The Teaching Interrupted

This is a short 15-minute message today as we get ready for baptism. When you look in the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and some of the Jesus stories, it’s very interesting that Mark points out several interruptions, several times that Jesus was interrupted. He was frequently interrupted during his teaching time.

I wonder if you remember this particular story in Mark chapter 1: “They went to Capernaum and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Just then, a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, ‘What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.'”

I wonder if that got people’s attention at the synagogue that day. “Be quiet,” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him.” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching? And with authority? He even gives orders to impure spirits, and they obey him.” Mark 1 says news about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

I bet it did. That day at the synagogue was a day that people who would have been there would never forget. I want you to notice that Jesus didn’t just silence the person with the impure spirit. He actually paused and healed him. This interruption that took place during Jesus’ teaching—he paused and healed him. That’s the story in Mark chapter 1.

If you go to Mark chapter 2, there’s a story told about Jesus again teaching, but not at the synagogue. This time he’s at a crowded house. And you may know this story: the four friends are carrying a paralyzed man, and they decide to go up on the roof and dismantle the roof in the middle of the teaching and lower him down in front of Jesus. What did Jesus do? He again paused his teaching and he embraced the interruption. He healed the man because of his faith, and he forgave his sins.

The Travel Interrupted

Jesus was interrupted during his teaching several times, but he was also interrupted when he was traveling. How many love being interrupted during travel? Canceled flights, lost baggage—oh, there’s just this immense amount of joy that overcomes your heart when you’re interrupted with travel, isn’t there? You don’t mind it. Oh, thank you, God, for this canceled flight. What a blessing. It just rolls off my tongue.

Mark chapter 5. Again in Mark—we’ve done Mark 1, Mark 2—now Mark chapter 5. Do you remember this story? “When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus came, and when he saw Jesus, fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, ‘My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.’ So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.”

I want you to picture this moment in your mind. Jesus comes to the other side of the lake and immediately there’s a whole lot of people there to be around him, to see him, to perhaps receive his teaching. He has a plan. He’s planning to go somewhere, but instead this man, Jairus, falls at his feet. I would say that’s an interruption. But Jesus pauses and hears the man’s plea, listens to his story, and then makes a decision: “Okay, take me to your house. Let’s go.”

As they’re walking—I don’t know how long it was, but as they’re going along—Jesus is en route to deal with this interruption of the sick girl, and he’s interrupted again. Now someone has pulled on his cloak and he stops and he says, “Who stopped? Who stopped and pulled my clothes?” Can you imagine the people? Not me. Not me. And this lady that had this issue with blood, she tells her story. Her situation is interrupting the interruption. And Jesus again pauses and he listens to her story. He looks her in the eye and he heals her. And then he continues on and goes and heals the little girl. It’s just so interesting to me how Jesus dealt with interruptions—never affected by the chaos of the moment, unfazed by all the storms that are happening around him.

The Rest Interrupted

And then speaking of storms, oh, the writer Mark lets us know that Jesus wasn’t just interrupted when he was teaching or in his travel, but he was also interrupted when he was sleeping. How many of you enjoy being woken up from a deep sleep? Almost just as equally as a canceled flight, right? I mean, a deep sleep and you’re interrupted—you are a grizzly bear. It affects you.

And Mark chapter 4 tells us a story about Jesus being asleep in the stern, in the back of the boat. And this unexpected storm happens, the disciples panic, and they go and they wake him up from a deep sleep. We’ve said that Jesus was fully man and fully God. Well, I can only relate to the fully man piece, and I’m telling you, I wonder if Jesus was ticked. He wakes up, and we get a little insight because the Bible says that he rebuked the wind and the waves, and if you read in your Bible it says Jesus said, “Be quiet!” with an exclamation mark, and “Be still!” with an exclamation mark. It sounds to me like he was groggy from waking up and he’s taking his frustration out on the storm. And when I read these stories, I always ask more questions, and then I wonder: once he calmed the storm, did he go back to sleep?

Reviewing the Code

This two-week series began on May 31st, then there was an interruption for the One Church service, and now today. The question was: if communication is ultra-important in our everyday life, which we all know it is, then what can we learn from Jesus, the master communicator? What can we learn from him that we can put into our life no matter what place of work you’re at, no matter what school you’re going to? How can you practice how Jesus communicated and his methods?

I spent a significant amount of time in the month of May thinking about you, trusting that you would be here. And as I prepared this, it was so fun to look into the life of Jesus in the Gospels and just challenge you to do what Jesus did. If we could only attempt to model and reflect the person that Jesus was, what difference would that make in other people’s lives? And so if you take your outlines—and even if you weren’t here two weeks ago, and oh, 14 days ago seems so long ago—there are a few of Jesus’ best communication practices I want to review with you, and I’ve already put them there in the blanks for you.

One of the things we noticed is that Jesus was credible. You say, how do you know that? It’s because Jesus lived his message. You see, what he did, his actions, and what he said completely aligned. I trust when people think about you that they say, “She is credible. He is credible.” What they say and what they do are aligned.

The second thing we pointed out is that Jesus was a learner. What do I mean by that? Well, the benefit of learning isn’t just for you. The benefit of learning is so you can also help other people. And Jesus demonstrated that. We talked about him growing up as a young boy and how attentive he was, and how he would have learned the Old Testament scriptures. We know that because as Jesus speaks, and the writers capture that, there are over 300 times that Jesus refers to the Old Testament because he learned it, and he was wanting to share it with other people.

The third communication method that we talked about is that Jesus was memorable. You’ll remember his stories, his parables, his catchphrases. Remember I started one and then you would say it back to me, and you knew them. You know Jesus’ catchphrases from 2,000 years ago. I would say he was memorable. And the little challenge there was: are you boring or are you memorable? I’ll tell you how you can be memorable: you just take two minutes to think about your future interaction with the person you’re going to interact with and come up with some creative questions. And I challenged parents—I said, stop asking, “How was your day at school today?” You hated when your parents asked you that, so why are you asking that? Come up with something more creative to get them talking. Become more memorable.

Closing Challenge: Divine Appointments

And now today, the one blank that you need to fill in, get your pens ready, here it is: the fourth practice to crack the communication code of Jesus is that Jesus paused.

I’ve been using the word “interruption” this morning, but the problem with the word interruption is that it always seems to give a negative connotation. And so I want to challenge you in this short time that we have together. I want to challenge you to reframe interruptions that are going to come into your life tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. You know it’s going to happen. You’re going to have your day charted out. You’re going to make a plan, and it’s not going to go the way you planned it.

You may be speaking this week, you may be presenting with a team at your work, and you will be interrupted. You may be traveling this week or commuting, and you will be interrupted—it’s called construction. You might be even sleeping this week, and you will be interrupted. Are you going to let this interruption completely throw you off? Or are you going to reframe these unexpected interruptions as divine appointments? You may want to write that term down: divine appointments.

You see, the man with the impure spirit and the man who was coming down through the roof on the mat—Jesus didn’t see them as annoying interruptions. He saw them as divine appointments. What a difference. The desperate father, Jairus, who falls at Jesus’ feet, and the woman with a physical need—Jesus didn’t see them as interruptions; he saw them as divine appointments. It changes everything. And what might God do in us this week if we were more attentive to the interruption and less annoyed by the interruption? I don’t like interruptions. I don’t like pausing. It irritates me. I make a plan and that’s my plan—don’t interrupt me. But I’m learning to reframe those as divine appointments. And when I ask God to open my eyes and open my ears to what he may have for me that day, it can turn out a whole lot better than what I had for myself that day.

And so I’d like you to pause now, and I want to pray for you and the week that you’re about to have.