MARK 3:7-12 MEDITATION - THE POPULARITY OF JESUS PART 3
FROM CROWD TO COMMUNITY
From Crowd to Community
The crowd may be seen as an image of this world so badly in need of healing and salvation. At times, perhaps some may reach out to Jesus in times of distress but refuse his community, his church. Practically everyone has heard of Jesus, like the crowd in this passage, but have yet to experience him in his community.
Transitioning from the anonymous, unruly crowd to Jesus and his community of disciples needs nothing less than a miracle “no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). However, it is not difficult to receive this miracle; we need only open our innermost self, our spirit, to that miracle that is denied no one. If we are dissatisfied with the kingdom of this world with its logic of competition, greed, self-assertion, where people are so near yet so far away from each other, then this might well be a sign that we are being drawn to another kingdom, not of this world. There is an alternative. This is the good news of the kingdom of God that has come among us and in which we can enter here and now.
From the crowd to the community. Where do we stand? Are we disciples of Jesus? Are we committed to following Jesus as disciples, or following from a distance, from among the anonymous crowd? Have we established a relationship with Jesus and with the other members of the community or do we wish to remain eternally outside and alone in the kingdom of darkness? We are called to come to Christ and to belong to his community, the church.
We were not meant for this world. That is why we are not comfortable in it. We were meant for the kingdom of God, not for the kingdom of this world. This world has switched off the light of the kingdom of God and is immersed in darkness. Has that darkness now become part of us, our inner life? Is the darkness of this world reflected in our thoughts, emotions, our spirit? Has our inner self become contaminated by it? Do we feel a sense of strife, disintegration, division within? Society is spiritually bankrupt, are we? No attention is paid to the spirit of man, the core of man’s being. We seem to be in a radically disconnected culture and the result is often a disconnect within our innermost self. Do we want to continue to drift along in this kingdom of darkness or enter into the kingdom of light, the light of God himself? In the New Testament the word translated ‘church’ is ‘ekklesia’, the ones who have been called out, called out from the world to become disciples of Christ. We are in the world, yet not of the world.
“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Union with God is union in the light and immersion in the kingdom of light. The first miracle of accepting Jesus as Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3) leads to the second, being born of water and the Holy Spirit, “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). United in Christ through baptism we can learn the ways and logic of God that enlighten our daily lives in the community of light “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8). The community of Jesus in this passage is here present today and we can enter now. The choice is ours.
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The church is not just a building or social club it is the body of Christ:
• Romans 12:5 "so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others";
• Ephesians 1:22, 23: “he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body”;
• 1 Corinthians 12:27: “now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it”;
• 1 Corinthians 12:13: “For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body”.
• Ephesians 5:23: “Christ is the head of the church, his body”.
We can easily see that choosing Christ and rejecting his community, the church, is not an option
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Return to Part 1 Mark 3:7-12 Meditation
Mark 3:7-12 Text and Questions
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