To Capernaum and Beyond| Mark 1:29-39
Mark 1:29-39
To Capernaum and Beyond
In our text last week, which is just a few verses above our passage for today, we saw how Jesus would sometimes shake things up among the people of his day. He sometimes challenged tradition and the status quo.
In our text today, we see how Jesus can still shake things up and challenge how we “normally” look at things. He doesn’t always do things the way we would expect them to be done.
Let’s hear verses 33-37 again.
Just imagine that scene. Jesus has healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. He has cast out scores of demons from people and has healed various forms of diseases. He has put people who have been falling apart physically, emotionally and spiritually back together. The whole village is outside the door of Simon Peter and Andrew’s house singing and cheering the praise of Jesus. It is as if Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift have all come to town at one time. Jesus is being hailed as a great prophet, maybe even the Messiah.
But just as his renown and fame has reached the stratosphere, He vanishes. He disappears; no one can find him, sending the disciples into sheer panic.
They have a lot riding on the guy. He is their hero. They left their jobs to be his disciples. They send Simon Peter and some others to go out and look for him.
They find him up in the hills in a deserted place, praying alone. This puzzles the disciples. “Why are you praying? Our prayers have been answered. We need to get you back to town. We are on a roll. Everybody is singing your praise.”
They may have been new to the ministry, but they were quick studies. They had done their research. They knew nothing draws a crowd like a crowd. And they have a crowd like no one in that region had seen in a long, long time, if ever. They wanted to get Jesus right back in the middle of all that action, which makes perfect sense to me. I get it. When I see a church program that works, that is, a program that draws people in, and is popular, the last thing I want to do is shut it down or put an end to it.
So I understand how the disciples are a little uneasy and want to get Jesus back to town and continue to ride that wave of popularity.
But it doesn’t happen. Jesus shuts them down. He says, “We are done here. Let us go on to the neighboring towns. We have work to do in other places.”
We are not told exactly how the disciples responded, but I have a hunch they had to be thinking, “but, this is working! This is what we wanted; now we have to go somewhere else where people don’t even know us and start all over again?”
Obviously, Jesus doesn’t look at crowds or ministry the way his followers do. For Jesus, ministry is not just about numbers. It is not just about drawing a crowd, but about going into every town, every village to every person, everywhere with the good news of God’s love and mercy and healing power.
That can be hard for us to hear in some ways, but it can also be encouraging; especially in light of the situation in the church today.
I have been in the ministry now for over 30 years. Every church I have served as an associate pastor or senior pastor has grown in attendance with the exception of my current appointment. Two of the churches I served doubled in attendance. It is hard for me to see our church not increase in attendance. I have always been taught, “We count people because people count.” I get that. I believe attendance is important, but our text today helps me to see that according to Jesus ministry isn’t so much about the size of our crowd as it is whether or not we are being true to what God has for us to do and whether or not we are taking the love of God out into the world.
I totally get how the disciples were puzzled and maybe even frustrated by Jesus having them leave Capernaum just as that crowd was really growing, and go on to other places, but I also get how we as Jesus’ followers easily become too preoccupied with the size of the crowd in here, or wherever we are gathering together to worship and lose sight of the size and importance of the mission field Jesus sent us out to tend out there.