Who Needs a Prophet?
A sermon on the Gospel of Mark 6:14-29
Providence Baptist Church, Hendersonville NC
Dwight A. Moody
One of the more fascinating features of the recent presidential elections was the role of the prophet. Beginning about 2007, self-designated prophets in the American and international Christian charismatic community began predicting the Donald J. Trump would be elected president.
South Carolina, Texas, and Australia are well known as the ministry locations of some of the more famous and influential prophets. These prophecies were reported through the social media networks of these various prophets and also through Charisma magazine and website. When Trump surprised the nation with his victory in 2016, it gave enormous credibility to these prophets. But when he lost in 2020 it threw this entire Christian subculture into chaos. These recent episodes of what many describe as “prophetic activity” form part of the background of our reading of this text.
They raise these questions: Are these modern charismatic prophets the same as the ancient Hebrew prophets? What does the Bible say to us about the nature and role of the prophet? And who needs a prophet, anyway?
In two verses, The Gospel of Mark mentions the three most famous prophets of Biblical literature: Jesus, John, and Elijah.
“Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, ‘John the Baptizer has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’ Others were saying, ‘He is Elijah.’ Still others claimed, ‘He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.’ But Herod said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead’.”
John the Baptizer we know. John took up preaching in the wilderness, the dessert east of Jerusalem, in the Jordan Valley. He called upon people to “repent, to turn around, to go in a new direction, because the kingdom of God is coming near.” Jewish people from all over the territory came out to hear him preach and receive his baptism. It was there that Jesus found John. “Baptize me,” Jesus said to John. John hesitated and protested. But to no avail. John the prophet baptized Jesus the prophet, the rabbi, the miracle worker, the son of God, the redeemer of the world. Jesus later said, “Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptizer.”
Elijah the prophet we also know. Elijah lived hundreds of years before Jesus, during the time of Ahab and Jezebel, rulers of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Elijah contended against the religion of Ba’al worship. He led what was called the school of the prophets. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and proclaimed that Yahweh God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the one and only true God. When his work on earth was done, he was taken into heaven in a chariot of fire.
And Jesus we know. The young, brilliant, and charismatic teacher from Galilee, the miracle worker who spent most of his time around the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the challenger of the religious status quo, the man who ate with saints and sinners, who called people to be his disciple in a life of simplicity, compassion, courage, forgiveness, and service; the messianic man who drew the ire of the temple and the watchful eye of the Romans, who was arrested, tried, and executed.
We know these three: Jesus, John, and Elijah. We also know about Isaiah, who heard the voice of God saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And Ezekiel, who was lifted up by the Spirit of God and transported from Babylon to the city of Jerusalem, there to see visions of what God was doing in the world. And Amos, who said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” And Jeremiah, overcome with sadness at the wickedness of Israel and their exile in Babylon, said, “The days are coming, declares he Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel.”
The Bible tells us prophets are anointed of God for the good the people. Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, to equip the people of God for works of service, that the body of Christ, the Christian Community, may be built up until we reach unity in the faith … and become mature, attaining the full measure of the fullness of Christ.”
The gospel we believe and embrace is about prophets, it describes and defends prophets, and it encourages us to listen to the prophets that God sends our way. But there is confusion over what it means to be a prophet. Some think prophets are those who predict the future. These modern charismatic prophets fall into this category. Prophets supposedly receive revelations, or words of knowledge, from the Spirit of God. Have you ever been in a worship service where this happened?
Years ago, the white Evangelical community was full of prophets. And their prophecies were all about the end of the age. They wrote books called The Late Great Planet Earth and The Terminal Generation. I still have somewhere in my library that small, paperback book with the title, 88 Reasons Jesus will return in 1988. And more recently, the Left Behind series of books and movies … and comics and coffee mugs and calendars and a hundred other trinkets that allowed these supposed prophets to get rich.
Do you need that kind of prophet today?
Much mischief has been generated by men and women who say they know the future. Not just in religion but in politics, and commerce, and world affairs. But a true prophet is one who understands the times, the present times, who can perceive not the future but the present, who sees the hand of God not in some far off future, but in the life and work, the play and rest here, right now, all around us.
That is the Jesus kind of prophet. That is the John the Baptizer kind of prophet. That is the Elijah kind of prophet. They called for people to stop, turn around, and go in a different direction. They called for people to show compassion on the weak, to execute justice for the victim, to live at peace with all people, and can I say this, to put down their weapons of war and self-defense and escape the culture of violence that prevails over great stretches of land around the world.
In recent years, Christian prophets, or preachers as we more often call them, have taken on the history of racism in our country, have shone a gospel light on the networks of sex traffickers and pornographers, have demanded the refugees fleeing violence and corruption find a safe harbor in these United States, have pushed back against a consumerism that is filling the earth, not with praise, but with plastic.
Do you need that kind of prophet today? When that kind of prophet calls on us to change our ways, to repent, and go in a different direction, to surrender ourselves and our futures to the coming kingdom of God, when that kind of prophet speaks, I am trying to listen, and respond.
Prophets are not well received. Jesus was rejected in his home town and later in the state capital. He was arrested, tried, and executed. John was arrested. He was imprisoned. He was not tried. He was murdered. We heard the all too familiar story in the gospel reading today, of powerful people, irritated by truthtellers, do what they can do to silence the prophets.
All over the world prophets –secular prophets, religious prophets–are silenced: people who tell the truth, who stare down power, who are fearless in the face of public opinion and religious doctrine, who tell us, if you don’t get that truck off those tracks, it’s going to get smashed by the 4 o’clock Burlington engine pulling 87 cars full of coal traveling at 55 miles an hour. We need that kind of prophet!
True prophets have one consistent message: change your ways, go in a new direction, set your sights on new destination. Jesus said as much: repent: that is: turn back, turn away, turn around—the path you are on will not take you to where you long to go. Turn around, embrace the rule of God, live by the beatitudes and the prayer, surrender yourself to God’s purpose for your life. In this manner, he was picking up the great prophetic tradition of his people, the Hebrew people. No wonder they called him a prophet. A prophet like Elijah. A prophet like Isaiah, and Zechariah, and Elisha, and Micah, who said, What does God require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk with God in humility.
The debate in our text was about this question: who is Jesus? It has been the central question of world religion since that day. Those who call him messiah, lord, and savior pushed back against Jews and Muslims who want to call him just a prophet: a great prophet, but only a prophet. In recent centuries, we have pushed back against secularist and atheists who want to call Jesus a great teacher, a rabbi of lasting significance, but no more than a teacher.
You recall the great statement by C. S. Lewis. I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher… 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 the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.”
Lewis was himself once a mocker, a doubter, and a skeptic. A clever, educated skeptic. He thought all the gospel tales about Jesus were nothing but tales, myths, stories, more like the stores he created about Narnia or the stories written by his close friend JRR Tolkien, about Middle Earth: entertaining, inventive, inspirational perhaps. But not true.
In his book, Surprised by Joy, Lewis tells of his slow conversion, first of his mind, then his emotions, and finally his manners. Except he could never turn away from his beloved smokes. Some people wanted to rewrite that story, to take his conversion further than it actually was. I have in my home a large print of a well-known portrait of Lewis. He is nicely dressed, pleasantly focused on something, and casually holding a cigarette. Except that the cigarette has been air-brushed out! An effort to appease the white evangelicals in America, his biggest fan club. A postmortem conversion of his habits! Lewis himself would be offended! And he would be offended by people who wanted a Risen Lord without a Prophet, a Savior pointing to a promised land, without a prophet calling for change. He would be more offended by those who wanted a prophet with out a savior, a truth telling, change-demanding preacher whom God never raised from the dead!
These are equally odious to the almighty and everlasting God, the good and gracious God, the wise and wonderful God who sent Jesus, the one and only son, into the world, our world, to live, and preach, and heal, and rebuke, and suffer, and die … for us! With us!
God raised Jesus from the dead! “This Jesus, whom you killed,” Simon Peter said when he stood to preach on Zion’s hill, just feet from my dormitory room fifty years ago: “This Jesus, God raised from the dead!” But Jesus can’t be our savior unless he is first our prophet!
Who needs a prophet today? What change would he demand of you? What new direction would he point for all of you? What conversion of affections, of habits, of preferences, of behaviors is Jesus putting before us today? Who needs a prophet? We do!
(July 2021)
