In a rare moment when Jesus does not appear in the gospel, Mark tells the story of Herod’s beheading of John the Baptist.

Herod’s story is a cautionary one about the misery that comes when someone devotes their life to the pursuit of earthly power. Where Herod’s power destroys, Jesus’ power, exemplified in the life of John, by contrast, creates, redeems and sets free. It’s his power that we are made for and we find it by dying to our broken versions of power and rising with him in his mighty strength.

By Ed Flint

Jesus declares himself Lord of the Sabbath. This is less about him arguing over Sabbath law, and more about him establishing his Lordship over everything, including that which we most hold dear.

This is confrontational and necessarily requires his hearers, as well as us, to consider where our hearts have wandered to other gods. When we’re confronted like this we have a choice: we can react defensively, with avoidance, or rejection. Or we can choose to humble ourselves and receive his Lordship over our lives - to do so is to experience not enslavement but freedom, life not death. His offer is of Sabbath rest for all of us - reconnection to God, and life as it was alway intended.

By Ed Flint

Jesus first encounters opposition to his ministry when he begins to proclaim the forgiveness of sin.

Things get confrontational when Jesus refuses to be limited to the surface issues of our lives. Declaring himself as the one who forgives sin means not only equating himself with God, but tells us we have a fundamental problem which only He can solve.

Often our requests to Jesus reveal that we only really want him to scratch the surface issues of our lives. But Jesus is primarily fixated on the state of our hearts. If we let him, he will transform our hearts to be ones after his own. This is where lasting peace, joy, praise, and freedom is to be found.

By Ed Flint

Jesus’ first public pronouncement concerns the arrival of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is God’s just rule over the universe where all pain and evil cease and joy and peace abound. The Kingdom has come because Jesus, the King, has come. So entrance into the Kingdom is available to all who follow him. Its markers are evil banished, the sick healed, and the authority of Jesus revealed.

By Ed Flint

Jesus doesn’t enter the world in a vacuum, he’s the long awaited Messiah. But he’s more than a human deliverer. He’s the divine Son of God.

This intro to the series is an invitation to expand our view of who Jesus is, and a challenge where we’ve restricted who we’re willing to let him to be.

By Ed Flint