The Heart's Desire: Mark 2:13-14

Jesus knows what the heart desires.  Once more, Jesus seeks the opportunity to teach on the run, as it were.  Notice that the crowds continue to follow Him.  They’ve seen enough of Jesus to expect the unexpected.  Even when Jesus looks like He’s settling in for a good teaching session, the crowd knows all it takes is a possessed person, a lame person, of someone with leprosy to come by and they get to see Jesus leap into action.  The heart of the crowd is after the superhero.

In the midst of His teaching, the Bible tells us that Jesus settles on a tax collector named Levi.  Levi is sitting in his tax booth along the side of the road waiting to collect dues as the people come by.  Imagine the thought going through Levi’s mind as this crowd threatens to come by his space.  How on earth was one man going to collect the appropriate amount of taxes from such a throng?

Fortunately for Levi, Jesus intercedes.  Jesus invites Levi to follow Him.  Without question, Levi follows.  Without hesitation, Levi follows.  Levi must realize that following Jesus is better than working for a foreign empire collecting taxes from his own people.  When Levi follows Jesus, he doesn’t need to worry about the tax business anymore.

There is something hidden in the unspoken words of the text, however.  Jesus had a crowd of people following Him, yet he turned to a tax collector who was just sitting beside the road and invited Him to come.  Why would Jesus turn to Levi when He was already surrounded by a horde of people?  Perhaps the better question is what was so wrong with the crowd who was following?

In the end, we need to be careful and acknowledge that we don’t really know.  The Bible is unclear on the heart of the crowd.  Yet, if we put this story together with all the scripture that comes before it, we once more get a picture about what the crowd represents in scripture.  This is a group who want a show.  This is a group who want to be present when something of any kind of notoriety happens.  I’m not convinced that these people are following Jesus because of what He is teaching as much as they are following Him because of the powerful displays He can produce.

Jesus is God.  Unlike us, He can see into the hearts of the people.  He knows who is willing to follow because they have a heart after God.  He also knows who is there for the show and the hype but who will fall away when things get tough.  Out of the whole crowd that is following Jesus and listening to Him, I think it is worth noting that Jesus turns to a tax collector and calls Him specifically.

Jesus knows what the heart desires.