The Madness Of Jesus

The Madness of Jesus

Mark 3:20-30

"And He came home, and the multitude gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘He has lost His senses.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons." And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they upper; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – because they were saying, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’" (Mark 3:20-30)

He is out of His mind! He’s lost His senses! He’s crazy! He’s flipped out! I believe He’s insane! Would these be the reactions of our contemporary society to Jesus Christ, we He among us today? Many people think that our world would welcome Jesus Christ into their midst; that Jesus would appear to them to be sensible and sane, the perfect balance of every human characteristic.

But human characteristics are fatally flawed as a result of the Fall. Our perspective on things is warped, and I fear if Jesus came along today, our reaction to Him would be one of rejection. But it was so in Jesus’ day, even by the members of His own family.

If there were insane asylums in Jesus’ day, He would have been committed. The men would have been dispatched to place Him in a straight-jacket and take Him away. And the ones who would do the committing would be His own family. For that is precisely the opinion they express about Jesus in the first few verses of this passage we’re studying today.

After all, what would your reaction be to a man who was flouting your traditions, preaching as if He has some special authority and revelation from God? What would you think if He claimed that people were tormented by demons and then proceeded to cast them out? And what if he were your relative, perhaps your son? Well, that was precisely what Jesus was doing. But instead of praising God because of the good He was doing, His own family though He was mad. They thought He had taken leave of his senses, that He was a madman.

"And He came home, and the multitude gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. And when His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘He has lost His senses.’" (vv. 20-21)

After all, a little religion was a good thing. But He had taken this too far, and He wasn’t even following the traditions of the elders. He had become a fanatic. He was suffering from delusions of grandeur. So, the only thing left to do was to go and bring Him back home, where He would be out of the public eye, and try to get Him some help.

This was their reasoning. But to those who were used to seeing the limited vision of that day, this was not a wild conclusion. Only those who were willing to see from God’s point of view would come to see Christ as a man sent from God. His family could not see. But there were many of His day, most notably the scribes and Pharisees, who could have seen, but chose not to. So, His opposition from those who would not or could not see increased. And in this passage, we have this opposition coming from two camps: from His own family, and from a delegation of scribes from Jerusalem.

Let’s take a closer look at this passage today. Imbedded in it are several important principles useful in our walk with the Lord.

Peril

Let’s look firstly at the peril of a divided house.

"And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons." And he called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!" (vv. 22-26)