New Wine. New Wineskins.

Mark 12:28-34

Transcript

Well, peace be with you. Let's pray, Father. May your will be done, Jesus. May your word be proclaimed in spirit. May your work be accomplished in us.
We pray. Amen. Well, as we venture into the Advent season, we are now turning to a new section of the Gospel of Mark. We have just got done with the previous section, which is mark chapters 8 through 10, where Jesus foretells to his disciples that he's going to die and be resurrected three different times. And now we are turning the page and we're looking at, for the remainder of the next couple of weeks before we enter Advent, we're going to be looking at this temple narrative that takes place between Mark chapter 11 and Mark chapter 13.
In this whole section, it's a long narrative of Jesus last week of his life before he goes to his death. And we are given more than three days worth of his interaction that takes place in the temple and with temple leaders. And in order to better understand these two chapters, this section that Mark is trying to inform us about, I need to draw from a previous statement that Jesus himself makes in Mark chapter two. 22. This statement that Jesus makes helps us understand all that is about to take place in Mark chapter 11 through 13.
In this temple narrative, Jesus rides in on the donkey, comes into the temple, clears the temple out, he argues and strips the temple leaders of their influence over the people. And later, what closes out these two chapters, these three chapters in this temple narrative is Jesus sitting opposite of the temple and discussing with his disciples how the temple is going to be destroyed. In order for us to grasp and understand why all these things are happening, why Mark is writing this down, why it's so important to relate then Jesus last week of his life, why he is dealing with things in the temple. We need to understand what he had said in the beginning of his ministry. Mark chapter 2, verse 22 says this.
No one puts new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wine will burst the skins and the wine is lost in the skins as well. But one puts new wine into fresh wine skins. You see the practices that are taking place in the temple, all the sacrifices that are taking place in the temple are going to be done away with. They're going to be null and void. What's currently taking place inside the temple is old.
And Jesus is going to clear it out and make way for the new wine that's going to come from his own blood. And the temple is going to be destroyed, which represents the old wine skins. And a new temple is going to be resurrected, namely Jesus body, which his own presence is going to go into those he saves, and the temple is going to be reformed and refashioned through those who believe in Jesus Christ. So this is what's taking place in this temple narrative. And so Jesus rides in on his donkeys in chapter 11, beginning of chapter 11, it's that famous Palm Sunday scene, right?
And what happens is he's riding in on this donkey and the people enthrone him as a king as he's riding into Jerusalem for the last and final time, right? He enters into the temple. And what does he see in the temple? The temple no longer resembles a place or a house of prayer for the nations, but Jesus labels it a den for robbers to come and gather and count their loot. It has become a place of commerce and business.
So Jesus cleans it out, he clears it out in order to make way for the new ways and the new practices that are going to take place among God's people. He's getting rid of the old wine. Well, as you can probably imagine, the temple leaders struggle with this, and this makes them irritable, and this makes them want to desire to seek and destroy Jesus. But here's the problem. Jesus's influence over the people has grown greatly, and the temple leader's influence has no effect on the people anymore.
So out of fear for the people, they can't take Jesus's life. They can't destroy them, destroy him. And so Jesus comes back into the temple after he cleans it, and they just point blank go and confront him and say, who gives you authority to do these things? By what authority are you doing these things? But Jesus doesn't answer the question because they don't answer his.
And so this makes them even more mad. They want to seize Jesus, but again we're told, Mark tells us that they fear the people, and so there's nothing they can do about it. So they begin to conspire with each other. This is all the temple leaders together. The chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees are all coming together and they comprise this plan that since they can't get rid of Jesus, they're going to try to strip him and dismantle his influence over the people.
If we can make Jesus become a fraud and a false prophet in the eyes of the people, then his influence over them will wane and we'll regain the influence we once had and we can continue to do things as we see fit. And so what do they decide to do? They decide to send three of their Best and brightest to confront Jesus and to help him lose his influence. The first of this is the Pharisees. In Mark, chapter 12, this whole narrative, three people come and approach Jesus in the temple.
So the Pharisees are first up to bat. And the Pharisees try to do this political checkmate. Here's the. Here's the rub of the whole situation. If they can get Jesus to choose a side between Rome or the people, then what they want to be accomplished is going to take place.
If Jesus sides with Rome, then he's going to lose his influence over the people who feel oppressed by Rome. But if Jesus chooses the people, then he's going to be destroyed by Rome because Caesar will not have any treason take place in his empire. And they're thinking they have this political checkmate. Finally, we are going to present to Jesus and ask him what side is he on? Is he on the people's side?
Is he on the Roman side? And by doing so, they're going to sit back and watch him unfold and his influence become no more. Well, as you can imagine, Jesus is wiser and smarter. And he looks at it, asks for a coin and says, show me the coin. And on the coin says, who's this?
Whose image is this? It's Caesar's. He says, then give to Caesar's what? Caesar's. And the thing that they didn't account for, the Pharisees didn't account for the idea.
They thought it was just Rome and the people who did, they forget about God. So Jesus brings God into the equation. He says, you give to Caesar what's Caesar's, but then you give to God what's God's. And the people were amazed at this teaching. His influence continued to grow.
And the Pharisees strike out. So then they send in the Sadducees, literally sad people, because they don't believe in the resurrection. They don't believe in life after death. They only believe in the first five books of the Torah, Moses writings. They don't believe in the wisdom literature.
They don't believe in the minor prophets. They don't believe in any other part of the Old Testament. They only believe in the Torah. And there's no such thing as life after death. And so what they tried to do is they tried to make Jesus a fraud and someone who propagates false information by stripping, by creating the situation that's so ridiculous that it would expose life after death to be a farce.
It doesn't make any sense. So they try to paint Jesus in the Corner with his own words. You say there's life after death, you say there's resurrection. Well, let me just paint for you a little situation that kind of brings this all thing down and makes it impossible and illogical. They talk about the fact that in our tradition, in the Jewish tradition, that there is a woman who marries, the husband dies, they have no children and she's supposed to marry his brother.
Well, he dies, they have no children, so she marries another. She does this seven times, they're seven brothers. So the question becomes Jesus in this life after death, in this resurrection, then whose wife does she become? And they're sitting there just rubbing their hands, twiddling their fingers, thinking that they have just painted Jesus in the corner and that they are going to make him a liar and someone who is promoting something that's illogical and irrational. And Jesus just blows them away and uses their source of authority, the Torah and says, how is it that God said to Moses at the burning bush that he is the God of the living?
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are dead, is he God of living or is he God of dead? He's God of the living. So he uses the Torah against them to show them that, that their scenario is just completely washed away by their very own source of authority. Here's kind of what I like in the situation. The painting in the corner of the Sadducees.
I don't know if you guys grew up or have ever watched Willy Wonka the old school one, not the new versions, but the old Willy Wonka. When I grew up, I watched this and it was just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I mean, chocolate milk rivers. I mean, you cannot. I mean, that's what I always envisioned heaven to be like candy trees, all these wonderful things.
Well, if you remember, Augustus Clue is this big pudgy little boy that I think I resembled when I was little. He sees this chocolate river. He goes to the chocolate river and starts drinking it, right? And Willy Wonka says, don't do that, don't do that. Well, in drinking the chocolate river, Augustus Glue falls in and gets sucked up into the pipe.
His mother starts freaking out. His mother starts saying, oh no, oh no. He's in five seconds he's going to be put into little pieces and turned into a marshmallow. And Willy Wonka, as he takes out a piece of candy, says, that's absurd. That's ridiculous.
That's 100% not true. And she's like, why? Because that doesn't lead to the marshmallow room. It leads to the fudge room and all that. I think that's exactly what Jesus says to the Sadducees, who try to use this situation.
With this woman having to marry seven different times. Whose wife is she going to be in heaven? He's like, that's absurd. That's ridiculous. Heaven doesn't even have marriage in it.
He exposes the lie, he exposes the situation, and he exposes how ignorant they are, even in their own source of authority. So the Sadducees strike out. So now we have the two best and brightest of the Temple leadership coming to strip Jesus of his influence. And it can't be done yet. But because Jesus just used and referenced God's word, here comes the third, the best and the utmost foremost expert in the law, as if to say, all right, Jesus, since you just brought up God's Word, let's bring in the scribe.
The scribe comes out from the the pitcher's bullpen and he's about to close out the game on Jesus. And so that's where we actually find ourselves in our Gospel lesson today. This is the third and the final attempt to strip Jesus of his influence over the people so that the temple leadership can regain their influence over them so that they can hang on to this old wine in their old wineskin known as the temple, and that Jesus is trying to clear out, clean out, and dismantle. So let's read real briefly what has taken place with the scribe in Mark, chapter 12, verses 28 through 34. A gospel lesson again.
Now just listen. One of the scribes came and heard them arguing and recognizing that he had answered them well, asked him, what commandment is the four foremost of all? Jesus answered, the foremost is, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these. The scribe said to him, right, teacher, you have truly stated that he is one, and there is no one else besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength. And to love one's neighbor as himself is much more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus saw they had answered intelligently, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God.
And after that, no one would venture to ask Jesus any more questions. So let me break down what the third strategy was. Because Jesus brought up the word of God, they brought the expert of the word of God in the scribe. Nobody is foremost of an expert of the word of God, the law, than the scribe himself. This probably was the chief end scribe.
And having heard all the arguments, having watched what was trying to take place into stripping and dismantling Jesus influence over the people, the scribe enters in, and here's where it all comes down to Jesus. See how well you know the word of God. Let's see how well you know the law. What is the foremost law? It's not the first.
Foremost in this context means what is the law from which all other laws flow from? And Jesus says, the foremost is hear, O Israel, the Lord God is one, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Then he goes the second mile with the scribe. And the second is like it to love your neighbor as yourself. These are the foremost laws.
And the scribe concedes the scribe in an ironic fashion, the one who tries to strip Jesus of his influence by exposing his ignorance of the law confirms he knows the law. And even what's more ironically is as he is the one who was the expert, Jesus demonstrates that he's more of an expert. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and now the scribes can't even hold a candle to the Son of God. And Jesus influence grows, and it grows so much that at the end, the scribe wins. Jesus wins his heart over on this scribe says, because the scribe adds something, he says, to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself is all more than all the sacrifices offered in the temple.
And that's why Jesus says, you're this close. That is correct. That's intelligent. You're putting two and two together. But why is it that he's this close?
And how come he's not all the way in? And here's where our Gospel lesson teaches us why it is that Jesus has to ride in on a donkey into Jerusalem and dismantle the temple and all its practices. Because none of it is sufficient, none of it works. And he comes to bring what fully works, because those sacrifices they've been making in the temple over and over and over again each and every year have to be done each and every year. And they're insufficient.
And they're doing it now. The practices that are taking place in the temple, they're doing it, and they don't even love God. And Jesus just got done saying, and the scribe just got done affirming that all the laws that they're trying to keep, if they're not attached to the love of God, then they're meaningless. And Jesus is exposing why none of this works is because they don't love God. Jesus is teaching a relationship between love and law.
And Jesus comes to express the relationship between love and law. That love precedes law. That it is the law defines and describes the love that one has for God. That's what's taking place. And that's how he debunks and strips and dismantles everything in the temple.
Because none of it speaks of how much they love God with their whole entire being. It only speaks and smells like people just trying to earn the love of God through their works. Jesus says, nobody here fully loves God with their whole entire being.
They only work to try to gain love from God. And God is not one who's going to be manipulated. God is love. It's only by grace that he even extends his love. You can't earn it, you can't gain it.
He freely gives it. So Jesus has to get rid of the old way in order to make way for the new his way. What Jesus is doing is he's removing all the things that are distracting people from the real issue that they need, and that is love for God. And everybody has a problem with a love for God because not one person ever born, with the exception of Jesus Christ himself, has ever able to love God with their whole entire being. And Jesus says, I'm now coming to make way for that.
I am loving my Father perfectly. I embody this foremost law. I love my Father with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. And my love for the Father. I'm going to represent for all those who believe in me.
I'm going to love my Father perfectly. And all those who will trust in me to love him perfectly will receive his love back by grace. And in order to demonstrate this love, this is where law comes in. The relationship between love and law is this law details and defines the type of love that we possess. Right.
If you have law, but you don't have love, what does Paul say? That's like you're a noisy and annoying banging symbol. You have no love. All you have is law. All you have is just you trying to do you and you.
And you're just trying to do what is right because you're prideful. You're just a sounding symbol. That's what happens if you just have all law and no love. But what if you have all love and no law?
I think those who have come from a United Methodist background might know what happens when you have all love but no law, love becomes undefined. Love becomes more abstract. The law helps define what love is. It's because we do these things out of love. It's because we exercise and do this and obey out of our love that defines our love.
It's something that can be specified. It's not just any love out there. You say, well, God, I love you, so just. I'm just going to live my life how I want to live it, and you're just going to love me. And God says, that's not love.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Law defines for us what love looks like. So there's this relationship between love and law that Jesus is demonstrating with his answer to the scribe and why nobody seeks to ask any more questions of him. Because he's narrowed it down. He specified it.
He says, what is required to be delivered into the kingdom of God is that you love God with your whole entire being. And everybody's looking around, they're saying, then how can I be delivered into the kingdom of God? And there's something in the way the scribe responds that is evidence of this. I try to emphasize it when I was reading what the scribe said. The scribe repeated what Jesus said, but he changed the pronoun.
He didn't say God, he said him. Listen again to what the scribe says. The scribe said to him, right, teacher, you have truly stated that he is one and there is no one else besides him. And to love him with all your heart and with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love one's neighbor as himself is much more than all the burnt offerings. And Jesus thought this was an intelligent response.
But he says, you're this close to getting into the kingdom of God. Why is he only this close? The answer is because he failed to see that the him that he was pointing out to was Jesus. Gotta love Jesus. Because Jesus is the one who demonstrates his love for us, that while we're still sinners, he dies for us.
Jesus is the connection. Jesus is the one that can. Is the only one that can deliver people into the kingdom of God. Everybody else will fall short.
All law will fall short. If love is required to enter to the kingdom of God, then it must come through Jesus, who perfectly loves his Father and perfectly loves us. He is the gatekeeper. He is the holder to the kingdom of God. He says, would you like to love the Lord your God with all your entire being?
Only I can do that. But if you trust in me, I will give you my spirit. So that the Spirit can help you to love God with your whole entire being. And by doing so, I will deliver you into the kingdom of heaven. You're this close, but you're just nearly there.
But you're not in there.
So this brings us to our application.
Is your love for God being demonstrated by your obedience to the Word? Do you seek to be obedient to this to earn God's love? Or because you already have love for God that you want to do what he says because you know it's right and good for you? You need to consider your own conscience and how you live your own life. Is your obedience just law based or is it motivated by love for God?
Is your obedience to God's Word motivated by love or is it motivated by ulterior motives? Are you just trying to be a good person so you can have good relationships so that at least your life is clean and nice and neat? Because that only gets you nearly there. Only love for God gets you into the Kingdom. Does Jesus hold ultimate influence over your life?
Or is there something else that might gain influence over you than Jesus? That's what happened in the life of the temple. They turned what God had established into things that were never meant to be. They have turned the house that was meant for prayer for the nations into commerce and business practices that serve them. What influences your life the most?
Is your life just a reflection of the business that you do day in and day out? Or is the reflection of Jesus saying, live your life like mine. Here's my spirit now walk as I walk. Deny yourself. Go take up your cross and follow me.
Does Jesus influence your life? In high school, I drastically wanted to be in the in crowd. And in my high school, the in crowd was the basketball players. We didn't have a football team up to high school. We did, but high school was all about basketball.
Because I went to this little podunk little high school in Indiana. Basketball was king. And I sat down in the cafeteria with all the big star basketball players and I was their friend. And by friend I mean I just allowed them to make fun of me so I could be in with them and be part of the conversation. And one day I looked at the captain of the basketball team and I said, how can I, how can I be like you guys?
He says, well Bruce, you gotta lose that buzz cut, big guy. Grow out your hair and actually get a hairdo. Maybe lose your glasses, maybe lose about £100, get some new clothes. And you know what I did? I ran Cross Country.
A 286 pound fellow really has no business running cross country for a high school team. But I did it always came in last. But I dropped 60 pounds that first year. I worked at a car wash. I got money to buy brand new clothes.
I asked my mom and dad for contacts and they couldn't afford them, but they got them for me. I did everything that he told me to do because he was so influential. Everybody loved this guy and I wanted that acceptance and love, and it didn't do anything for me. The girls still didn't look at me any different. My friendships didn't change.
The relationships I had remained the same. There was nothing special about me and I did everything I can to be special like him.
And then I went to a Disciple now weekend where we had a leader named Rob Marisol. I don't remember everything he said. He only said one thing as I can recall that weekend. He says, act for the audience of one God. Let God only be your only influence.
I thought about that and I said, you know what? I'm done performing and catering to get influence from all these other sources. Jesus, whatever you want for my life. And that kind of put me out of the crowd. So I just carried my Bible around to every class with me and I just started reading it because I'm not part of this conversations anymore.
I showed up early and started a prayer group with some Christians that I knew. I started plugging more into my youth group, started doing things that mattered to me and my relationship with Jesus, and I stopped caring about everybody else.
And then the Lord called me to ministry and I don't know what kind of influence that I might have. And I don't really care if I have influence because I'm trying to wield the influence that Jesus has and says, that's the guy you should listen to and follow. And I'm just going to speak about him and tell people to follow after him because it's not about me, it's about him. And later on in my life, a girl took notice of me and I got to marry her and things worked out all right. But all that to say is, what's influencing your life?
Is Jesus really your strongest influence over you? Do you live your life for the audience of one? Are you trusting in Jesus to deliver you into the kingdom? Or are you trusting in other things that can only just get you nearly there? The goal in the end game is to live with God whom you love in the kingdom.
That's the goal and the hope of life and the only way to be delivered into the kingdom is by Jesus who's bringing new wine and he's going to place it in new wineskins and before he does that the old must pass away so the new could come. And that's what this whole temple narrative that we're going to spend the next couple weeks in at least is all about. As you watch Jesus get rid of the old wine so he can replace it with the new. Let's pray Jesus we thank you so much that you are better than anything in this world has to offer. We thank you that you alone can deliver us into the kingdom that is the hope of our hearts.
We just ask that you would fill us with your spirit so that we can look like you, that we can love like you that through your spirit we might be able to love God as He requires us to love him and desires for us to love him. And may we love you with our whole entire being and may you be the only influence in our lives. We love you. In Jesus name we pray.