Out of Our Mind

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

OUT OF OUR MIND

Mark 3:20-21

20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

NIV

This is but the beginning of a rather long narrative in which Jesus ends up telling everyone a parable and a divided house that cannot stand, but we must take this is bits and pieces in order to examine the whole. Jesus is getting such a reputation by now that people just won’t even give him a chance to grab a hot meal. He has been traveling around the local region preaching the Word of God, teaching people about the truth of Gospel message, about salvation through faith in God and he has been healing all sorts of people and driving out demons from others. Crowds are following him every moment of the day. His family, which would be Mary and Joseph, if he is still alive, since we really never hear about him anymore, and Jesus’s brothers have come to take charge of him because they are thinking he is out of his mind. Have we ever been accused of being out of our minds because of so many people following after us? Of course not, but what does our family think of our faith? Are we considered a little of a nut job? Do they think we are out of our minds because we trust Jesus? He said he came to divide families, in the sense that those who follow him will not be loved by those who refuse to follow him. If we are living as Jesus tells us we should then there are going to be family members who should think we are crazy. But if we tell them we are Christians and live the same way they do then they will just consider us a hypocrite. Wouldn’t it be better to be considered crazy, out of our minds, than a hypocrite? Maybe we need to be a little more crazy, living more like Jesus, telling everyone, preaching the gospel, being more forceful about making sure we don’t miss anyone, not giving up because they don’t want to hear it. But most of all if we lived completely sold out for Jesus that would surely cause them to think us out of our mind.