Jesus--Crazy Or Victorious?

Saturday of the 2nd week in Course 2023

Today’s Gospel is one of the shortest readings in the Lectionary. If you don’t pay attention, it’s over before you can grasp it. Why? Mark’s community of Rome was under almost constant persecution. So he took mostly Matthew’s Gospel and abridged it, eliminating anything that seemed to focus too much on the bishop of Rome, St. Peter. So the Gospel is so short that it’s readable in an evening, and has been called “the memoirs of St. Peter.” When we take snippets of the Gospel of Mark for our daily readings, we can loose the continuity. So what has been happening before this remarkable scene, where it appears that the relatives of Jesus want to have Him committed to a mental ward.

Just before this, He was in the synagogue causing a deformed hand to be totally cured, with just His Word. He angered the Pharisees and Herod’s police that they were plotting His murder. As word of this got out, Galileans in the thousands came to him, followed by Judeans, Edomites, pagans from the north, pressing on Him so his disciples thought they would push Him into the lake. Demon-possessed people were being exorcized, and the demons, leaving the possessed, cried out that Jesus is God’s Son. He then appointed twelve principle disciples, the apostles, probably as assistants to help with the crowds. Just now He came home and there was a mob. This was such a change from the young man Jesus had been in Nazareth, that His relatives feared for His safety, thinking only that He’d gone mad and was driving the crowds insane, too. Looking ahead to next week, the Pharisees, unable to explain the phenomenon of Jesus, will accuse Him of being possessed by Satan Himself. So in context, today’s Gospel makes perfect sense. Those in Rome who heard all this would have realized God was telling them, “yes, you are under assault from everybody. But Jesus had the same problem, even with relatives. Just trust Him and you will be victorious, as He already is.” And God is telling us the same thing today.

What won Christ that victory over sin, death, and all the demons? Before His coming, remaking the broken bond between God and His people Israel was the task of the High Priest, who, once a year on the Day of Atonement, entered the Holy of Holies with animal blood to ask God to purge the peoples’ sins. It could not change their hearts or behavior; that was proved year after year. But Jesus, both human and divine, and a High Priest like Melchizedek, entered the eternal sanctuary in the heavenly Holy City with His own blood, shed on Calvary once for all, and memorialized in our gathering to worship. The Precious Blood of Christ can and does cleanse us from the inside out, Jesus bringing with Himself the Spirit that can and will change our minds, hearts, wills, consciences and actions so that we can image Christ to a world in desperate need of hope. The world is in desperate need of Christ, our eternal Hope. Clap your hands and shout for joy for the conquering King.