"That is what I came for" (Mark 1)

Mark gets the story off and running- the word "immediately" shows up 39 times, while the word shows up 79 times in all four accounts together. Mark's got the most, and John has the least by far. (Why shouldn't you be surprised? Something to think about.) Anyways, discipleship is the major focus of Mark and in his account within 16 verses we arrive at Jesus' selection of the first disciples.

Immediately, Jesus chooses Simon and Andrew, who were casting their fishing nets by the sea of Galilee (1:16). Then James and John are chosen, who were mending their nets. In DF's sermon on Mark, he noted that Simon Peter is one of the major evangelists of the early church and John is the consummate pastor of the early church. DF, "Jesus used these metaphors as a means of introducing these men to their life's work..." That's pretty cool.

As we read through Mark, a lot of the action is around the Sea of Galilee. Also, wherever Jesus travels, He almost always visits the Synagogue first. Perhaps this was a rabbinic custom. Paul did the same thing in his missionary journeys.

Jesus goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach (1:22). This was the first order of "business" for Jesus and his new disciples, and not just any disciples, but these were part of the eventual 12. Further, within the 12, was the inner circle of Peter, James and John. Immediately, the disciples are learning how to teach by observing Jesus teach, and they are learning how to heal by watching Jesus.

Next Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law's fever and He and the disciples stay over night there after performing many more healings (1:29-34). The next morning, "Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." (1:35) This is a beautiful lesson for us modern disciples living in the Bay Area. If Jesus did this after an intense day of ministry, shouldn't we? He started morning by praying to His Father.

But the n00b disciples don't quite get Jesus' program yet. After their 1st day, perhaps they think they know the M.O. now- Jesus will do some teaching, then let's get on w/ the healings. Heck, let's skip the teaching all together as the sick people are coming to us. Yet, Jesus does the unexpected. He tells them, "Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for." (1:38) Interesting, Jesus didn't say, "Let's go to other towns so I can heal the people there too; for that is what I came for." Mark 1:39 reminds us Jesus' priority, "And He went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons." Notice that preaching is mentioned first.

How often we are so busy w/ "ministry" while we neglect the things which Jesus made a priority- teaching the word and training the disciples- as we saw in just this 1st chapter of Mark? In engineering, there's the "build or buy" paradigm- Is it cheaper to build it ourselves or to buy it off the shelf? A corollary to that is that you must build if it is one of your core competencies. In the church, teaching the word and training disciples are core competencies and it's something we must build on and is hard, if not impossible, to buy.


A neat little aside- Mark 1:40-45 describes the healing of a leperous man. There was probably an infinite number of ways that Jesus could have healed the man, yet He chose to touch him! Lepers were outcasts even among their own families, living outside the walls of the cities. No one would dare touch a leper. Jesus, moved with compassion (1:41), touched him. What a wonderful Savior.

By the way, I'll spend some time on the healings in a future post and why Jesus tells most of the healed not to tell anyone about it.