#DailyDevotion People May Think You Have Lost Your Mind When You Believe In Jesus
Mark 3:20 Then [Jesus] went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
Mark paints for us a picture of Jesus that is often very different than the other Gospels. Maybe it’s because Mark is delivering the Jesus as seen through Peter’s eyes. Mark’s Gospel shows us a very human Jesus who never the less is very different from everyone else. In this lesson Jesus goes home. Now it’s not clear if this is Nazareth where he was raised or Capernaum which he made his home base, but it is clear it is where his mother and other close relatives live.
When Jesus gets there a large crowd gathers around him again. Jesus is no longer just the carpenter’s son. He is teaching God’s Word in a way others have never taught it before. He’s healing people of every disease and ailment. So they are curious about Jesus. They want to hear him, see him perform some miracle and perhaps even have one performed on them. There was so much Jesus felt he had to do that he couldn’t even eat.
Now whether it was because he couldn’t eat or wouldn’t eat for all the work set before him or whether he was no longer acting like the Jesus they had formerly knew or maybe both they thought Jesus had gone out of his mind. Now that’s not the image of Jesus we normally have in our minds. Now this was early in Jesus’ ministry. He had only recently gone down to John to be baptized, was tempted in the wilderness and began his ministry on his way back up the Jordan to Galilee. They hadn’t seen him do miracles or hear him teach. So this was probably very disconcerting for them, even Jesus’ mother Mary (who always pondered these things in her heart).
Yet, if we are converted to faith in Jesus, our friends and family who aren’t Christians might just think we too have gone out of our minds. In a sense they are correct. To be converted is to have a complete change of heart, mind and soul. It used to be directed inwardly towards ourselves, just like everyone else. But now it is directed towards God and our neighbor in a much different way. Faith in Christ makes us new creations. What we talk about changes. What we do changes. What we desire changes. It’s a radical change when you haven’t grown up this way.
On the other hand, like Jesus, much about us is still very much the same. Jesus’ orientation changed at his baptism toward serving us. Not that he was selfish before but his mission before was to grow and submit to his parents. Now he is a grown man and the purpose for which he was born time has come. He was to fulfill all Moses and the prophets had said about him in their writings so that we could be saved. When the Holy Spirit turns our life around through this gospel we start seeking how we can best serve Jesus and consequently our neighbor as Christ Jesus served us. Don’t fret if people think you have lost your mind. It’s only been reoriented towards God and Christ.
Heavenly Father, as we hear the word of Christ, send us your Holy Spirit so that our hearts, minds, souls, and our total being may be so redirected towards you that it makes a visible change in our lives that others may see Jesus in us and be converted also unto Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.