Word of God.

And I look for the King, who is always so ready to serve - I look for the King to come.

Maranatha!