The Question You Can't Avoid | Mark 2:18-19
The Way to Trust | Scene 3, Day 4 | Mark 2:18-19
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.
Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.”
Mark 2:18-19
By the time I turned 40, I’d gone as far as I could go.
I was very good at doing church. It led me to become a 2-bit celebrity in the contemporary church world. I had a platform, a large professional network, spoke dozens of times a year, and had sold 50,000 books or so.
Listing this makes me think of the apostle Paul in his letters, talking about his zeal for the old way. That’s how I was. I was a Christian in the best way I knew how. But I had not experienced the fullness of the faith.
It wasn’t yet substantial.
The story of what happened that changed things is long and complicated, but essentially, my old ways stopped working.
The small parachurch business I owned with my ministry partner suffered under changing economic conditions in 2008-09, partly due to the Great Recession but also because of the rise of the smartphone era. Smartphones were rapidly murdering two of our prime income streams: book reading and attending conferences. Our other main stream was short film and video production, and that was in danger, too. “Content” had begun its online slide to a commodity.
By 2010, what had once been a profitable business was losing up to $5,000 per month. For the two of us, that was a serious problem.
My own spiritual life was at a breakpoint, too. My wife and I had had our fourth child, and I was done with trying to be the perfect husband and father. I had thought I knew the rules of marriage and parenthood, and I was good at managing them, but I was becoming overwhelmed. I knew I couldn’t keep going. I was becoming desperate. I doubted my ability to keep performing my roles at a high level. And yes, that’s how I thought of it.
I actually did the math on walking away from it all—not only my career, but my marriage and everything I’d built my life on. I spoke to my father about it, too. He was very practical. He said, son, sounds like you’d go bankrupt.
I felt completely and utterly stuck.
In November of that year, I decided to try writing one more book. It was all I knew to do. Writing was my first gift—I’d declared at age 13 that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and that’s never really changed. I’d published nine books by November of 2010, and each one had boosted my career. I pitched a new book on story to my editor. He responded with a job offer to come to Nashville and work at the United Methodist Publishing House.
I immediately said yes.
The position didn’t pay enough to cover our large young family’s needs, and I was going to have to sell my half of our company. But to a drowning man, even an insufficient little life ring is better than just treading water in the deep.
My wife agreed but suggested I go without her and the kids so they could finish the school year. I think she really just wanted a break from living with me. So I went alone, to the second-floor townhouse bedroom of a man I’d never met, Greg Engroff.
It was in that bedroom, on the evening of February 27, 2011, when I stumbled on an online sermon by a preacher from Oklahoma City whose name I do not know and whose message I do not remember, that I broke down. The dam finally gave way to the pressure of the floodwaters behind.
What I realized that night was that my entire adult life had been built on a sort of spiritual quid pro quo which was not in fact the gospel at all. I’d been treating Jesus like a teacher who gave me a system to do. Follow the rules. Build the platform. Be a good husband. Be a good father. Serve the church. Write the books. Speak at the conferences. And if you do it right, God will bless you.
But the system had collapsed. The business was failing. My marriage was strained. I was exhausted. And I was alone in a stranger’s bedroom, weeping from the weight of it all, realizing that everything I’d built my life on was constructed on the wrong foundation.
If Jesus is just a teacher, but His system doesn’t work... then what? Is He just another failed system? Or is He someone I’ve completely misunderstood?
Back to Mark 2. The “some people” asking Jesus about fasting were trying to catch Him. They asked why His disciples didn’t fast like John’s or the Pharisees’. What they really meant was:
What makes you so different?
Jesus answered with an image. “You don’t fast at a wedding,” He said. “You feast.”
For those with ears to hear, He was claiming something astonishing: I’m the bridegroom. I’m the one the wedding is about.
Jesus’ listeners would have caught the reference immediately. Throughout the Old Testament—Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea—God called Israel His bride. They were once devoted to Him, but the relationship had gone wrong. God was broken-hearted, calling them home.
Now Jesus is saying: You are the bride, and I am the bridegroom. It can’t be more clear to his listeners. Jesus is saying: I’m not like my cousin John. I’m not like the Pharisees. I’m not just another voice in the crowd—I am the bridegroom.I’m the one Israel has been betrothed to all along. The wedding feast has begun. This moment—eating with tax collectors, healing on Sabbath, gathering disciples—this is the celebration everyone’s been waiting for.
Jesus is saying it without saying it: I am God.
His words create a trilemma—a situation requiring a choice between three options. You know about a dilemma? A situation requiring a difficult choice between two options? A trilemma is like a dilemma, but with three variables.
The Jesus trilemma is this: Is He a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord?
The question is commonly attributed to C.S. Lewis, from his book Mere Christianity. It originated much earlier, though. In fact, variations of the question go back to the writings of the apostle John in the New Testament.
The trilemma is this: Jesus can’t simply be “a good teacher” or “one of many spiritual voices” because He made claims no “good” man would make. By this time in our story, He’s already claimed to bring the kingdom of God (Mark 1:15) and to forgive sins (Mark 2:5). We’re only two chapters into Mark’s story, and now, He’s claiming to be the bridegroom—God Himself in human form. As Lewis writes,
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.[1]
In other words, when we truly consider what Jesus said, we have only three options:
● He was deluded (a lunatic).
● He was deceptive (a liar).
● He was divine (the Lord).
Lewis was writing to a British population who were prone to see Jesus as a great moral teacher, like Buddha or Gandhi. As Lewis points out, when you begin to understand who Jesus said He was, such an attitude makes no sense. From the start, Mark shows us exactly who Jesus is. God’s voice affirms it at His baptism. Even the demons recognize it. The only question is: do we?
On February 27, 2011, sitting in that bedroom in Nashville, I had to face this question. I’d spent 40 years treating Jesus as a great teacher. A moral guide. But that wasn’t working anymore.
If Jesus is just a teacher, and His system fails, then what good is He?
But if Jesus is Lord—if He really is God Himself, claiming me as His bride—then everything I thought I knew about Christianity was wrong.
Religion wasn’t about using Jesus to build a successful life,
But about knowing Jesus. Abiding in Him.
Not a system to follow. A Person to love.
Not an instrumental faith. A substantial faith.
If you’re serious about Jesus, you’ll eventually have to answer this question: Who do you say Jesus is?
Many stay curious but hesitant—they enjoy His teachings and the civilization that arises from his church but won’t commit to Him as Lord. But Jesus doesn’t let you reduce Him to a safe, wise figure who fits your framework.
He is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord God Almighty.
Every few decades, culture tries to rebrand Jesus. A wise teacher. A moral voice. A radical prophet. But Jesus never gave us that option. He claimed to be the bridegroom, the long-awaited fulfillment of God’s promise to restore the world.That’s not something a good teacher says. That’s something only a lunatic or a scheming liar could say—unless He was really God.
You can’t treat Jesus as one spiritual option among many, because He didn’t. He is either the Son of God, or He is not. There is no middle ground.
Eventually, you have to answer the question: Who do you say He is?
Pray
Lord, thank You for Your patience and grace as I learn more about You. Reveal Yourself to me. Show me who You really are. I don’t want to use You. I want to know You. Amen.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 40–41.