We all of us are familiar with King David, the King after God’s own heart. When David was firmly established on his throne, God swore an oath to him, made a covenant with him – a covenant which we call the Davidic Covenant after its namesake.

The Davidic Covenant was God’s oath to David to raise up one of His descendants who would establish David’s dynasty forever, who would build a house for God and establish an everlasting kingdom. While David’s first heir, Solomon, did indeed build a house for God, his sin and the sin of others of David’s descendants aroused God’s wrath. So God judged the dynasty of David. He conquered Jerusalem through Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians and the Davidic dynasty ceased to rule in Israel. There was no king in the land; the Jews were subject to foreign rule.

This caused the faithful to wonder – what is happening? Has God forsaken His promise to David? Has He forgotten us? Will there be a Son of David who will rule and reign forever? In answer to this question, the people returned again and again to a vision that the prophet Isaiah had received years before the dynasty was formally destroyed. It was to this vision, and others like it, that Bartimaeus cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Last week we noted that Jesus for a third time clarified the nature of His calling as the Son of Man. His calling was to be delivered into the hands of men, to suffer and be condemned to death, to be killed – and on the third day to rise again from the dead. But the disciples have yet to get their hands around this message; have yet to understand exactly what Jesus is talking about. They perhaps imagine that He is using metaphorical language to warn them how difficult things are going to be when they set up the Kingdom.

The full extent of their ignorance of Jesus’ message is manifest today in the response of James and John (as well as the other ten disciples) to Jesus’ third announcement. It is as though they haven’t even heard what He has said; as though they are nodding their heads to Jesus’ words but their eyes are glazed over and it’s clear that no one is home, no one is listening. For they immediately request positions of power and glory alongside our Lord once He has established His Kingdom. What does Jesus’ response to their request reveal about the meaning of discipleship and the mission of the Son of Man?

In the passage before us, Jesus for the third time reiterates the nature of His ministry as Messiah. The disciples know that He is the Messiah, now Jesus continues His task of unfolding for them what this means.

The announcement tells the same basic story as the previous passages. However, it does add a new twist. In this third announcement Jesus describes his suffering in much greater detail and includes the Gentiles in His death. Not only will the Jews condemn Him to death, the Gentiles will mock Him, scourge Him, spit upon Him, and kill Him. What is the implication of the inclusion of the Gentiles in this third announcement? It is this question that we explore today.

We have noted a number of times that Mark devotes a great deal of attention to Jesus’ ministry to the blind. Indeed, it is the twofold healing of the blind man in the center of his Gospel that serves as the metaphor for the whole narrative. In the first part of the Gospel Jesus begins to uncover the blindness of the disciples so that they perceive that Jesus is indeed the Christ. The remainder of the Gospel is the second application of Jesus’ healing touch, uncovering the further blindness of the disciples, What does it mean for him to be the Christ? What does it mean both in terms of His ministry and also in terms of their calling?

We saw this theme of blindness emerging again in the story of the disciples’ fear of the truth. After Jesus’ second declaration of His calling as the Christ, the declaration that forms the heading for this entire section, Mark notes that the disciples did not understand Jesus’ words and that they did not want to understand them – they were afraid to ask, afraid of the truth, afraid of the answer. Better not to know, they reasoned, than to face the truth.

Today we come to the story of the Rich Young Ruler, a young man sincere, passionate, earnest, and blind. And his blindness elicits the sympathy, the love of our Lord. Our Lord looks upon him and loves him and endeavors to expose his blindness. But the surgery proves too painful and the man goes away sorrowful. And so Jesus remarks on the experience to his disciples, marveling at the blinding power of sin. In their turn the disciples marvel, struggling once again with their own blindness.

In the hearts of the disciples, Jesus has excited deep longings. Though He has made some strange remarks about suffering, dying, and resurrection, the things that the disciples have heard are His remarks about the kingdom. Those were after all (they told themselves) the important parts. Jesus has insisted that in Him the long anticipated Kingdom is arriving; that His hearers need to be diligent to enter the Kingdom; that they need to put aside anything that might distract them from entering the Kingdom – plucking out their eyes, lopping off their hands and feet. “Ah,” the disciples are thinking to themselves, “this is good movement language, good rousing language. We’ve got you, Jesus; we’re with you; we’re ready to march into Jerusalem and establish the Kingdom; just tell us what we need to do.”

To top all this off, the Pharisees have come again and tested Jesus, questioning him about divorce and remarriage. And once again Jesus has vindicated His ministry, demonstrated his superior grasp of the Word of God, demonstrated that He is the true spokesman for Israel. Indeed, not only has he confounded the Pharisees, He has been unafraid to criticize the reigning authorities of the day – Herod and Herodias – and has declared clearly what God’s expectations are. Without a doubt, this is the Anointed of God; this is Messiah; the long-awaited kingdom is coming.

It is in this context of vision, passion, and journey toward Jerusalem that some folks come bringing their little children to Jesus so that He can bless them. This frustrates the disciples to no end and they proceed to rebuke those bringing these little children to Jesus at such a critical time. Jesus’ response reveals what our attitude is to be to our children and helps forge a vision for covenantal nurture.

This Lord’s Day we begin to take up the whole issue of divorce. Last week we noted that divorce doesn’t just happen. It is the result of numerous wrong attitudes and actions that gradually destroy the love and affection that once were there, that undermine the perichoretic fellowship between husbands and wives. In our culture most marriages are begun by folks who are initially in love with one another. It is only over time that this love dwindles because issues in the relationship are not dealt with as they ought. And so because we don’t deal with issues the way that Scripture says we ought, we come up with other ways of dealing with them – and it is then that our marriages end in disaster. So how do we deal with sin in our marriages?

Last week, we witnessed Jesus remind us of the creational vision for marriage. God’s creation of man as male and female reveals the very nature of God – the creation of man as male and female is one of the vestigia Trinitatis – traces, marks, hints of the Trinity found in creation. “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…so God created man in His image.” The unity and diversity in the Trinity – one God in three Persons – is imaged in the marriage union in which two distinct people, male & female, become joined together by covenant as one new person in a richer, fuller, deeper sense.

Our task today is to flesh out in more detail what it means that marriage is to reflect the life of the Triune God. What does this mean? What should our marriages look like?

Some of you may be asking, “Why go here? Why not just go immediately to the next couple verses and take up the issue of divorce?” Here’s the reason: it is only as we meditate upon what God is doing in our marriages that the hardness of heart which precipitates divorce will be overcome. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to mollify, to soften our hearts. The better grasp we get of what this thing called marriage is, the more equipped we shall be to avoid divorce. Divorce, after all, is precipitated by a breakdown of vision, a breakdown of relationship; it is the legal and official termination of a relationship that has been dying existentially for months or, usually, years. Divorce doesn’t just happen – it is the end result of numerous actions, choices, and attitudes that have undermined the relationship.

Last week we approached the dialogue on divorce and remarriage in Mark chapter 10 by noting that the key issue at stake in the consideration of this very question was human sin, blindness, deafness, and hardness of heart. The Pharisees come bringing this question to Jesus not because they are particularly interested in his response but because they are testing him. They want to vindicate themselves as the spokesmen for Israel, they want to undermine Jesus’ popularity, and so they choose an issue well suited to their task. Given the political, theological, and personal context in which Jesus ministered, this question of divorce and remarriage was well crafted to foment dissension. Not only was the political marriage of Herod and Herodias a hot button, not only were the debates over divorce and remarriage by the schools of Hillel and Shammai well publicized, but the personal feelings and passions of many of Jesus’ hearers and followers were engaged in this issue. And so we noted that the question the Pharisees ask on this occasion was a “parlous” question – a hazardous, risky, perilous question to answer.

As we approach the question, therefore, we need to be prepared to listen to what our Lord is teaching us. We too, just like the Pharisees, just like the disciples, can be so blinded by our passions, by our prejudices in this area of marriage, divorce, and remarriage that we fail to listen and give heed to the words of Christ. But now that Jesus is installed as King of Kings, it is this that we are called to do. We are called to listen to Him, to give heed to Him, to obey Him; for He is the Lord. None of this, however, is within us. In our own strength and power we are unable to hear, unable to see, unable to respond aright. And so we must be constantly beseeching the Lord to open our eyes and ears, to guard our hearts from becoming darkened, and to protect us from our own passions lest they lead us either to dishonor our Lord, as Peter did in denying Him, or even to betray our Lord, as Judas did in selling Him to His enemies.

As we come back to the text this morning to begin unpacking Jesus’ instruction on this occasion, therefore, I reiterate all that I said last week. Let us give heed to the Word and prepare to listen and implement what we are told. Today we learn what marriage is about, we learn about the covenant of companionship.

In our text today the Pharisees endeavor to entrap Jesus once again. Taking advantage of the political, theological, and personal context in which Jesus ministered, the Pharisees ask Jesus about the matter of divorce. As we consider the context in which Jesus ministered and the way in which the Pharisees were attempting to take advantage of it, we can learn much about our own need for ears to hear. For the reason that we do not hear and do not respond rightly to the Word of God is because our prejudices and passions blind us to our own folly. It is this folly that Jesus has been unmasking in the lives of the disciples and that continues to be addressed in this first sermon on divorce and remarriage.