Friday, June 1, 2018

Year 8, Day 152: Mark 5


Theological Commentary: Click Here



Mark 5 gives us three terrific healing stories.  In each of these stories, we get to see real life mixing with the divine.  This chapter gives us a great glimpse at how a fallen and broken world interacts with a perfectly divine being.



In the first story, we have a man with an incredible amount of demons healed of the demons.  The man responds favorably, going about and teaching people about how Jesus has saved him.  The world of the Decapolis, the region where the healing occurred, can’t handle what happened.  They ask Jesus to leave.  They don’t want Him interfering with their lives.  He’s already shown he can change the life of a man nobody else could control.  Who can say what Jesus would do to their lives if they give Him a chance?  Rather than risk it, they send Him away.



In the next story, we meet a woman who is also in need of healing.  She simply reaches out to touch Jesus.  She has such faith in Jesus that she merely knows that contact with Him will change her reality.  Jesus turns and demands to know who had such faith.  Jesus’ disciples show their humanity and complain that such a question is unreasonable given the density of the crowd.  Jesus, however, knows that the disciples are missing the greater point.  It’s impossible to know all of the people who bumped Jesus, but it is not impossible to know the one person who touched Jesus with intentionality.  It’s not impossible to know the one person who did exactly that for which Jesus is looking.  He wants to know who has a faith that will go deeper and try to understand what He is doing and teaching.



In the last story, we meet a young girl who dies.  The world around her moves to mourn her death.  When Jesus comes along, they laugh at His declaration that she isn’t dead. They don’t understand; they aren’t even willing to understand.  Jesus puts them out of the house and doesn’t even give them the opportunity to see Him at work.  The little girl is saved, and Jesus’ disciple get to see an incredible moment of divine work.



Each of these stories gives us an example of faith at work.  In each story we see a person who goes deeper with Jesus.  In each story we also see a greater world that misses the picture.  This is the reality in which Jesus lives.  Jesus doesn’t stop doing ministry and trying to reach out to the world simply because ministry takes place in a world that constantly misses the point.



<><

No comments:

Post a Comment