Daily Meditation: August 3, 2020

August 03, 2020

“And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.” 

- Mark 3: 7-19


Much is contained in this short passage from Mark. The preaching that the disciples are called to offer is not any kind of preaching—it is proclaiming the Gospel, the Good News that God has sent the Son into the world to bless all of us. Whatever we might learn from our faith, the first thing to remember is the Good News. We can change when we hurt others and ourselves and the Good Creation because we can count on God’s forgiveness and sustaining and directing love.

Casting out demons is the way Jesus speaks of those things that keep us from being whole—at one with ourselves, at one with our neighbor, at one with God. He sends his disciples and the emerging church into the world to overcome those things that separate us from each other. Jesus casts out demons, but those who carry those demons he loves. As many say today, “He hates the sin but loves the sinner.”

The disciples Jesus calls have become our saints. Mark goes out of his way to show just how the Twelve, especially Peter, missed the point of their mission over and over again. And they all fled when Jesus was taken away to be crucified. Only the women disciples were there “when they crucified our Lord.” Mark emphasizes the weakness of the Twelve so that his audience will know that their great saints were a lot like them when they began their journey. You can imagine early Christians saying, “If Peter, the great bishop of Rome, could move from being called “Satan” by Jesus [Mark 8:33] to becoming the “Rock” on which the church is built, well, there must be hope for all of us, even for me.

Musical Reflection Ain't a that a Good News - St. Olaf Choir

Help us to know, Lord, that your first saints were very much like us, faults and all. And to know, that, like them, we can move forward spreading your love and casting out those things that hurt and destroy. Amen.