Reflective Bible Study

Part way through Jesus ministry, He shared an illustration about lighting a lamp and the importance of letting the lamp’s light shine. In this illustration, Jesus gives us an interesting comparison that is incredibly relevant and profound when we stop to think about it.

In the middle of this message, Jesus tells those listening, “Your eye is like a lamp for your body. Suppose your eyes are healthy. Then your whole body also is full of light. But suppose your eyes can’t see well. Then your body also is full of darkness.” (v. 34)

When reading Jesus’ words in this verse, I cannot help but see the similarities between our eyes and our perspective. Jesus calls our eyes “lamps” for our bodies, and with this in mind, if we focus on things that are positive and uplifting, then we will have a positive and uplifting outlook on life. In a similar way, if we focus on negative or unhealthy things, then we will have a negative and unhealthy view of life.

However, when we know how powerful our perspective and focus are, are we the healthiest we can be when we exclusively focus on the good while shunning all the bad – or is this simply a recipe for becoming naïve?

In this passage, healthy eyes are contrasted with “eyes that cannot see well”. This isn’t the same as being blind, but it is one way of saying that our eyes become blind to certain things. I wonder if someone who turns a blind eye to the negatives around them is just as guilty of having unhealthy eyes as the person who cannot see the positives in any situation. In each case, the person’s eyes are blind to the other person’s perspective.

If this is the case, then perhaps the healthiest plan forward is to train our eyes to show us the good and the bad. If we begin to see more bad than good, challenge yourself to shift your focus onto looking for more good, and this could include reading the Bible for encouragement and inspiration or simply turning off negative or draining media. Another idea/challenge to stop seeing the negative sides of reality is to step outside our doors and look for someone we can help who is in need. Helping others lifts our spirits.

Our lives are a mix of the positives and negatives, and the healthiest we can be is when we choose to open our eyes to both sides of life, focus on the positive, and where possible, find ways to help, accept, or change the negatives into positives.

Part way through Jesus’ ministry, Mark’s gospel describes a time where some Pharisees come to Jesus and test Him by demanding a sign. While Jesus responds to a similar scenario in Matthew’s gospel by pointing forward to a sign, in the event we find in Mark’s gospel, we see a different response from Jesus.

Mark tells us that one of the times Jesus was pressured to perform a miraculous sign from heaven, “Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, ‘Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.’” (v. 12)

After answering this demand, Jesus simply gets into the boat and crosses to the other side of the lake.

It is profound to think about how Mark describes Jesus’ reaction. Mark tells us first that Jesus “sighed deeply in His spirit”. This is significant to think about because we can imagine in our mind’s eye Jesus letting out a long, deep sigh as the weight and implications of the request hits Him.

However, what Jesus says when He ultimately answers the challenge is amazing. The Pharisees are demanding a sign so that they can know if He is from God, and Jesus denies their request while grouping them with their entire generation.

What is incredible to think about is that while Jesus refused to give these leaders a clear sign like what they were wanting, the generation they were in was the one that received most of the signs. To those who were paying attention, almost every prophecy was being fulfilled in one way or another through Jesus’ life, and while many prophecies focused on His death, those paying attention could clearly see God moving powerfully through Jesus’ life and ministry. In a strange almost ironic twist, those living in that generation missed seeing what every other generation wished they could have been present to witness!

Jesus refuses to give that generation a sign because they were closed to the idea that God was already giving signs all around them. If these religious people were not perceptive enough to recognize the signs God had already given, no miraculous sign from heaven would be enough to convince them Jesus was sent from God.

If we demand God prove Himself to us through specific signs, we are likely to be disappointed. However, if we look for signs that He is moving in the world around us, we will have more than enough evidence that He exists and that He loves each of us!

Hidden within this journal entry’s passage that makes many people uncomfortable is a clue about how to avoid failing at God’s ideal in our most significant relationship. While many people shy away from these verses because they speak against divorce, also included in this passage is a clue about how to have a successful marriage.

This clue is found as Jesus finishes teaching us what God’s ideal is in verses 4-6. Jesus ends this description of marriage by saying, “God has joined the two together, so no one should separate them.”

The big idea here is that God is the one doing the joining, and if this is truly the case, God will be in the middle of a successful marriage. It will also be true that we must be connected to God in order to truly connect well with our significant other half.

A statistic I learned about recently confirms this idea: A Gallup Poll done in 1997 by the National Association of Marriage Enhancement showed the divorce rate among couples who pray together regularly is 1 out of 1,152. If we were to make that into a percentage, it would be 0.087% — Less than 1/10th of one percent.

In culture today, where divorce is more common than we want to admit and marriage is not viewed as “till death do us part”, it would seem like the missing piece in our equation is God being the connecting link. Most people who want to get married want it to last forever, and most of those who have faced divorce don’t wish for their failed scenario to be repeated by themselves or others in the future.

In this passage, Jesus seems to imply that God is actively involved in a person’s marriage; but He doesn’t recognize divorce. We see this in Jesus’ words about God doing the joining, and also in the warning about not separating what God has joined and in the reality that God views second marriage sexual relations as adultery.

This is not condemning those who are divorced or who have remarried, but instead, it expands the definition of sin to be anything that is outside of God’s ideal/will. We all have fallen short of God’s ideal, and that is why Jesus came.

God wants us to experience the best life possible, and that includes the best marriage possible if marriage is in our present or future life. In this passage that speaks about God’s ideal regarding marriage, Jesus shares the secret to what makes a marriage successful: Don’t separate what God has joined together. God is the one doing the joining, and only by staying connected to Him are we able to truly stay connected with our spouse.

As Jesus and His disciples were headed to Jerusalem for the final time, Jesus pulls them aside and shares with them what will happen. Jesus shares that He will be handed over to the religious leaders, He will be sentenced to death, and He will be mocked, flogged, and ultimately crucified. But Jesus finishes by saying, “On the third day he will be raised to life!” (v. 19b)

I find this entire passage amazing, because nothing about that weekend was a surprise to Jesus. This is because either God had divinely revealed all this information to Jesus, or Jesus was a better student of Messianic prophecies than the religious leaders were at that time and He had pieced the entire timetable of this mission to earth.

It is amazing for me to think that Jesus knew everything – including that He would be betrayed (and likely already knowing it was Judas Iscariot) before Judas even had the idea for betraying Jesus. It is also amazing to know that Jesus knew about His future resurrection as well.

Some of those living today believe Jesus’ life was cut short against His will and His ideal plan. This couldn’t be any further from the truth. Jesus lived the only life in history where Plan A was the only plan that was needed. Everyone else has messed up Plan A, and most of us have messed up plenty of other plans as well.

Jesus’ life was the most predicted and prophesied life ever in history, and Jesus faithfully walked the path that the Godhead had planned for Him to walk. This life included an incredible birth, and escape to Egypt, a normal childhood, a start to ministry at the age of 30, and the cross three and a half years later. Jesus’ life also included the resurrection, which was unprecedented. While other people in history had returned to life, none of these people’s return to life was predicted beforehand. Jesus has been the only Person in history to accurately predict his or her own death and resurrection.

We can trust Jesus because He lived the perfect life and He knows what God’s future holds for each of us!