crowds – Gird Your Mind

“…the multitude gathered again…” Mark 3:20-30

Enough is enough. Who does he think he is, bringing all these people into town? He’s out of control – he can’t even eat a meal without being interrupted! He must be out of his mind.

The experts chimed in, “And if he’s vacated the premises, someone else must have moved in. Do you really think God is behind this? He is possessed by the prince of demons! How else can he cast out evil spirits?”

Jesus must have shuddered at their lack of faith and even simple logic. A nation is never stronger during a civil war. And if Satan’s demons are being cast out, there must be a greater power present, and that could only be the power of the Holy Spirit. To credit that power to anything else was blasphemy – and there was no worse form!

The people were at least open to the idea that Jesus was the coming Messiah. Open enough to travel far in the hopes of being healed. Jesus’ friends and family were afraid for his safety and well-being. The religious leaders were not so ready to believe. Things were not happening the way they thought they should.

It is ironic that the ones charged with preserving and propagating the faith would be so blind as to miss the very things they had hoped for and proclaimed for so long. In fact, the ones who were so skilled at identifying blasphemy were now committing it themselves. May God guard our minds and souls against making those same errors!

“…for he had healed many” Mark 3:7-12

Jesus withdrew from the city to the sea with his disciples. What a change of scene! It’s hard to imagine what this must have been like from Mark’s brief description, especially to our present generation accustomed to the ever-present news camera bringing sights and sounds from every event imaginable.

Mark says Jesus “withdrew,” but to a casual viewer it must have looked like Jesus was leading an invasion. People from Galilee followed him, and from around Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and Tyre and Sidon. (What? No Pharisees?) The crowds were huge, so big that Mark refers to them as a multitude and then twice again as a “great” multitude.

What drew them was what they heard Jesus was doing, and they flocked to him hoping he could do the same for them. They crowded in closer and closer, trying to touch him and thereby be healed, for he had healed many people. The press was so great that Jesus had the disciples keep a boat ready, whether for the safety of a quick escape or to use as a convenient preaching platform we are not told.

Also caught up in the crowd were those with unclean spirits. They might have come on their own, but more likely were dragged to Jesus by desperate friends and family. These would fall down before Jesus crying, “You are the Son of God!” Jesus would always silence them and warn them to say no more. This was not the time for that, though that day will come.

The realization that Jesus is God does not come by swaying with the movement of the crowd or getting caught up in a thousand voices. He will make Himself known to each of us in his own time. We do not need to worry about missing him or being too late. He is coming in time, at the right time. Are you ready?

Out of his mind

A great multitude