Sun Kwak, “The Axis Mundi”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oDbGMvKqGc

TEXT: Mark 4:30-34

[30] And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? [31] It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, [32] yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

[33] With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. [34] He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

SERMON: “The Axis Mundi”

I grew up a Chicago Bulls fan, as a child of the 90’s. David and I are now sharing in the pains of being a Chicago sports fan. But these were the good days. Because you ask any Bulls fan of that era what they remember about these Bulls. Everything was heightened and hyperbolized, because they took the game to the next level. And so, the average fan might know Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, and maybe even some off-the court antics by Dennis Rodman. But one of the truly iconic and trademark moments was when the Bulls would play at home, and there would be the announcement of the starting lineup. And the piano rift would start — (hum beginning). I mean, it was epic. It still sends chills down my spine when I happen upon it from time to time. Because no other sports intro will ever match it — and that’s a definitive statement, not up for debate. And so, this rift would start, and the players would be introduced. And there was always a specific ordering that was intentionally organized. Usually, Scottie Pippen was introduced first, as one of the stars on the team. And then, after Pippen there would be some of the lesser members of the starting lineup after. But always, toward the end it would build up all the way to Tommy Edward’s iconic introduction of — And at guard, from North Carolina, number 23, Michael Jordan. And the crowd goes bananas. And from there, the Bullswere ready to play some basketball. And I don’t care what your sports opinions are. THAT is the standard for introducing your sports team — again, that’s a definitive statement, not up for debate. And about this, I remember hearing a retired player recalling playing against these Chicago Bulls in the 90’s, and he shared that right when he heard those words — And at guard, from North Carolina — he knew deep down it was all over. Because Jordan was playing. The buildup, the music, the atmosphere, and then the entrance of the GOAT — the greatest of all time. It was just too much. He knew the game was over even before it even started. Because he was a mere subject to the dynasty and at the mercy of the king.

I think something like this is what we would expect when we read about the Kingdom of God in the Bible. I mean, here we have the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords. And so, we would expect the most triumphant entrance. Logically, we would expect immediate feelings of victory and tangible outpourings of power. And so, when we’re to learn about this Kingdom of God through growth analogies in an agrarian culture, it may seem a little confusing or even off-putting. Because I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to grow something before. But it takes time, and day by day, the growth is not apparent. It’s not fast, it’s not immediate, it’s not impressive, it’s not exciting. And as if it wasn’t made clear enough, this is now the third parable about sowing seeds here in chapter 4. The Bible uses repetition to communicate emphasis, and it’s pretty clear here with this threefold repeitition. The Kingdom of God is to be understood in the way the first century audience understood seeds. And so, for the third time here in chapter 4, Jesus is using this analogy of a seed, and this time, it happens to be a mustard seed. J. Vernon McGee said this when remarking about the mustard tree — Mustard is not food; it is a condiment. And the growth of a mustard seed into a tree is unnatural. And of course, we’re intended to read that with a smile on our faces, perhaps even a little chuckle. But he’s not off in what he’s looking to communicate — that what’s presented in our passage is something unexpected and even unpredictable. And that’s kind of the focus here — that kingdom growth is unexpected and unpredictable. And sometimes, you can’t even see the progress. And I think for some of us, the most frustrating thing about the Kingdom of God is that, once again, it can feel slow and ineffective and maybe even stagnant. And maybe we wonder about things like — When will things start happening? When will God show up? When will God stop the suffering? When will God intervene in this marriage? When will my daughter, my son start trusting in Jesus? When will life feel more like winning than losing? And those are real and legitimate questions. And if that’s you this morning, because you have pressing needs, it’s my invitation that you might lean into our passage. Not because God will provide immediate and tangible fixes. But because he invites his people to wait. And waiting can hurt and learning patience can be exhausting. But in the pain, through the tears, and amid arid conditions, we must learn to wait on God and his Kingdom, as described, promised, and enacted through his Word. Because in Jesus, we have one who’s entered our stories, who connects heaven to earth and earth to heaven, to bring heavenly truths to our earthly realities.

G. Campbell Morgan, who was the pastor at Westminster Chapel, preceding Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ time there, tells this story about when he visited a cemetery in Italy. And there, he noticed the pieces of a huge marble slab in the center of the cemetery. It was massive, and it was thick, but it was mysteriously split into two even pieces. He checked the dates on the marble slab, because right through the middle of it, there emerged this tree that cracked this marble slab into two. And as the dates told him, almost a hundred years earlier, there was a man who was buried and put into the ground. And so, he’s examining the aftermath of this tree that seemingly burst through this death marker. But as this man was buried and put into the ground, it must have been that there was a small acorn that fell in with his casket. And sometime within the past 100 years, this massive tree grew out of that acorn. And as G. Campbell Morganobserved while preaching using this story as an example, when the acorn dropped, nobody announced — Bombs away!But this small acorn without anyone really noticing it, gently fell into the earth. And over time, growth happened. It was slow, it wasn’t initially apparent, but it was powerful enough to, in time, crack and burst through this thick marble slab to the becoming of two distinct pieces. And such is the Kingdom of God that has the power to burst through formidable and often opposing forces. Things like marble slabs, in analogy. Things like cancer and sickness. Things like murders and hate crimes. Things like human trafficking and child abductions. Things like slavery and injustices. These formidable forces, the Kingdom of God will decisively burst through in due time. It takes waiting, it takes patience, and it creates a longing in our hearts — for heaven to meet earth and to transform our realities in only a way that God can and will.

So, Tim Keller talks about this mustard tree that comes about as a result of the planting of this mustard seed in our passage. And while this mustard tree wasn’t the largest tree in the world, it was the largest tree, by far, among plants that were grown in a garden. It had often been the sighting of those in that context that the mustard tree would tower over everything else in the garden. And Keller notes that this kind of abnormally large tree was something that Jewishhearers would have heard with echoes from Ezekiel 17 and Daniel 4. That in these chapters, there were descriptions of this great world tree. And outside of the Gospel accounts, the word branch that we find in verse 32 of our passage is only found in three other places in the New Testament. And all three of those take us to Romans 11. And that’s the chapter where the apostle Paul is describing how the Gentiles are grafted into this tree where Jewish branches have fallen off. And one of Paul’s emphases here is that the expansion of God’s people has extended beyond Jerusalemand Judea. That this was not just the Jerusalem tree, but this was now the great global tree, involving the advancement of the gospel to the ends of the earth. And so, this mustard tree, in many ways, depicted that great world tree. And scholars across different religions have referred to some form of a great world tree as the Axis Mundi, the spine of the world, the great tree that connects earth to heaven. And we’re in this time where people are longing for the transcendent, for something bigger than oneself. It’s one of the speculations as to why and how there’s been this boom and growth with the Roman Catholic Church. People want to be connected to something bigger than they are, in time and space, and ultimately, they’re longing for the transcendent. Here’s an excerpt from an article about this Axis Mundi, the concept, the idea, the bigger than oneself thing that connects earth to heaven — What do Mount Fuji in Japanese culture, the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, Mecca in Islam, and the Black Hills for the Sioux all have in common? They are all examples of a belief in the Axis Mundi – a perceived center of the world, where Heaven and Earth are connected. This concept is also known by other names, including the ‘world tree’, the ‘world pillar’, and the ‘cosmic axis’. And so, this desire for the connecting of heaven and earth is a deeply human experience, even those who fall outside the categories of the Christian faith. Because there’s something within that informs us and tells us that we were meant for something more and perhaps, that we are not the masters of our own destiny but were created by a careful playwright in whose larger story we belong.

And in the form of religiosity outside of Christianity, in this hapless and hopeless striving for eternity, this connection between heaven and earth. This ceaseless endeavor happens through reaching upward, climbing upward, achieving upward, to get man to become on par with God. I’m reminded of TV show Friday Night Lights, a show placed in the setting of Dillon, Texas and specifically the setting of high school football in the state of Texas, which I learned is its own little world. And in one of the early episodes, Tim Riggins, star fullback for the Dillon Panthers, anticipates that this next season was going to be something special, unlike anything seen in the great state of Texas, something for the history books, something that others would strive for. And when he’s gathered with his teammates around a campfire, with ambitions to accomplishing something no one else in the state of Texas ever had, he says — Let’s touch God this time, boys. Through rising above the competition, through accomplishing and establishing supremacy by their mightand strength and dominance. And like Tim Riggins, touching God was something that has always fascinated the rulers and great ones and thinkers in history, including the likes of Nebuchadnezzar, according to Daniel 4. That whether it was through something intellectual or experiential or in accordance to accomplishment or reputation or accolades. The general thought is that for one to meet the divine, it necessitates a climb upward, a building up, some form of a manmade ascent, some mechanized and strategic growth involving human improvement. Ernest Becker called this act building our immortality projects. All to fulfill that deep human experience for longing for more, for the transcendent, for the pursuit of connecting the human experience with something divine.

But unlike the kingdoms of this world, in The Kingdom of God, heaven and earth aren’t connected through a reaching up but rather a coming down. It’s this upside down order that catalyzes growth and movement in this kingdom. And as it’s been established through the parable of the Sower, in the beginning of chapter 4, this growth that eventuates into this thirty-fold, sixty-fold, hundred-fold growth into this mustard tree. For this to happen, the seed not only has to grow organically, it needs to be sown deeply and firmly planted into the ground and buried. And so, early church father Tertullian said that the blood of the martyrs served as the seeds of the early church. That the church grew through persecution and hardships and deaths. And while these were numerous, it all starts with one seed that’s sown, that’s planted, that’s buried, that’s bloodied. For here was one whose blood soaked the ground and would catalyze the movement of subsequent seeds that would grow to become trees. For where else would these early martyrs have garnered the courage to give up their lives in the setting of such danger and threat? They would all find their courage through looking at the ultimate courage and sacrifice of One. Of when he gave his life at not just the danger or threat of his life but at the certain cost of it to his death. And it would start with him as a seed, the seed of the woman, all the way back in the Garden. And here, the God of the universe would make himself small and seemingly insignificant. Not born into a palace but in a humble stable. Because his Kingdom is upside down and paradoxical. For when you consider Jesus as this seed, it’s not just this seed but the tree that would serve this countercultural form. For in the story of the gospel, there would be a tree that would connect heaven and earth. Here would be the answer to all of the deep longings of the human soul — to the transcendent and divine. But the direction would not be upward but downward — not man’s ascent but God’s descent into the world. In this upside down, countercultural kingdom, the man of heavencomes to sinners on earth and dies in our place by being nailed onto this great world tree, known as the cross, for all to see. Something to build our life upon, to generate organic and unnatural power to change the world. Something that connects the truths of heaven to our earthly realities.

And as we place our eyes upon this tree, it grows the kingdom. And flourishing happens when the starting point is here, with this tree, with the cross of Jesus Christ, the Axis Mundi. Because when we read of birds making nests and this great mustard tree providing shade here in verse 32, this word for shade is also translated as shadow. And this Greekword σκια is used just three times in the New Testament epistles. And in each of these three times, it’s in reference to a foretaste, of something that is to come, of something greater to look forward to. In Hebrews 8, the shadow of things to come. In Colossians, the shadow of things which is ours in Christ. Because this mustard tree was one that Jesusspecifically refers to, not necessarily because of its sheer size, but because it was the biggest of the trees in a very certain place he had in mind, once again, which is The Garden. And it was actually said that those who would gardenwould recommend that mustard seeds not be planted in gardens, because these mustard trees would be so invasivethat they would eventually cover the whole garden, giving the entire garden shade. And as a new creation entity, what the church is called upon to do is to invade and to permeate this world with the foretaste of heaven, as we keep our eyes on the Axis Mundi, on the cross of Jesus, on the place of paradox and sacrifice. And so, Tom Wright calls for the church to spread the culture of heaven, as those who have access to the heavenly things as those with a resurrection identity while covered in the blood of Christ. And we do so knowing the incredible power that’s both organic and unnatural. And it’s surprising, because it’s not just incredible but what we’ve all longed for. And it comes through our fixation upon the Axis Mundi, for personal hope, along with corporate flourishing.

And as we fix our eyes upon the Axis Mundi, this great world tree, the cross of Jesus that connects heaven to earth, in this upside down kingdom where our King comes down to his people, it gives us a foretaste of what’s to come. Because here at the cross of Jesus, what we profess is that The Gospel Changes Everything. And Tom Wright shares some insight as to how Christians are to collectively provide this shade, to give this foretaste in the here and now. He writes in his book Surprised by Hope: “What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about the roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are — strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself — accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and make the name of Jesus honored in the world — all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.” By his bloodied and nail-pierced hands, Jesus gathers up all of our works in his name. Through the Axis Mundi in the cross of Jesus, that connects heaven and earth. May God flourish our work and efforts here at Christ Our Redeemer with our fixation upon this great world tree. And may it be that those who look in wonder at what’s being grown here don’t see a marketing strategy or some mechanized growth but a true wonder that’s organic and even unnatural. Wondering — How can this possibly be? That through deeper investigation, they might consider our Axis Mundi in the cross of Christ and ask what we ask — How can this possibly be? To which, we respond as we sing with full hearts — Amazing love, how can it be? That Thou my God should die for me? This is our Axis Mundi, the cross of Jesus Christ that has life-transforming power that meets our frail earthly realities with the foretaste of heaven.