Blood Soaked Youth Ministry

We've all heard the stats i suppose, about teenagers who grow up in church, go to college, and then never darken the door of the church ever again. Teens who grow up in youth choir, at camps, on activities, and now spend their Sunday mornings sleeping off the night before.

We've heard the stats, and though i struggle to believe that the number really is as high as the 70-80% i've heard quoted (what is it about evangelicalism and a love for negative statistics?) it's obviously a problem. 

What causes that problem? I guess there are a couple of obvious ones. Firstly, if your teen grows up in a teen centric environment, if they are always entertained and never asked to serve, always eating pizza and never studying the Bible, of course it's going to be a rue awakening when they go to church at 19 and suddenly they're treated like an adult. Of course they're going to be surprised when the plate in question is for them to give, not to take another piece of cake off. So there's that. The second is like the first. Maybe the majority of our 'church kids' just aren't getting saved. Maybe the sickness is in the youth group, not the frat house.

Both of those and more are part of the problem, but you know what i think a big, and overlooked problem is? I'm so glad you asked.

We've never taught our teenagers to sin. 

Let me explain. If our teens grow up in a world where they never fail, guess what they're going to equate Christianity with? Not failing. And when they fail at college, anywhere on the scale from fornicating to...whatever is on the other end of that scale, they're not going to know what to do with that failure. They've got no answer to the 'how're you going to go to church now?' question, so they quit.

If we teach young people that Christianity equals perfection, of course they're going to leave the church when they fail. Of course their seared conscience is going to keep them out of the Bible. They've sinned, how can they approach a holy God now?

This is the burden of the book of Hebrews. The blood of bulls and goats never changed a man's heart, never eased a seared conscience, never assured man of his salvation. But the blood of Jesus can and does. Hebrews 9:14 promises that the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience so that we can once more serve Christ. This is what our teenagers need as they go to college. A blood soaked youth ministry. We can teach five steps to a better recess when we run out of Gospel. We can fire up the attractional smoke machine and rock band when the blood of Jesus stops being relevant.

We need to be honest about sin. I sin, you sin, and our good church kids sin. Blood talk only makes sense in the light of sin talk. And it's blood talk, and only blood talk, that will grow faithful teenagers into faithful adults.

Ironies at the Foot of the Cross

In Mark 15 verses 21-32, and see that God’s ironies tell us what Jesus will do. God’s ironies tell us what Jesus will do. What is irony? Mark uses a form of dramatic irony in these verses as he records people speaking better than they knew. The three voices we hear in these verses think they are mocking Jesus, but actually, they’re telling the truth about Him. These ironies show us what Jesus will do. We hear the first voice in verse 26, read that with me.  When someone was crucified they had a sign hung above their head detailing what their crimes where. It might have said ‘murder,’ or ‘treason.’ Jesus crime according to Pilate was that He was the King of the Jews. No doubt Pilate put this sign up to embarrass the Jews. The Jews themselves, those who arrested Jesus would have hated this. But Jesus really was the King of the Jews, the King of the new Kingdom. The King that David had been promised, the King that Judah had been promised, the King that the Jewish leaders should have been looking for. The King they needed but didn't want. The King that would have set them free from themselves. The King of the Jews, hung on a cross, cursed by God. 

We hear the second voice in verse 29. Remember all the way though Mark’s Gospel, the claim that Jesus made early in His ministry, recorded in John 2 that if the temple was destroyed He would rebuild it in three days was something that people used against Him. People now insulted Him by saying, in effect, if you’re so clever that you can rebuild the Temple in three days, you ought to be able to get yourself off the cross. But again, this is irony. Jesus is The Temple, the real temple, the real place where man can meet with God. He is the Temple, the meeting place because He died. Mark shows us this truth again in the immediate aftermath of Jesus death . In verse 38, just after Jesus breathes His last Mark cuts away from Golgotha and takes us into the Temple. There he shows us the curtain, the thick, richly-woven, heavy curtain the symbolized mans separating from God being torn in two. Now if you want to meet with God where do you need to go? To Jesus? And when? Whenever you need to. You're invited by His nailed scarred hands. 

We hear the final voice in this section in verse 31. They admit that He saved others. He gave sight to the blind and legs to the lame. But now look at Him. Naked and nailed to the cross, totally hopeless. He can not save Himself they joke. What a fraud Jesus is. Except, there’s more irony here isn’t there.  It’s simply because He saved others that He can not save Himself. It’s because He’s dying on the cross for sin that He can save others from sin.

Mark uses the ironic comments of the passers-by to teach us that Jesus will be the King of a renewed Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. This has been Mark's message since the first verse of his Gospel. That he brings good news about the Son of God. This is how the King is crowned, and this is how the Kingdom works. IN the darkest of nights, there is light, in the worst circumstances there is hope, though the King wears a crown of thorns, He really is the King. There are mysteries in the Christian life, and ironies. But the King makes everything beautiful in it's time...