So I’ve taken some time to read my way through the gospel of Mark because, well Mark loves Jesus and talks about him a lot so I felt that was the only reason that I really needed. Inside of Marks gospel he takes great efforts and makes it quite apparent that Jesus wants his people to figure out who He is for themselves.
I hope that this is not a news breaking statement that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, wants to know each of his followers individually.
The first place that I noticed this is right off the kick. Mark 1:2-3.
"As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
This is a quote taken from the prophet Isaiah 40:3 as stated. The quotation that Mark has put in cuts off or hides the last piece which states that:
“A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. “ (Isaiah 40:3)
Mark cuts off the last piece which makes it abundantly clear to the reader that Jesus is in fact God.
Now why would Mark do this? Is his plan to not allow the reader to come to salvation? Mark does this consistently throughout his gospel.
Mark 1: 23-26
"And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out,
"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God."
But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!"
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him."
Once again in a public setting when Jesus could have easily established his authority as God in the flesh he rather silences the opportunity.
Jesus wants each person who follows him to get to that point on their own. There is no such thing as a second hand Christian. This is a problem that I see being consistent today just as it was when Jesus was on earth.
When I think about how Christianity in the holistic sense desires to have those who do not believe come to faith, which is a very biblical idea and one that we NEED to have we do a lot of proving rather than just laying out the evidence. I am more guilty of this than most. There are not to many times when Jesus feels the need to beat his supremacy into people’s heads. He just is supreme. He demonstrates it and lives it and just simply is.
Now this is impossible for us to do(live in supremacy). We cannot live perfectly as Jesus does, but what we can do is live in such a way that points to his supremacy. We don’t have to enter into hostile debate as a means of displaying what Christ is. We simply do as Mark does when he writes and just lay out the facts.
Colossians 1:21 “And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”
The bottom line is that Jesus did it all. He has brought us in and he has changed us. As Christians we don’t have to prove who He is just point to who He is.
