Marks of the Jesus Message

This passage is from the lectionary selection for February 5, 2006, Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.

²⁹And immediately as he came out of the synagogue he went into Simon’s house. ³⁰Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. ³¹And coming near he raised her up, taking her hand, and the fever left her, and she served them.

³⁵And he rose up very early while it was still night and went out and went away into a deserted place where he could pray. ³⁶And Simon and those with him pursued Jesus, ³⁷and they found him and they said to him, “Everybody is looking for you!” ³⁸And he said to them, “Let us go elsewhere into the nearby country towns, so that I might preach there as well. Because it was for this that I went forth.” ³⁹And he went into all of Galilee preaching in their synagogues and casting out the demons.

— Mark 1:29-39 (taken from my TFBV project)

The gospel of Mark introduces Jesus in a whirlwind from his first appearance through his baptism and into ministry. In fact, the entire book of Mark runs at a very fast pace. It’s easy to miss the depth of what’s going on.

I often hear pastors and evangelists wondering how they should test their ministry. What tells them that they are proclaiming the right message and doing the right things? Well, that can be a big question and the answer might differ greatly from person to person. After all, there is a lot of service that needs done to people, from education to emergency disaster assistance. A wide variety of things can be keys to good ministry.

But consider our passage today. I see three elements to the activity of Jesus, and an interesting reaction on the part of the crowds. The three actions are:

• Healing
  Wherever Jesus went he brought healing. It seemed to come naturally to him. I think the first question to ask when testing one’s own ministry to others is simply this: Is it bring healing, spiritual and/or physical? Sometimes we’ll find that in our attempts to help other people we’re actually leaving injured people behind us. I’m often told that the gospel offends, and indeed there are those who are offending by a free gift of salvation. But much, much more often people are offending because those who proclaim and carry out the ministry behave in an offensive way. If there is offense, make sure the offense is because of the good news, and not because of “bad news you!”
• Demons cast out
  Now I’m not suggesting that everyone’s ministry needs to include exorcisms, at least in the traditional sense. But your ministry needs to push out evil, and allow good to grow. It should cast out ignorance, and let true knowledge increase. I notice that in Mark Jesus doesn’t seem to go out of his way to cast out demons. They just keep popping up and getting in his way, and he promptly chases them off. Are you doing so much good that evil is just naturally driven away?
• Proclamation
  Yes, Jesus actively claimed that the kingdom of God was near. He proclaimed the message. It’s very easy to get an unbalanced ministry. On the one hand we can do good so quietly that nobody else has an opportunity to join in. On the other hand we can spend so much time proclaiming that we have little time to do. A balanced, Christ-like ministry proclaims enough to bring people on board and keep the ministry going, but not so much that one can’t help but be a hypocrite–so much has been claimed that nobody can possibly live up to it.

And what was the result of this? When Jesus went away for some rest, the people were looking for him. How many of those of us in Christian ministry experience this particular problem? I know some who do, but not that many. Often we’re working hard to try to drag people in to listen to us. The example of Jesus was that when ministry was taking place the demons fled, but the people flocked in to hear. That is how attractive we should make our lives and activities.