MUZZLED!

Because of the crowd He told His disciples to have a small boat ready for Him, to keep the people from crowding Him. For He had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch Him. Whenever the impure spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’ But He gave them strict orders not to tell others about Him. (Mark 3:9-12).

Don’t you love Mark’s matter-of-fact way of telling the story? No frills; no fancy language; no flowery descriptions; just plain facts as it happened!

Jesus’ popularity had reached an all-time high. People flooded into the neighbourhood from far and wide. Mark says nothing about the practical implications of an influx of people into a small town. Where did they stay? Where did they get food? What about crowd control? His focus was on Jesus. He was the centre of the attention. How would He handle this hero-worshipping mob, all clamouring for a piece of the pie?

Their focus was on what He could do for them at that moment. Many were diseased; deformed, disabled, helplessly caught in the trap of infirmities for which there was no solution. They had to bear as best they could the terrible consequences of living in a fallen world. There was no skilled surgeon to fix what was broken or to treat what had gone wrong, no highly trained nurse who knew just what to do with a patient with a high fever, or a headache, no drugs to destroy the unseen organisms that silently invaded vulnerable bodies and wreaked havoc on the inside.

Jesus was the man of the moment. The only problem was that He stayed only for a little while and then went elsewhere. It was not easy to follow Him with sick and cripples people in tow. They had to grab the opportunity while they could before He was gone.

But He did not come on a healing campaign, urgent and necessary as that was. His purpose was to restore God’s image in the minds of His people. For too long they had been ruled by unscrupulous leaders who projected an image of a God who was not anything like His Father. He had to let them know that the God who had called Abraham into fellowship with Himself and, through him, built a nation which was to be His “bride”, living in such close union with Himself that they would resemble Him and reflect Him to a world that did not know Him.

They had long since lost the plot. The god they now tried hard to serve was harsh and demanding, laying heavy burdens of rules and rigmarole on them that they could not carry. Jesus had an urgent task – to undo the damage that ignorance had done and to re-introduce them to the real God whom they had lost in the blur of religious performance.

There was one group in the crowd who knew who He was. The people may have seen Him only as a magical healer who had popped up from nowhere, but who could do what no one else had ever done – fix their problems and release them from suffering. This group was unseen, an unlikely witness to His true identity. Who were they? Not some religious mystics who spent hours in the presence of God and had spiritual insights denied the common people. Of all things, they were beings from the enemy camp. Demons! Spirit beings who hate Him and who worked for the devil.

How did they know who Jesus was when God’s people had no clue? They could not but be familiar with who He was since they had been at war with Him from the beginning. As much as they hated to admit it, He not the devil, was master over them and, though they did not serve Him, they were under His authority and would one day pay for their rebellion. Now, much to their chagrin, He had turned up in their domain, the earth, to challenge their mastery over humans and to evict them from their malicious control over individuals who had inadvertently given in to their evil influence.

Jesus refused to tolerate their testimony. They were not bearing witness to His saving grace. Their words were almost a taunt – like the words of the devil in the wilderness. “If you are the Son of God, prove it.” People would have to come to their own conclusions and to faith in Him, not based on words from the mouths of the demon-possessed but from those who had become convinced that He was, indeed, the Son of God through His words and actions.

There was only one treatment for them – “Shut up and get out!” They were there under false pretences and with a word from Him whether they liked it or not, they had to obey As much as His message of the kingdom was great news, even greater was the demonstration of His authority. If they only realised it, He really was God since His most powerful enemy, the devil and his minions had to give way to Him.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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