Mark 1:32-34
Gambling
is about the odds. One of the games that you can put the odds in your favor is
Blackjack. If you can mentally keep track of which cards you have seen already,
and follow a strict set of rules, you can at least break even, and perhaps even
win. This process of keeping track of the cards, or counting cards, is made
more difficult by the casinos. They shuffle multiple decks together, thus
increasing the number of cards you have to keep track of in order to win. But
of course the odds are stacked in the casino’s favor. All things being equal,
the house wins. If someone wins too much, they know there is cheating going on.
They might not know exactly how the cheating is happening, but the odds of
winning big are extremely small.
Some
could look at the last two miracles and say that Jesus got lucky, that he
played to his strengths. He was really good a casting out demons and healing
fevers. But maybe there were some things He wasn’t so good at. Maybe his
healing luck would catch up with Him, and He wouldn’t be able to do what needed
to be done.
And
perhaps Mark had this in mind as he designed the structure of his account. He retells
these three miracles to reinforce the truth he is conveying, that Jesus in the
Servant of the LORD. And as the Servant, He has authority over things here on
earth.
They
wait until after sundown, after the end of the Sabbath, so they are not in violation
of the Law. You weren’t supposed to do
work or travel an distance on the Sabbath. So when the sun sets, the new day
begins and then the people come and bring the sick among them.
Mark
emphasizes the size of the crowd using hyperbole. He exaggerates using the
largest size available. He says that the whole town gathered. He means that there
was a very large crowd. Not every single person from the town came to His door.
We use hyperbole all the time, just as they did. We talk about having the best
meal ever in order to emphasize how good the meal was. We talk about things
being impossible when we have just seen it happen.
But
as Mark tells about the healings he doesn’t us hyperbole. He tells us that Jesus
heals many, not every single one. This really is interesting and we often skimp
right past this part. Jesus heals many people with various diseases. Jesus
doesn’t heal just fevers, He heals a number of different diseases. The types of
diseases are not specified by Mark in this summary of the events. For Mark,
that is not important.
We
then read that Jesus drove out many demons. And the one thing in common between
this encounter and the previous one is that the demons wanted to speak and
reveal this truth to the world. Jesus doesn’t want publicity filtered through
demons.
Jesus
does these things, and they are recorded by Mark in order to authenticate His
message, not increase His popularity. Jesus’ mission does not include
publicity. He has come to die in our place, as our substitute, not win a
popularity contest or a majority in an election.