Growth of God’s kingdom

Thursday, January 19, 2017 2nd Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Heb 7:25. 8:6
Gospel: Mk 3:7–12

Jesus and his disciples withdrew to the lakeside and a large crowd from Galilee followed him. A great number of people also came from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, Transjordan and from the region of Tyre and Sidon, for they had heard of all that he was doing. Because of the crowd, Jesus told his disciples to have a boat ready for him, to prevent the people from crushing him. He healed so many that all who had diseases kept pressing towards him to touch him. Even the people who had evil spirits, whenever they saw him, would fall down before him and cry out, “You are the Son of God.” But he warned them sternly not to tell anyone who he was.

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

In light of his mission to spread the kingdom of God on earth Jesus was no different from businessmen with a product to promote. That’s why he went public because promotion requires publicity. In today’s Gospel reading, however, we find his avoidance of publicity puzzling. He ordered the devil to shut up when the devil was willing to squeal to the public his real identity as the Messiah. The devil would have sounded very credible, for nobody sounds more convincing than a person promoting the positive side of his enemy. Why did Jesus silence the devil? (Mark 3:12).

Understanding the nature of the kingdom is the key to understanding what Jesus did. Describing the kingdom he was promoting as a mustard seed, (Luke 13:18-19), he wanted to instill in the mind of the people that the kingdom of God must start small. Jesus became man “in the stillness of the night when the world was asleep”. He was born to a humble woman and associated himself with sinners. He chose from among fishermen his core group. These men did not become instant VIPs when they joined his company. They had to learn how to be servants of all.

Had Jesus allowed the devil to do PR work for him, the devil would have stirred a hornet’s nest, inciting the people to rebellion believing that the political messiah they expected had already come to release them from Roman domination. But the kingdom of God was too big for that myopic expectation of political liberation. The kingdom Jesus was promoting was for something deeper, something more noble and divine: the liberation of souls. To what avail is liberating the body if spirits remain vagabonds wandering in the labyrinth of sin? What was required then was not loud publicity for the kingdom to flourish but the proper timing.

Today Jesus is still looking for the proper timing. The timing is perfect when in synchrony with the human heart. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM.

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