Captivating Stories
- Date: Sunday, August 1, 2010
- Speaker: Jason Smith
- Series: Jesus in 3D: Seeing Jesus through the Gospel of Mark
- Scripture: Mark 4:1–4:34
- Tags: parables, Kingdom of God, listening
Jesus is clear that it is dangerous for a person to close one's ears, eyes, and heart to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. In The Magician's Nephew, a novel from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, Narnia is created when Aslan—the Lion who represents Jesus—sings it into being. The creation song reveals Aslan's majesty and glory. The Creation Song is clearly intended to reveal the majesty and glory of Aslan. As in Genesis 1, it is a grand call to worship. But there is one, Uncle Andrew, who refuses to hear it, and the consequences are staggering.
When the great moment came and the Beast spoke, he missed the whole point for a rather interesting reason. When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, he had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion ("only a lion," as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make himself believe that it wasn't singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. "Of course it can't really have been singing," he thought, "I must have imagined it. I've been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?" And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan's song. Soon he couldn't have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, "Narnia awake," he didn't hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the Beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, bayings and howlings.
In Mark chapter four, we get a glimpse into a similar scenario to the one found in Lewis’ story. So far in the gospel of Mark we have been drawn in to see that Jesus is the one and only Son of God, who has come into the world to serve as the King of a different kind of kingdom. His kingdom advances through love, service and truth, not force. In the gospel of Mark, we only find two places where Jesus teaches extensively, here in chapter 4 and later in chapter 13. Here Jesus uses parables—short instructive stories that contain analogies from everyday life. We will see that these parables disclose information and conceal at the same time—depending on the receptivity of the listener’s heart. This indirect approach attracts some and provokes others. Jesus is calling all of us to Big Idea: Listen and Live! as children of this new kind of Kingdom. We must hear His voice with a new set of ears that desire to respond to His message of love, service, and truth.
