Scripture Mark 3:13-21 The Twelve Apostles 13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15 and have authority to cast out demons. 16 He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); 18 Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, 19 and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 20 Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” Observation Jesus creates a team. Mr Barclay tells me that the word ‘pharisee’ means ‘the separated one’. Jesus, rather than separate starts to build a team of a bunch of people who in no sense would hang together, were it not for the one they are all content to name leader. They are to ‘be with him’, and he will ‘send them out’ to say what he is saying and do what he is doing. Having had their inaugural team meeting, Jesus goes home- no longer a place of rest and comfort, and his family declare him insane. He is becoming the Son of Man with nowhere to rest. All the comfort this world has to offer is exchanged for something new and not quite formed, which even those who call him leader do not really understand yet. Application I heard a talk by Tony Campolo back in the 1990s in which he told an audience of students that as long as this world held anything that charmed them more than the promise of God, they were the world’s slave. Crazy talk! And yet the audience cheered. We are now at least 15 years on from that talk. Those students are now, we hope, working at work that pays their bills. In all probability they are or have been married, may have families of their own. They may have mortgages, rent to pay, parent’s evenings to go to. Their parents will be aging. At the end of a long day’s work, they might flop in front of the television news and see what a mess the world is. In the end, I suspect it is the cares of this world, rather than its charms that lead us astray, that cause us to declare the idea of God’s Kingdom coming to Earth as madness. We probably don’t want to cast out demons. We simply want to get to the end of the day. Prayer Father God, the world is mad, and is inclined to view people who have a hope that this is not the way it needs to be as at best naive, and at worst, deluded. Encourage me Lord, that where I see signs of Kingdom breaking thorough, I am to be an encourager, and that where there seems to be little hope, I will be the bearer of good news.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 11:13:36 +0000
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