Mark 3:20-35 - Jesus went home (home town, or to his house?  Or to the family house, because the family hear and come to “take him away.”  Oh, he’s chosen ‘the 12’ and I wonder if others were picking up on this. 

“12, huh... did you hear he called 12 to be his chosen disciples, his apostles, and he gave them authority to heal and cast out evil spirits?  Did you hear?”

“So, what of it?”

“You don’t know?  Don’t you get it?  12.  12 tribes of Israel chosen by God to be his people on the earth.  12.  And now there are 12 again.  Chosen by this one who calls himself the Son of Man, and who shares his power with the 12 so that they are doing what he does.”

“And what’s that?”

“Oh come on, you’ve seen.  Blind people see, and deaf folks hear, and lame people walk, all because he says so; and he forgives sin.”

“Now wait a minute, you’re treading on thin ice here.  Only God can forgive sins.  So, what do you mean he forgives sin.”

“Hey, I’m not making it up.  A lame man was brought to him by four fellows, and Jesus said to him, “your sins are forgiven,” as if the man was paralyzed by sin.”

“Well, that is what sin does.  Eventually it leaves us unable to move, stuck, stuck in ourselves and in our own puny pride or mired in the quicksand of self pity.”

“Still, he said it.  He said, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’  That’s something only God can do, and is said by God only through the priests.  Is this Jesus a priest?”

“I don’t know, why are you asking me?”  

“But then, when our religious authorities got on his case for saying this, he turned back to the man and told him to get up, take up his mat and go home.”

“I thought the guy was paralyzed.”

“He was.  Paralyzed by sin, as you say; paralyzed in body, as I saw.  But he did exactly what Jesus told him to do.  Got up, picked up his mat and went off...  leaping and dancing was more like it.”

“The lame shall leap like a deer....”

“What?”

“That’s what Isaiah said, “the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer....”  

“When?  When did Isaiah say that was suppose to happen?”

“When God came to save his people.”

“Oh, I’m getting a strange feeling about all this.  And now 12.”

“You sure it wasn’t 11, or 13?”

“You can go over to Capernaum and count them for yourself.  But you’ll have a hard time getting through the crowd.  

“Just what are our scholars and religious authorities saying about this guy?  Do they support his ministry or are they telling folks he’s a fake and an impostor?”

“Worse than that, they say he’s of the devil.  They say he’s using satanic forces to cast out evil spirits.  They say he’s possessed.”

“But that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” 

“ You questioning the wisdom of our tenured theologians and scholars?”

“No, but common sense wonders why the Evil One would be doing God a favor by casting out his own evil spirits?  Why would evil be fighting against itself?”  

“Yeah, doesn’t make too much sense, does it.  But if you don’t think he’s doing what he does using the power of evil, then how’s he doing it?

“What is about the only option left?”

“Well, there’s magic, incantations and all that...”

“Nope, that’d still be using the dark side.

“And I suppose that its not merely a mind-over-matter sort of thing.”

“I wouldn’t think so.  What you’ve said he’s doing is pretty far beyond anything I could attribute to mind-over-matter.”

“The power of God?”

“Well, given all of what you’ve said, that’d be about the only answer that fits.  Pretty scary, isn’t it.”  

“Yeah.  I think I’d be more comfortable with the power of evil.”

“Least we’d know what we’d be dealing with, we’ve seen it before.”

“The power of God.....  The person of Jesus.....  What do you think is going on?  I mean, are we on the verge of something, something, well.... huge and cataclysmic?”

“I don’t know.  But I think I’d keep my wits about me.  Too many emotions cloud judgment.”

“Clouded judgment is just what his family thinks he’s experiencing.  Delusional, was the word they used.  They were trying to get him, to get him away from the crowds so he could rest and hopefully come back to his senses.”

“Huge crowd followings can do that to people.  Start thinking that if all these people think I’m something and are following me around and hanging on my every word, then I must be something.  It can all go to one’s head mighty quickly.”

“Yeah, and when they came to get him, and he was told they were outside waiting for him, you know what he said?  He said, speaking of delusional, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’”  

“He said that?”

“That wasn’t all.  He looked around the room and right then and there adopted all those folks as his mother and brothers.  ‘Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’  That’s what he said.  No wonder his family had come to take him away.”

“But the implication in his declaration is that he is already doing the will of God.  So then, whoever is doing the same is working with him, related to him like a brother or sister.  He’s claiming to be doing the will of God.”  

“And he’s inviting others to do it too.”

“And people think he’s crazy.  But, crazy as it all sounds, look at what he is doing.  When the lame leap, the deaf hear, the blind see, and good news is brought to folks who’ve known nothing but bad, well that’s Isaiah again.”

“What?  What’s it mean?”

“Isaiah says that those things are done by the one who’s been anointed with the Spirit of God.” 

“You think this Jesus is anointed with the Spirit of God?”

“You think he’s doing the will of God?”

“Who is this man?”