11 February 2024 Mark 1:40-45
Jesus was a little conflicted about crowds.
On the one hand, he loved them and wanted them to hear what he had to teach them. On the other hand, the crowds often weren’t as interested in Jesus’ teaching as they were with his more immediate benefits, like healing and food. Sometimes all the crowds could talk about was that he had no college degree, and all they wanted was a meal.
In Capernaum, people in the synagogue listened to his teaching, and wondered how he knew so much. They weren’t dazzled, however, until he exorcized an evil spirit, and then they didn’t listen to his teaching at all, but just brought sick and possessed people from all over. They kept it up till after dark. They didn’t stop until he left for a deserted place to pray (Mark 1:21-35).
At another village in Galilee, before he could even get started teaching, a leper approached and asked to be healed. The ancient manuscripts don’t quite agree if Jesus was moved with pity or anger at this. Some of the earliest manuscripts say it was anger, and it isn’t hard to see why. Jesus knew what was going to happen – right after He healed the man He told him not to go shouting it from the housetops, but to go and offer for his cleansing what Moses commanded (1:44). Of course the man did exactly what Jesus told him not to do, creating exactly the problem He was trying to avoid. The healed leper made it harder for Jesus to teach. “Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country” (1:45).
Jesus made people come find him in the wilderness.
It wasn’t the last time when people thronged to Jesus for mostly wrong reasons, and the only way to refocus the mob was to force them to go out and do something hard.
In A.D. 313 the emperor Constantine – the first Christian emperor of Rome – published the Edict of Milan, which gave Christians legal protection for the first time. He also made Christianity the official religion of his government. Suddenly it was politically and economically advantageous to be a Christian, and just as suddenly the churches were packed. The mob was not as interested in being a friend of Jesus, of course, as they were a friend of Constantine, and many church leaders began to worry that expectations of Christian discipleship would begin to deteriorate.
Pastors understand that a robust crowd on Easter Sunday is not necessarily a sign of spiritual health.
At the same time as the Edict of Milan, however, there was a Christian hermit in Egypt named Anthony who had gone out into the desert years before to do battle with demons. He wanted to face the real enemy, depending on Jesus alone for strength. Word about him spread to nearby towns, and people would venture out to find Anthony of the Desert, and learn what he had learned about the ways of God, and how to do battle with spiritual darkness. It was inspiring for them to know that someone was out there fighting for them, using just the armor of God. In time, people came out to live around Antony’s hermitage to fight like he did. It was the beginning of what became Christian monasticism. In later centuries Christian monks fought the devils of poverty and ignorance by caring for the poor, and preserving the literary heritage of the Roman Empire. Still later they would found hospitals and universities. The academic hoods graduates wear today at college commencements represent the hoods of monks, an act of homage to the cloistered warriors, and their ongoing fight against the demons of ignorance and spiritual darkness.
Crowds don’t always mean people are interested in enlightenment. Sometimes they mean just the opposite. Jesus was a little conflicted about crowds. They aren’t always interested in Him. Crowds don’t always find Him.
If we really want to meet Jesus, know His power and understand His love, we might have to meet Him in a more rugged place. We might have to try something harder.
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