18 January 2024 Mark 3:7-12
People with evil spirits were telling the truth about Jesus: “You are the Son of God!” (Mark 3:11). Jesus told them to shut up.
Why? If they were telling the truth, why?
It takes about 30 hours to walk from New York to Philadelphia. That’s a four-day walk – if you walk over 20 miles a day, which you can do if you are in good health, good shape, and the conditions are good.
But not if you’re sick, or walking with someone who is sick, and it is really hot, and you don’t have the right kind of shoes, and you have to make frequent detours to avoid places where there are robbers, and you may not have enough money, or water, or food.
Yet that is what people did to get to Jesus, or get someone they loved who was sick to Jesus. They came from Jerusalem to Galilee (93 miles, about the distance from NYC to Philadelphia), and farther because they heard he could heal. They came in such enormous numbers, pressing toward him just to touch him, that they almost pushed him into the Sea of Galilee. Jesus talked to them from a boat to make the healing more orderly (Mark 3:9).
Crowds that size could take over anyone’s agenda, Jesus’ included. Imagine what would happen, then, if there were a crowd that size, all of them first century Jews who believed Jesus could heal them, and word got out that he was also the Messiah. It could easily have turned into a riot.
That is why Jesus told the people with evil spirits to shut up, even though they were telling the truth.
What they said was true: “You are the Son of God!” (3:11). But they were telling the truth to cause a riot, and keep Jesus from doing and teaching what he came to do and teach.
Healing was a sign of Jesus’ agenda, but it was not the whole thing. Getting people into heaven – all people, including Romans and Greeks and Samaritans, including robbers and prostitutes and drug dealers, including non-believers of every kind, including the ones we don’t like, especially the ones we don’t like – and thereby inaugurating the Kingdom of God was the whole agenda. That was going to take some time, and some careful thinking, and some serious praying, and none of that was possible if every day was just one crowd after another screaming, “Heal me!”
Jesus accomplished that. It took the crucifixion and the resurrection, but he accomplished it. And then he stopped telling people to shut up: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Tell the truth. Tell it to everyone. Tell it all day, every day.
Our mission, however, is not accomplished as soon as we have drawn a crowd. Jesus didn’t trust crowds – they threatened to overwhelm his agenda, they screamed, “Crucify him!” even after they had seen him heal. We shouldn’t trust crowds, either. Crowds will still try to force us into this or that “woke” agenda. Crowds will try to silence us if we won’t go. Crowds will try to get us fired, or banned. Crowds don’t care about our civil rights or the First Amendment.
Some crowds still need to shut up.
Jesus’ agenda – our agenda – still takes time, and some careful thinking, and some serious praying. It requires conversation, asking questions and listening to answers – not yelling. “Conversation” and “conversion” come from the same verb in Latin. They are related to each other still.
Jesus’ agenda is bigger than ours. Sometimes we need to shut up and listen, too.
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