What's Right? Mark 1:32-34
What feels right in the moment does not always turn out to be right. I can’t tell you how often I have done something believing I was helping only to watch it utterly blow up in my face and need to apologize after the fact. They say hindsight is 20-20, but some days I feel like my foresight is straight up blind.
That’s a phenomenal perspective through which we read today’s passage. In fact, this is a phenomenal perspective through which we should read the rest of Mark 1. Everything that happens in these verses feels like it should be good. But is it?
Look at what happens. People talk about Jesus and His power. Is that bad? People bring Him sick to heal. Is that bad? People bring Him demon-possessed to free from their spiritual oppression. How can that be bad?
People being healed and being freed from spiritual bondage is generally a good thing. God’s power on display is generally a good thing. Getting past general platitudes into specific circumstances, though, sometimes too much of a good thing isn’t really all that good. If you’ve ever eaten too much on Thanksgiving, you know what I’m talking about. Thanksgiving dinner is phenomenal right up to the point when you should stop eating. Continue to eat after that point and a good thing turns sour.
I don’t want to say too much here and risk spoiling the rest of the chapter in Mark, but look at Jesus and the demons to see that all is not as simplistically good as it seems. Once more, Jesus prohibits the demons from speaking. Jesus need to walk the fine line and make sure the demons don’t spoil the timing of God’s plan. Freeing people from spiritual oppression is all well and good, but doing so at the risk of God’s ultimate plan for saving the world is just not worth the risk.
You can’t blame the people for wanting to help their friends. You can’t blame people for wanting to see a miracle or be a part of something incredible. You can’t blame people for wanting to talk about this new teaching that has incredible power. This is all understandable and seems to be so honest and innocent! Yet, all these people who just want to see a miraculous healing or help their friend get better are inevitably putting God’s timeline at risk. Yes, Jesus knows what He’s doing. Yes, God is omniscient and omnipotent. That being said, every healing and every exorcism runs the risk of opening up an avenue for God’s adversaries to exploit. It’s a fine line Jesus is walking. The closer we get to the end of the first chapter of Mark, we’ll see what feels right in the moment does not always turn out to be right.
