Nothing is impossible for God

 

READ Mark 5-8

Today’s reading is filled with amazing activity. How would a news service decide which story to tell? The first incident relates how Jesus subdued and changed the life of someone who has been overpowered with several unclean spirits. He completely healed this man, sending the demons into a herd of pigs that leaped into the sea and were drowned.

The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. (Mark 5:14–17)

Mark uses the word “immediately” many times as he describes the events that followed. Jesus did leave, but when He arrived at the other side of the sea, a crowd met Him. One man begged him to go with him as his daughter was dying. On the way, a woman with a discharge of blood touched His garment and was healed. The child was also raised up and her family were overcome with amazement.

He went about among the villages teaching, then sent his disciples to do the same, giving them authority over unclean spirits and sickness. They learned much yet were not always understanding. Jesus fed five thousand plus people with five loaves and two fish; they didn’t get it. He walked on water; they were terrified. He got into their boat and the storm ceased; they were astonished — yet their hearts were hardened.

They crossed the sea again and a crowd gathered. “And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.” (Mark 6:54–56)

Mark describes Jesus rebuking the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, defining sin as coming from inner attitudes that led to outer behavior, healing a Gentile child who had an unclean spirit, making the deaf and mute hear and speak, and feeding crowds with very little food and still having leftovers. How the Pharisees could “demand a sign” is beyond me! What more could He do to prove that He was sent by God?

Yet He did more. He warned His disciples about the Pharisees (at that point they still didn’t get it), then healed a blind man. Finally, Peter figured out who He was, yet even then missed the purpose for which He came.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:31–38)

What are “the things of man” that Peter was so set on? In this context, it appears to be gaining whatever can be gained in this life. This fits with the OT words of the prophet:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Humanly, I want comfort, ease of life, no threats, the ability and health to do my own thing — yet realize this self-centeredness is why Jesus came to die. I realize whenever I want what I want in opposition to God that I have set my mind on something suggested by Satan. Yet nothing is more important than God’s will. He controls all that threatens me and I must trust Him in life’s dark valleys. He will deliver me from the evil one and as the Bible says, nothing is impossible for Him.