MARK 1:21-45
Read Mark 1:21-45
We seem to have been in Mark Chapter 1 for an age but we have only got to Verse 20. Mark’s first few verses are intensely packed with what we need to know about Jesus in order to understand his ministry in all its fullness. In these twenty verses we have learned who Jesus (he is the son of God, the long awaited Messiah promised in the Old Testament), what he has come to do (be the saviour of God’s people and usher in the Kingdom of God) and how he was to do it (with the authority of God the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit). Phew! Now we are equipped to understand Jesus’ ministry as we read the rest of the Gospel of Mark.
And what we see is the authority of Jesus. We have already seen that he has authority over the devil by resisting the temptations in the wilderness and that he has authority over mankind in calling the disciples – he called, and they followed, no question! Now we see in vv21-28 and v34 that he has authority over evil spirits and in vv29-34 that he has authority over disease. These are symptoms of the world gone wrong. This is not how things were meant to be; it is not how things were in the Garden of Eden before sin entered into the world. We live in a fallen world susceptible to the ravages of sin. Jesus came in to the world to defeat the sin of this world and there was, and still is, plenty of it about. Verses 32-34 tell us that Jesus healed many who had various diseases and that he drove out many demons The Kingdom of God trumps the Kingdom of this world.
But it all seemed very hectic. There was such a lot of work for Jesus to do because there was so much sin in the world that needed to be dealt with. And so he took some time out to pray and to be in the close company of his Father God. Jesus, in his earthly ministry, needed to be refreshed and reinvigorated, as we all do. And he needed to reconnect with God the Father, as we all do. Jesus, in his earthly ministry, was fully human and he could not do it all in his own strength and Mark tells us again and again that Jesus went off to pray; and that is good advice for us all. It is interesting that when Jesus went off on his own to pray, the disciples sought him out because the people were looking for him to heal and do miracles. But Jesus’ priority was to pray.
I am sure we all know churches that are very busy in their day to day lives doing all manner of worthy things on behalf of the Kingdom of God. But the dangers are burnout, and a burnt out servant of God is of no use at all to him; or a church that is so busy that it loses its focus. The Book of Revelation gives us an example of that. Jesus said to the church at Sardis in Revelation 3, ‘You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead’. The outward appearance is of a busy, happening church – but it was so busy it had forgotten what it was all about, the point of it all – Jesus.