THEY THOUGHT HE HAD LOST IT
Mark 3:20-24 NKJV
20 Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind."
22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebub," and, "By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons."
23 So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: "How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
Because we love and appreciate Jesus, it's easier for us to think everyone who came in contact with Him felt the same way. But that simply was not the case. Even members of His own family did not believe that He was the Messiah.
His family actually came to get Jesus and take Him because they thought He had lost His mind. Imagine that Jesus' own family thought He had lost it. Maybe that will help some of you who have faced negative feedback from your family members because of your faith in Christ. Although it certainly is not pleasant having family members reject you, if it happened to Jesus, it can sure happen to you.
But this one passage gives us a hint as to how Jesus presented Himself prior to His being revealed to the nation of Israel. If Jesus had a halo or glowing light all around Him, no one would have questioned His divinity. If Jesus had been performing miracles as a small child, then His family would most likely have been the first to testify that He was the Son of God. But in Jesus' hometown, He was known as the carpenter. Later, in chapter six of the book of Mark, we find Jesus rejected by His own town. Not everyone recognized Him as the Son of God. Too often, family members can only see from one perspective.
And His family was not the only ones who thought differently of Jesus. The scribes who came from Jerusalem accused Jesus of working together with the devil. That the only way He could cast out demons was because of His relationship with Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. These Pharisees did not think Jesus was crazy as much as they thought He was possessed.
Jesus asked them a question. How can Satan cast out Satan? And reminded them that if a house was divided, it could not stand. Jesus would go on to warn the Pharisees about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit because they were attributing Holy Spirit’s works to the works of the devil.
Jesus was not surrounded by a wall of acceptance. Instead, He was forced to function in the middle of severe opposition. But through it all, He never sinned and never gave in to the pressure to fight back. They thought He had lost it, but we know better.
APPLICATION
There is comfort in knowing that Jesus was not universally accepted. We take solace in knowing that if people missed the fact that the Christ, the anointed One, was right in their midst, they can miss us as well. The people who knew us before Christ may be skeptical or think we have lost it ourselves. But we know better. And the only one we need to be focused on pleasing is the One who died for us and rose again.
Jesus gave us a great example of what to do when family and friends express their doubts, and our enemies accuse us of being a bad or evil person. Just keep on doing what you have been doing. Keep on praising God and living for the Lord Jesus. Keep on doing the right thing and loving others. And, just as Jesus eventually proved everybody wrong concerning who He was, we can do the same. We are willing to wait to verify that we are on the right path. We haven't lost it; in fact, we have found it. In the person of Jesus, we have found the Prince of Life for eternity.