There is No Politically Correct Response to Jesus

Posted by Richard Burguet on Feb 19, 2012 in Reflection | 0 comments

by Richard L. Burguet •

Jesus made them angry! One thing about it, no one encountered Jesus without some kind of response, and frequently it was a response of anger or unbelief. The scribes and Pharisees were angry when Jesus forgave the paralytic his sin and healed him. Jesus had pronounced forgiveness and that was something only God could do… and they thought He had blasphemed, and knew that He had certainly overstepped the bounds of Jewish tradition and the Law. The scribes and Pharisees were genuinely angry about this incident.

Mark’s gospel then describes Jesus bringing the Sea of Galilee under His control, again, something only God could do. This time it was the Disciples who responded to Jesus. They were fearful of Jesus, because they recognized immediately that what He had done was only something God could do. Only God has the power to control the wind and the waves.

On the other side of the Sea of Galilee, just after the “sea calming” event, we see how other people responded to their encounters with Jesus as he cast Legion out of the Demoniac. The herdsmen and the townspeople were so fearful of the power of God that Jesus displayed, that they begged Him to depart from them. The Demoniac asked to go with Jesus as the Disciples and Jesus were leaving the vicinity where he had been healed. Instead, Jesus charged the once demon possessed man to became a “regional missionary,” giving testimony to the grace of God in delivering him from Satan’s vice-grip. Jesus left, and some were angry, and some doubtless began to believe that Jesus was God.

So much like a “Golden Glove Boxer,” Mark continues to throw the punches – he continues to show us that Jesus is really the Son of God by the miracles and power He wields before the watching world. Mark shows us that Jesus is so powerful that this woman who reached out and only touched the hem of Jesus’ garment was healed. She was a a social outcast from her Jewish friends and family because she was “ceremonially unclean” due to her physical ailment. Mark recounts for us that she was willing to endure public humiliation, and for her faith she was rewarded with physical and spiritual wholeness.

The story of the woman healed of her constant bleed is in the middle of another account that illicits a response to Jesus’ claim to be God. It is the story of Jesus, in front of five eyewitnesses, doing something that only God could do. He raised from the dead Jairus’ daughter, a twelve year old, for whom the crowds had already begun to weep and wail the Israelite death wail. It was so outrageous that Jesus would go with Jairus, saying the girl was only sleeping and not dead, that those nearby laughed at Him.

In a short section of Mark’s gospel we have a picture of Jesus, day by day and miracle by miracle, giving indisputable evidence that He is indeed the Son of God. There was no way anyone else could have done the things He did. Their own eyes had seen these things happen. They had met the people that these things happened to. There was a strong testimony from those who had encountered Jesus that He had truly done what only God could do for them, and that Jesus was no “ordinary man.” They responded either in anger, ridicule and disbelief, or in faith that He has the power to forgive sin and grant them eternal life.

The gospel writer, Mark has given us a “stacked-deck” argument that we can not deny. Jesus is truly the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God – or– all of the events above are just fairy tales that someone made up and are lies to be ignored and exposed. What the Holy Spirit wants you and me to do is believe. Jesus is unquestionably who He claimed to be with His words, who He proved to be by His miracles, and who the eyewitnesses testify that He is by their words and subsequent lives.

What will you do with the reality that Jesus is the Son of God, who gave His life to reconcile our sin before the Father and who has paid our debt and knows us by name? Your burden and mine is to rest on Him alone for our salvation!