From Mark 1: That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. vss. 32-22
Can you
imagine? Jesus was in church (okay, synagogue, the Jewish version of church) on
a Sunday (okay, Saturday, the Jewish version of the Lord’s Day and, yes, the
original one that we changed to Sunday because of Jesus’ resurrection), and he
was teaching (okay, we pay ministers who need a Masters in Divinity, but Jesus
was, lets face it, the true Master of the Divine, so we’ll give it to him) and
there is a congregant possessed by an evil spirit.
It might be
argued that there are a lot more people like that in church than we have ever
really thought about, but that is another blog post.
In this case,
the evil spirit knows Jesus, and reacts. Goes into the whole mover and shaker
thing we associate with movies and shows. It seems to fear its own demise at the hands of God's Holy One.
To make a
long story short (and it is probably too late for that), Jesus tosses out the
evil spirit in front of the whole congregation. And our verses at the lead of
this post are the result.
Now, the
people follow the rules of Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples travel ‘a sabbath’s
journey’, as far as Simon’s house. The rest of the city waits until sunset, as days
are measured sunset to sunset, and then they move-when the day of rest is over.
For us, it
might be like gathering the collected persons on our prayer list, those whose
names we lift in our time of concerns, those among our family and friends who
are in hospital, rehab, nursing home, homebound, ill and infirmed, and carry
them all to the door of the house where Jesus is staying, but this time
physically instead of (I hope) prayerfully.
We carry them
in and they walk away, dancing and singing and praising God. When was the last
time we prayed to our Lord Jesus in the sure and certain knowledge that this is
what power he holds?
Peter Hofstra
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