Mark 15:16-32; Powerlessness

Priests, soldiers, thieves, commoners and a country traveler all encounter Jesus in this section. Those who come to Jesus in power inevitably get nothing out of the encounter; it is wasted. The crowd had the option of choosing its attitude; those recorded to have spoken up, did so from what seems to be a disdaining point of view. Even the thieves, not especially powerful at the moment, looked down upon Jesus. Then there are the two powerless people in the story.

Simon is grabbed by the soldiers and forced to walk beside the other powerless person. He happened to be coming home, maybe with his sons, and either happened to come to an intersection at the wrong time or was drawn in by the commotion to see what was happening. Surely he was forced to drop all personal items (tools, bags, food) to handle the cross; he may have been forced to abandon his sons Rufus and Alexander in the mob. Suddenly he went from an uninvolved spectator to center-stage in the drama. And of everyone mentioned in this section, only Simon was changed. Only he benefited. His family is mentioned in Romans 16; Catholic history records him as a Saint and his sons as missionaries.

I keep coming back to the question of why was he changed while so many others who were at the scene were not? All others encountered Jesus but were able to keep distance at the same time. The soldiers did not quit being soldiers to encounter Jesus. The thieves did not give up their identity nor the the crowd theirs. Yet Simon was jerked from the role of spectator and forced to walk with the Nazarene.

So how do I approach Jesus? Do I encounter him while retaining my separate identity? Is he someone that I bump into occasionally but hold at a distance? Or do I walk with him, even bearing the spillage of his burdens on my shoulders? It seems that we are not changed by a Jesus encounter unless we first surrender power.

Luke 12:1-3; yeast

Jesus must have been amazing. He went straight from the house of a Pharisee filled with Pharisees and experts in the law to speaking in front of thousands. Though the crowds could not have been more different, the message was the same to both . . . only in one case it had a little more bite to it.

The yeast of the Pharisees was his concern. Yeast looks insignificant. Its a little thing that fits in a spoon or packet today. Sprinkled into dough, the entire nature of the dough is altered. It radically grows inside its host to change it forever.

Hypocrisy might seem insignificant but growing in the heart, one's entire nature is changed forever. Jesus' words of warning call me to look for the spoonful of yeast before the rest of me is affected. It maybe tedious work but the results are of eternal significance.