Casual Reflections on the Gospel of Mark, Chapter Three
Where we left off:
Act One: Galilee and War; We saw Jesus usher in the great eucatastrophic* pardon to the paralytic man. The King then pulls a grand reversal on the social mores** and cultural norms of the time. In doing so, He begins to throw out the Old and bring in the New.
Jesus continues to confront the evils of Disease and Dogmatic Traditionalism by healing a man on the Sabbath in a synagogue. Make no mistake; He was personally sending a message with this act of Love. We see in this scene that Yahweh tries to reason with us to bring us to His side, but will never use His Power coercively to force us to accept Him and His Ways. We also see that Yahweh is a Being with emotions, emotions that are on full display here. When the hardhearted Pharisees only want to obey their Dogma, you can hear the heartbreak in Jesus's words (and Mark makes a point of showing it as well).
Next, we see that He has many Followers by now but only entrusts His temporary secrets to 12 of them.
Following this, The Enemy tries to undermine His miracles and ministry by associating Yahweh with himself. But, Yahweh's logic is too strong, and He proclaims that His deeds are in fact binding The Enemy so that His Followers can plunder the Evil Domain and the Wicked Kingdom; because of Yahweh's actions through Jesus we now can break into The Enemy's Kingdom and steal away his subjects who are perishing and bring them into Life! (The Gates of Hell will not prevail---gates are for defense after all not offense; let's storm Hell and lead our Lost Brothers and Sisters home).
The King gives this somber warning, however: if you purposefully refuse to see and recognize Yahweh for Who He Is, Who the Holy Spirit proclaims Him to be, then you're damned.
This chapter ends by assuring The Obedient that WE are His True Family, WE are His blood, and that real family is Spiritual at its base and not biological.
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