The Christian life is one of growth into a state of maturity, and that’s a lot harder than growing physically to maturity. You can’t stop physical growth, but you can stop mental, emotional and spiritual growth. It’s not uncommon to see a 20 year old acting like a twelve year old. It looks odd when a senior citizen behaves like a teenager. And I often fail to hold myself accountable to acting my spiritual age too. Sometimes I am the twenty year old Christian acting like a two year old Christian.

Jesus is quick to point out our attacks on new believers–the way we are quick to point out their faults and failings in faith matters. But the opposite is also true: the longer we have been a follower of Jesus, the more maturity and faith we ought to show. Unfortunately that is rarely true. Most long time believers have acquired a sense of dignity and poise in life, but rarely to they hold themselves to a life of dynamic faith and outreach. They’ve got the morality down, but not the mission of Jesus…myself often included.

God help me to act my age!

Let these disciplined times with you break me out of a life aimed at stability so that I life a dynamic, mission-filled life of faith each day.

Mark’s first chapter sets Jesus up as a teacher who stood far apart from any others. He taught with a degree of authority they had not heard before. His teaching was fresh and new. People were challenged in ways they had not been in the past.

But the same chapter focuses our attention on something even more dramatic than fresh and new teaching. Alongside Jesus teaching, He did great miracles: healing diseases that had no cure in their society and even greater: casting possessive spirits out of people by the tens or even hundreds. We can’t even imagine what that would look like today…crowds rushing to meet a teacher who would call cancer out of people, family members falling in front of a sage in distress over their son or daughter, mother or father who had become so different in mental illness that they seemed controlled by another being.

It is a mistake to approach Jesus as simply a wise teacher.

Do I approach Him today in the same way? Am I expecting to learn something new, but not to be transformed or to call His healing into the life of someone around me who needs it?

It amazes me how abrupt the ending to Matthew’s gospel is. He does not tie up loose ends or show Jesus as overly compassionate after His death…the only appearance of Jesus to His disciples He mentions is the one at His ascension into heaven. One appearance was all He believed they needed to decide for themselves: He is alive, or He is not. Matthew is also the only one to mention that some people did not believe that it was really Jesus.

At some point, I understand this radical ending. Jesus’ story is a powerful one, and most people who truly consider it don’t need a lot more information. When they fully understand who Jesus was, they make a clear decision. I love that too, because when they follow Jesus, they get crazy excited about it! They spread the good news everywhere they go, because when Jesus takes up a place in your life, you can’t help but feel that everything in life has changed.

The quote at the end of this devotional was too powerful not to share in this respect:

“The gospel is not theology, its a person. Theology does not save…They had encountered Jesus Christ and it simply could not be concealed. They witnessed not because they had to, but because they could not hlep it… Nothing is more convincing than the simple, unembellished word of a satisfied customer.”

Richard Halverson

At every turn in Jesus crucifixion, the women seem to be standing by. No mention is made of the disciples or other followers of Jesus in His death. Many of them were likely afraid they would meet the same fate if they were identified near Jesus as He hung on the cross. But the women stood by and watched each stage: His crucifixion, His burial, and His resurrection (when they went to give His body a more elaborate treatment).

I am reminded of all the details the account of Jesus’ death and resurrection would be missing, if they had not been content to serve or brave enough to try to sneak past the angry Jewish leaders. They were the ones to hear Him cry out the Psalm, to see His last breath, to witness the earthquake, and to hear the Roman guards exclaim, “He really was the Son of God!”

Am I content to serve quietly and calmly in the background?

What ways am I called to bravely face the possibility of persecution in order to stand up and help others?

Jesus endures quite a bit of suffering leading up to His death:

• the betrayal of a friend
• the threat to and abandonment of His followers
• harassment at the hands of the priests, and their physical abuse
• the denial of Peter
• the questioning of Pilate
• the whipping, humiliation and mockery of the soldiers
• the long walk to the crucifixion site
• the pain of the cross
• the attacks of spectators

How did He keep silent? It still astounds me that Jesus did not defend Himself.

I don’t think that it was to line up with an Old Testament prophecy, I think the silence was intentional and strategic, I’m just not sure exactly what it was accomplishing. My best guess these days is simply this: Jesus silence ensured that the reason that crossed everyone’s mind for His death was His claim to be the Son of God…the Messiah. His trial before the high priest turned at this conclusion. Pilate called him the Messiah to the leaders. The soldiers mocked Him with a crown and robe. The sign on His cross even read “king of the Jews”

And Jesus died for that claim…the only claim that matters.

He didn’t die for any sin…except ours.