April 7, 2025; Mark 3:20-35

Daily Dose of Hope

April 7, 2025

Day 1 of Week 2

 

Scripture - Mark 3:20-35

 

Prayer:  Holy God, we come to you as we start a new week and we give you glory and praise.  You are such a good God; your mercies are new every morning.  It does not matter what happened last week, yesterday, or even earlier today, we can start afresh and anew with you.  Thank you for that, Lord.  In these next few moments of silence, Lord, help us gather our scattered thoughts and focus on you...Thank you, Jesus, for your care.  Help us pay attention to your promptings and teachings throughout today, beginning right now.  Speak to us through this reading and devotional.  We love you, Lord.  Amen.

 

Welcome back to the Daily Dose of Hope, a Deep Dive into the Gospels and Acts. Today, we are finishing up Mark 3.  Up until this point, Jesus has been healing, teaching, and generally turning the status quo upside down.  While this has generated quite a crowd around him almost all the time, it also has a lot of tongues wagging, including those of the Pharisees and his own family. 

 

Today’s text is a narrative within another narrative.  We have the narrative of Jesus responding to the accusations of the teachers of the law saying that he is possessed by an impure spirit tucked within another story about Jesus’ response to and redefinition of family.  Let’s try to tackle this.

 

Let’s start with the family.  They are worried that Jesus has lost his mind.  We can’t be too hard of them.  Afterall, Jesus is doing some really bold things and saying things that are pushing up against everything they know as sacred.  My guess is they are worried about Jesus (people are already wanting to kill him) but they also be worrying about their reputation.  These are small towns with small town rumor mills.  They still have to live their lives.  We will get back to them in a moment.

 

But then the story moves on to the teachers of the law, who say that Jesus’ power comes from the devil.  I’m not sure how they deduced this, but they probably were thinking they had a monopoly on the God stuff and Jesus wasn’t saying or doing things they thought or imagined a man of God should.  He is hanging with the riff-raff and breaking sacred rules.  I mean, he must not be of God. 

 

Jesus’ answer is kind of cryptic.  It says he spoke to them in parables.  He says, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” and “...if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand.”.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}