Deliberate Deliverance

I wanted to share a few interesting things I have stumbled upon through my personal Bible reading.

In Mark 4:35-5:20 Jesus takes a break from teaching the crowds, sails to the other side of Galilee (calming the storm along the way), heals the demoniac and sales back.  In fact the only thing he does while on the other side is heal the demoniac.

The same story is also found in Luke 8:22-40.  In verse 40 we read that the crowds welcomed him back once he sailed back to the other side because they were all waiting for him.

What strikes me about this account is how deliberate it seems.  It both accounts Jesus simply says something to the effect of “let’s go across to the other side” without offering any kind of a reason.  His disciples don’t really question it but they sail to Gentile territory.  Once there he heals the demoniac and sails back and picks up teaching the crowds right where he left off.

It seems like such a deliberate interlude.  Almost as if he went on a private mission, known only to himself, deliberately to do exactly what he did.  He knew exactly what to expect when he got there and went out of his way to encounter this lost sheep.  Its as if he had an unspoken mission to rescue this man - a mission that only he knew about.

Just an interesting tidbit I thought you might enjoy.  Give it a read for yourself sometime.

Jesus in our own image

Occasionally I see things like this appear on my facebook or twitter feed.

Saying that Jesus never said anything about abortion or birth control is like saying he never said anything about Internet pornography or sexting (Matthew 5:27-30).  He hung out with wealthy tax collectors (Luke 19:1-10) as easily as with destitute hookers (Luke 7:36-50) and even with the religious elite of the day.  So he wasn't anti-wealth any more than he was anti-poor.  Rather he was unconcerned with socioeconomic status one way or another.  He saw broken hurting people groaning under the burden of sin… a burden that he came to lift (Matthew 11:28-29).  Jesus received everyone who came to him.  Some of those people were rich, some of them were poor.  Some were criminals (Luke 23:39-43) and some were religious leaders (John 3:1-3).  Jesus came to save sinners (Luke 19:10, 1 Timothy 1:15) regardless of their social or economic status or their ethnic background (Galatians 3:26-28).

Every group tries to create a caricature of Jesus so that he looks like ‘one of us’.  And I suspect that at its root posts like this are a reaction to the traditional caricature of “Jesus the Republican” or “Jesus the Democrat”.  But in its place this posts creates a new and equally invalid caricature of “Jesus the Hippy”.  One of the recurring themes of Jesus ministry is that he dismantles every barrier that we would put up.  Peter was a fisherman, Matthew a tax collector and Paul a Pharisee.

Let's stop trying to make Jesus look like us and instead allow ourselves to be remade in the image of the Son (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18).