Trust Issues: Mark 3:11-12
Who do you trust? What do you trust with other people? How do you determine who can be trusted with what? Is it easy or difficult for you to place trust in others? How do people earn your trust?
Closing out the passage about Jesus and the crowds, notice Mark again includes a testimonial specific to the unclean spirits. Whenever Jesus casts out an unclean spirit, the spirit cries out, “You are the Son of God.”
It is certainly possible there are spiritual dynamics at play with which I cannot understand, but typically when I hear unclean spirits doing something I assume what they are doing is contrary to God’s will. After all, they are unclean spirits. Thus, when these unclean spirit pronounce Jesus’ identity, I can’t help but assume this is not a good thing.
There is also the verse where Jesus commands them to not make Him known. That goes a long way in convincing me the unclean spirits are not being terribly helpful here. Jesus is not ready for His identity to be known. God’s timing has not been fulfilled. Jesus is not ready to wrestle with the religious elite. Neither is He ready to wrestle with the Roman officials. He left Capernaum and the surrounding areas to ease pressure in the first place.
This speaks volumes about the crowd, whom we studied in the previous set of verses. Jesus doesn’t trust the crowd. Jesus doesn’t believe they have His best interests at heart. Jesus knows that if His identity as the Son of God gets into the crowd, they’ll have one more thing to talk about, gossip about, and take back to the religious elite.
The crowd has a selfish agenda. They are looking for a way to meet their own needs. Jesus doesn’t need for them to know His identity because they cannot be trusted with that information. There is no telling with whom they will share to obtain something they desire.
From a certain point of view, this is no different than how many feel about the internet today. Once something is put on the internet, it can never be completely taken back. Anyone with the right IP address can see it. Anyone can take a screenshot and pass it around. Once it is out on the internet, the owner has lost complete control over where it goes. The same is true about Jesus and His identity as the Son of God.
The more people know His true identity, the greater chance someone who is willing to use that information for the wrong reasons will hear it. The more people know, the greater chance conflict will arise. The more people know, the less time Jesus will have to disciple, mentor, and teach.
Jesus is wise to be careful. Jesus is wise to limit with whom He places His trust. Jesus is wise to make sure He knows whom He can trust and why. Who do you trust?
