25th Sunday after Pentecost “Temple Offerings”
November 10, 2024 Mark 12:38-44
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
‘Appearances can be deceiving.’ We know that, right? So we say things like: don’t judge a book by its cover; things are not always as they seem; all that glitters isn’t gold; clothes don’t make the man; beauty is only skin deep; first impressions are often unreliable.
Maybe you have your own favorite saying. 1Sam.16:7 says: “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him…. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
Appearances can be deceiving; we know. And yet, more often than not, we let ourselves draw conclusions, sometimes unjust conclusions, based on ‘covers, glitter, clothes, beauty, or first impression.’ Appearances. Why do we do that? It’s as if there is something at work in us to make us not want to see things for what they really are. People from every nation & culture spend a great deal of time, money, & energy in the keeping-up outward appearances.
Does the clothing industry just make basic, practical & durable clothing; or does it expend a lot of effort selling unique, fancy, colorful, & impressive outfits? After all, ‘you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.’ Ulta cosmetic company will generate 10 billion dollars in sales in one year for outward appearance. Do Yoga to tone your arms; do weights to flatten your stomach.
Improvement, cleanliness, & health are all good things. But what are people trying to cover up? And just because something is covered up, does that mean it’s not there anymore? To believe the Scriptures is to know that the natural state of all things in this world, including us, is ‘decay’. Nothing automatically ‘improves’ or evolves upward; that’s why the ‘theory of evolution’ is patently false. Man’s science is used to cover up that truth.
Since Adam & Eve sinned, the natural condition of all created things is in decline. God has allowed knowledge & technology to slow this rate of decline for some things, for the purpose of His timing & overall plan for us; but His truth is inevitable. God says that since that Good Friday & that Easter Sunday, & since Jesus’ Ascension, we are moving toward
The End. Because we believe God’s Word & trust Him, we are not scared about The End.
In Christ, in our Savior, we are prepared.
We have come to the last Sundays in the Church Year, so our Sunday Gospel readings will reflect the plan of God to wrap-up this fallen creation, and usher-in His promised new creation. As Jesus got closer & closer to the end of His earthly ministry & to the cross,
He spent more time teaching that this world is pointed toward its last day; that man’s days were being shortened, and that the wickedness of man would be fully exposed, & this creation will be brought to an end at a time of God’s secret choosing.
How important, then, that all hearts would not be deceived by outward appearances,
but that the truth of mankind’s standing before the Holy Creator would be seen & understood for what it is. Mankind & this world is quickly winding down toward condemnation. But with Christ, & with Him alone, there is mercy, & hope, & complete redemption. With Jesus we will enter into an eternal new creation.
So, in Mark 12, Jesus warns His disciples that things are not what they appear to be. This is the final, kind-of regular teaching session of Jesus before He begins to talk about ‘the end times’ in chpt.13. In the next 2 Sundays, we’ll hear His teachings about the destruction of the temple, the signs of the end of the age, and the coming of the Son of man in great power & glory.
Today we find Jesus in the temple with His disciples; He just had a heated discussion with the Sadducees & Pharisees. Now Jesus gives this word of warning to His disciples.
And this is more than just a suggestion, such as: ‘try not to be like those guys.’ When Jesus says ‘beware’, He is warning about some danger to the soul & to saving faith. And the fact that, when they leave the temple that day, Jesus will begin His teaching on the End Times, it indicates that He is doubly serious when He says ‘beware.’
It was very tempting for the people of that day to look at the Scribes & be impressed; but on that day =in the eyes of God= that poor widow in the temple had them all beat ~ hands down. Now, the Scribes were an important group within Judaism; but from Jesus’ words, we get a look into their hearts & minds of the few things that motivated many of them:
#1= wearing long flowing robes as a sign of knowledge & religious wisdom; #2= expecting to be greeted in the marketplace like a celebrity; #3= having elite seats of honor in both the synagogue & at important feasts. And #4= they so loved money & wealthy living that they would steal houses from widows.
To the common Jewish person, the Scribe was one who studied & knew well the Laws of the Lord, and so would be the person to go to when you had questions as to how best keep the Law & live before God. So then, a natural conclusion would be that the Scribe was much closer to God than others. The Scribes had all the appearance of those who know God, are holy, and that God had chosen them to tell all the common-folk what God’s will is.
But Jesus said: Beware! Don’t judge the book by its cover. Long robes & long prayers, the praise of men & high social standing, were just a cover for falsehoods and well-hidden sins, and…God’s condemnation. The outwardly pious lives of many of the Scribes was a carefully orchestrated lie; it had all the appearances of holiness & righteousness, but underneath =where God sees= was just old-fashioned sin & evil.
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Jewish writings of the day indicate that a Scribe was a sort of independent contractor for their services of writing & interpreting the Law for people. So people paid them out of their own pockets for their knowledge & guidance. Widows are specifically mentioned as being among those who supported the Scribes financially; but -in that day- many of the women were very vulnerable & poor. In our reading, Jesus makes this connection. And it makes us wonder if this widow of vs.42 was one who had paid the Scribes for guidance for her struggles in life; but they just took her money, leaving her mere ‘mites’ to give as her offering to God.
No wonder Jesus says ‘beware!’ The sober reality is that -under the cover of holiness- these men were like wolves devouring the lives of sheep. Even more sobering is that the Son of God says that they would receive greater condemnation than others. A teaching lesson here for all of us is to ‘beware.’ There are things in this world that will appear holy & righteous, but it may be just a mask for evil & wickedness. (like when a politician says ‘love thy neighbor’ to support their program)
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And this really only goes the one way. People do not pretend to be evil in order to cover-up their goodness; but people do go to great lengths to hide their wickedness under the false mask of good works. What Jesus is pointing out is one of those foundational truths taught in many places in His Word. All have sinned & fallen short of the glory of God; there is no one holy = not one. This corruption of sin is in us from our conception; so ‘beware’, it is no less present for those who appear to be very religious & holy.
It is a large problem for those Scribes, or any proud Christian, when they refuse to acknowledge this sin-condition, and ‘put on airs’, and try to hide it under a religious mask.
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To further illustrate this teaching, Jesus then directs His disciples to observe the giving at the offering box. Most commentaries will point out the historic practice of the day; which was for people to dump their purse of coins into the metal tray of the offering box; the noise would echo off the stone walls. The more you dropped in, the more it echoed, and the more people might be impressed with your large giving to the Lord. Besides that, obviously, people could sit & watch what other people were giving. And you & I know what happens when we’re being watched == we are tempted to make a certain kind of appearance. But God is not deceived.
So, even tho many put in large amounts of money, a poor widow is the one that Jesus points out; she’s the one who has given the most. And He immediately explains why. The others had an abundance; she had very little. What they gave was no real sacrifice; what she gave was a real trust of the heart.
Jesus is teaching more than one lesson here. There is a larger, contextual lesson here that’s worth noting. It might ‘appear’ that this is mainly a teaching on ‘giving offerings’ to the Lord. That teaching will -no doubt- leave all of us feeling guilty for not imitating this poor widow if we don’t give everything we have to live on into our offering plates today.
Or we might think that the main teaching is that the Lord is comforting us in that, no matter how much or how little we give, it’s the attitude of our heart that matters. And that is a little more comforting to hear. Those are fine lessons, but not the main one. I titled this sermon ‘Temple Offerings’, but don’t judge a sermon by its title.
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The context of the temple is more important than the issue of the offerings. When Jesus points out the bankruptcy of the Scribes in their standing before God, He is pointing to them as an example the complete bankruptcy of the whole Jewish religious system, which has been resisting Him this whole time, and rejecting the arrival of the Messiah they claimed to be waiting for. This system came to reward false outward appearances more than the sincere humble faith of the people. It was living by the Law of Moses, but not in the promise to Abraham.
Those that should’ve been preparing all souls to meet their Messiah were instead devouring other people’s houses, and supporting each other in a corrupt & greedy, self-seeking, wealth based religion.
The Lord of the Kingdom is sitting there that day and watching a system that is so bankrupt that the worthless copper coins of a poor widow are greater in His eyes than the large sums of money given by the wealthy into the temple coffers. Altho the widow’s attitude towards giving is truly exceptional, her two half-pennies will not change anything in the most important & larger picture that Jesus brings.
As Mark tells us, in mere moments, Jesus will walk away from the offering box & out of the temple. And when the disciples are impressed by the outward size & design of the massive temple stones, Jesus will explain to them that it won’t be long and everything they’re looking at will be torn down; and not one of those temple stones will be left upon another. Why? Because appearances can be deceiving. Beware.
They should not be impressed with either the fancy Scribes nor the physical temple constructed by man. They should, instead, be impressed by the humble servant, the Son of God, who is ‘the temple’ not made by human hands = but begotten of the Father, full of grace & truth. They should look past the outward cover of His human flesh, and trust the promise of Immanuel=God with us. In mercy, God has come among sinners in all His fulness to save mankind. Neither the showy wealth of the religious leaders, nor the meager mites of a poor widow, are the proper offering to God that will buy the forgiveness of sins. But the true offering before God is the broken body & the shed blood of the spotless Lamb of God who atones for the sin of the whole world.
The real, heavenly religious system was not in the temple leaders that day, or the temple treasury. But it was the virgin-born, John-baptized, Spirit-anointed, Father-pleasing Christ, the Son of the Living God; who would allow himself to be crucified as the payment for our sin.
The temple would be destroyed, and all the sacrifices of the Law given thru Moses would be done away with in Jesus’ death; once & for all. With that perfect & full offering, both Jew & gentile, rich & poor, male & female, slave & free == all will have the same mercy, and same forgiveness, and same salvation in the one Savior.
At our NT time in that salvation history, thanks be to God, we can see how Jesus has fulfilled all those prophecies. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. We don’t have to try to put up appearances before God or others. We are sinners in need of rescue. So we will confess our sin & humble state, because, for Jesus’ sake & work, God forgives; and no longer holds our sins against us.
So, yes -here- we have a lesson of what it means to trust God with our lives, to thank Him as our Provider, and to return our tithes & offerings to Him with a grateful heart.
But the larger lesson that day is that Jesus was pointing to that poor widow as a ‘type’ of Christ. In giving all she had, she is a picture of what His flesh & blood has purchased for the world. He gave it all for you. Even tho the world is decaying, & coming to an end, your faith in Christ is gaining you far more than what it appears: you have the life that will last forever.
Amen