Jesus' Real Purpose: Mark 1:35-39
Why did Jesus come? Did Jesus come to heal our sickness? Did He come to teach about life? Did He come to obtain fame and glory? Did He come to reveal God? Did He come to make life easier and more enjoyable? Did He come to make the path back to God possible?
In today’s reading we begin to see conflict about Jesus’ purpose rising behind the scenes if we read carefully. Jesus gets up early – so early it is still dark. Why does He do this? We can’t know for certain, but if you’ll allow me to hypothesize it is because Jesus just spent much of the prior day dealing with the needs of the whole town of Capernaum and He’s afraid it’ll repeat itself! Jesus needs to spend time praying with the Father, and He sure wasn’t going to get it with the whole town crowding around Him!
To make matters worse, the Bible tells us Peter and the ones with him – Andrew, James, and John most likely – search for Jesus. Well, sort of. The Bible uses a word here whose transliteration is katadioko, which means to aggressively pursue or to pursue with the intent to persecute. Please note how many of our modern English translations waive this verb away by translating it as search. I don’t mean to imply that Peter and the others were intentionally trying to persecute Jesus, but their actions were nonetheless having the effect of persecution. Remember all the times in yesterday’s blog I asked if what was happening was a bad thing? Today we get our answer. It was. What happened in yesterday’s reading was a prelude to persecution.
Look at what Peter and the others say to Jesus when they find Him. They tell Jesus that everyone is looking for Him. In other words, they were surprised that Jesus wasn’t back at the house to do His duty. They were surprised that Jesus wasn’t there to put God’s power on display again. They wonder why Jesus is in the wilderness again and not gaining popularity among the crowds! The fledgling disciples don’t get that what they wanted to happen was a threat to what Jesus came to do.
Jesus tells us as much in his response to the disciples. Jesus says to them, “Let’s go to the neighboring towns and preach, because that is what I came to do.” Jesus didn’t come to become popular. Jesus came to teach people about God and to bring them into relationship with Him. Jesus came to save humanity. Jesus deftly avoids the sinful human influence that even in these early stories already threaten to pull Him off course. Perhaps worst of all, His own disciples are leading the pursuit against Him.
Fortunately, Jesus understands. He’s got this. He doesn’t chase away His disciples. He refocuses them and invites them to continue with Him. They don’t understand, but Jesus gives them opportunity to find out the answer to “Why did Jesus come?”
