Mark 3:1-12
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Have you ever felt that ever since you declared to your family and friends that you are a follower of Jesus, they started watching you? They watch your move, your decisions, your reactions and they are waiting for you to make a mistake to prove that your faith is not real as you declare.
Jesus’ life was always being watched by the angry stare of the Pharisees. They wanted Jesus to make a mistake, to fail, to do something that would go against their man-made law.
I was doing a session on manhood and during the question and answer, a man asked about the topic of marriage and leaving and cleaving. He knew the right answer but he was asking how he was going to say it to the relatives of his fiancee without offending them that he believes they needed to move out and start on their own (which is not a Filipino thing to do). A man then stood up with his bible and read a passage from Genesis. We all knew the passage but I had to take note and told the crowd – that is the right answer for the man asking the question but that is not the right answer to give your relatives and family. You need to craft your answer in a way – that supports the text, but not give them the Bible verse as your defense because you will get clobbered and hated unnecessarily. Why? Because we are being watched.
7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9 And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10 for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”12 And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.
But the Pharisees are not the only people watching. The crowds are watching and they see some positive effect on your life because of your faith in Christ. The crowd wants what you have because it brought about transformation. They might not want Jesus but the effects of Jesus. The demons knew who Jesus was – the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. But Jesus’ time to reveal himself was not yet to be so he asked the demons to be quiet.
Now that Jesus has revealed himself to us on the cross and His resurrection – I pray that the people who see the transformation in us won’t just get the answer to how we have been changed but get the reason behind the reason we have been transformed – Jesus.
People are watching. We have the responsibility of sharing the good news of the gospel to them.