The first time I went to San José State University, it wasn’t there.
I was a new student and had been given a time to come by the college to register for classes. I didn’t know the way to San Jose, so I pillaged the glove compartment in my parents’ car and grabbed the map of the city I found there. This was back in the days before online registration and GPS maps on our phones. So, I followed the map precisely, getting off the freeway on the correct exit and driving the several blocks south to the campus. But it wasn’t there.
I’d done everything by the book and come up empty.
So, I abandoned my map, asked for directions, and got to registration just in time. Eventually, I got a degree in journalism from SJSU — because I knew how to ask questions.
Later that day, when I was no longer in a rush, I examined my map more closely. What I discovered was that it was an old map. Because of its age, the freeway marked on my map was merely a proposed route. It hadn’t been built when the map was printed, but the map maker had inked in where it was expected to be built. The problem? They didn’t build it on the proposed route, they built it on the other side of the university. So, instead of the university being to the south of the freeway, it was to the north. Expectations and reality differed.
What I needed was a new map. The one I had sent me in the wrong direction.
The “maps” we use to get around in the world are similar. There is no GPS. Instead, we have hunches and ideas and suggestions from others and cultural values and role models. It’s like trying to navigate through a major city by using a few photos, a story, and a coin to flip when all else fails. Even those of us who use the Bible as our map don’t do so exclusively. And even our use of the Bible is subject to poor interpretations.
When our cobbled together maps let us down, we need to do what I did after that first trip to San Jose: Get a new map.
READ
The Jews at the time of Jesus thought they knew what God was doing in the world. It boiled down to one phrase: The kingdom of God. So, when John the Baptizer and Jesus preached their first sermons, which were centered on the kingdom of God, they had a ready audience.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)
Now, if you remember the first post in this series, that “good news” isn’t just good news. It’s a proclamation of the victory of the king. It’s a declaration that God is King and no enemy of his will stand in the way. The end of the war is on its way.
Galilee was the most war-ready area inhabited by the Jews. A mountainous region, it was where rebels hid out. And the people there were simply itching to throw off the rule of the Roman Empire in order to reestablish Israel as a kingdom with a descendant of David (the Messiah or anointed king) sitting on his rightful throne. These zealots, as they were called, would have heard Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God with happy ears. It was time to “repent” of collaborating with the Romans and to get busy overthrowing them so the kingdom of God could be established.
There was another bunch of people who might also have had their own ideas about what Jesus was proclaiming. These were the religiously oriented folks. Rather than seeking a political solution to Israel’s problems, they sought a moral and religious solution. They believed that if all Israel kept all of the commandments for a single day, the Messiah would come. Sabbath-breakers and other sinners were causing his delay. So, they would have heard Jesus’ call to repent and believe the good news as a call to moral and religious purity so that the Messiah would finally arrive and the kingdom of God be established.
But although his language was similar, neither of those are quite what Jesus had in mind. We’ll explore what Jesus had in mind as the Gospel of Mark reveals it. The point here is that the people of his time had the Scriptures as their map, but they also had other images and ideas that had them headed in the wrong direction.
They needed to update their map. And that’s precisely what Jesus set out to do.
ENGAGE
Where do you see other Christians following wrong maps, leading them to false conclusions about what it means to follow Jesus?
Where have pastors, friends, books, or the Bible itself pointed out where you were wrong about what it means to follow Jesus? Do you have any hunches about ways you might need an adjusted map now?
What cultural voices and other voices are pulling you in potentially false directions?
PRAY
Lord, give me the humility to hear others when they point out that I’m headed in the wrong direction. Give me such a deep desire to follow you as closely as possible that will keep me willing to trade in faulty maps for better ones. I don’t want to be so committed to being right that I end up wrong about you and the life you’ve called me to live. In Jesus. Amen.
LIVE
Take a few minutes to sit with the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12), listening to them as they described the blessed life, the good life, the life God wants us to live. Consider how they might send your life in a different direction than it’s going right now. Consider how they present the priorities of Jesus and how those priorities might be different from the priorities you’re currently basing your life decisions on. Then take some time to talk with God about how you might redirect your life according to this different map.