Mark 1:40-45, The Message - A leper came to him,
begging on his knees, “If you want to, you can cleanse me.”
Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and
said, “I want to. Be clean.” Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin
smooth and healthy. Jesus dismissed him with strict orders: “Say nothing to
anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present
yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people.” But as soon
as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened,
spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no
longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and
came from all over.
As I said yesterday, we had more to talk about with this
passage. Jesus, after cleansing the man
of leprosy, instructs him no to tell anyone.
I want to say a little something about this now, because it touches an
issue that much ado has been made by scholars over the years. In more than a few places in the gospels,
Jesus instructs people to not tell others about His miracles or about who He is
(Messiah). Whole books have been written
about the “Messianic Secret.”
Mark, in his matter of fact way, explains Jesus’s
secrecy. Because the man did not follow
Jesus’s instruction and promptly told everyone, Jesus was no longer able to
move about the city freely because the crowds mobbed him. Jesus saw the potential for this problem to
develop and sought to minimize it. To
me, the scholarly debate is largely much ado about nothing. The simplest explanation tends to be the most
likely.
Jesus didn’t want his ministry to be about what He could do
for others (miracles, healings, etc). He was announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of
God. The miracles could actually be a
distraction to that and Jesus is trying to avoid that. We should too.
Question: What draws
you to the person of Jesus?
Prayer: Lord, you
have done so much for us, but what you have done for us is not the main
point. Help us turn our hearts,
thoughts, words and life toward your Kingdom. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray for
eyes to see evidence of the Kingdom of God around you.
Song: Whisper – Jason
Upton
