A Reflection on Mark 1:29-39 and Some Personal Additions

Mark 1:29-39  “. . . Let us go somewhere else . . .” (Verse 38, NIV)

“You think I am a demon; that’s because I am living in Hell, and I want out.” Those words were spoken by a character in the movie, “Blood Diamond,” a man who was trading diamonds to finance warlords and had hopes that his illicit business would help him escape from the civil war in Sierra Leone. This movie character was far from innocent, but he was desperate for deliverance. He sought it in the way he knew. It was the wrong way, a way certain to extend his own suffering and the innocent suffering of many others. As depicted in fiction the reality is that the fires of Hell continue to erupt into our world bringing evil and making demons of people. 

Jesus felt the urgency of his mission: to preach a message that could silence demons and drive them from the world. In our text the disciples look for Jesus who has slipped away for a time of prayer. When they find him they urge him to return to Capernaum where people were flocking to hear him and to be touched by him. Instead, he left Capernaum under the urgency he felt to take his message on to the next needy place. “Let us go somewhere else--to the nearby villages--so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Verse 38)

Students of the Gospel of Mark have long noticed its urgency. The word “straightway” in the KJV or in the NIV the words “at once,” (1:12, 18) or “without delay” (1:20) or “just then” (1:23) or “as soon as” (1:29) or “immediately” (1:30) occur multiple times to push the action forward. Jesus has a mission to fulfill and time is short. Mark throbs with the missionary imperative. All the Gospels, each in its own way, has this same urgency. Matthew recorded the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-2); Luke continued his Gospel with the book of Acts and the Spirit pushed spread of the Gospel into the world. John made it clear that his Gospel was written so that people would become believers. (John 20:31) An urgency for evangelism and the missionary movement are essential elements of the Gospel of Christ.

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A Prayer. Learned by Dorothy Day when she was a child, remembered and quoted in The Long Loneliness. “Enlarge thou my heart, O Lord, that Thou mayst enter in.” 

Grandchildren. Mr. Happy, although only 3 years old, has been helping me with accountability. Recently, I went back into the kitchen to get seconds on the delicious meal Judy had cooked. As I came back to the dining room table, Mr. Happy cried  out in genuine distress, “Pal (that’s what he calls me), Pal, don’t eat two meals!” Chagrined, I took my plate back to the kitchen. He made an observation that had never come to me before: second helpings are actually a second meal.