6 March 2010
Psalm 75, 76; Gen. 43:16-34; 1 Cor. 7:10-24; Mark 5:1-20

Do you think the steward knew the plan? His response to their story about the money appearing in their sacks is almost too practiced. It is surprising that he speaks of their God and the God of their father. Can we assume that his master, Joseph, has told him of this God who has done remarkable things in his own life? The dream is fulfilled as Joseph walks in and his brothers bow in obeisance, it must have been a powerful moment for Joseph to see this and yet his love for Benjamin overwhelmed all of that in the moment. The testing was not quite done, however. Benjamin received more than five times as much as they, was this simply because of Joseph’s love for his brother, the one who wasn’t part of the group who sold him into slavery, or is it a test to see how the brothers will react to the favoritism?

It seems Jesus crossed the lake for one reason only, to heal this man. How would He have known of him and why would He have cared? Everything about this scene is wrong from a Jewish perspective. They are in gentile territory, and a man who would have had open sores from beating himself with rocks, who lived among the tombs and who had a demon encounters Jesus. All of this would have combined to ritually defile Jesus completely but He went to meet him and when the man saw Jesus he came running and bowed before him. Then, the demon took over and spoke. All Jesus had to do with the speaker was to cast him out, but his work with the man was not done. Amazingly, Jesus does not do with this man what He has done with others He has healed, tell them to tell no one. This man He commissions as a witness to his friends, just as He did the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

What does it mean that a believing spouse makes the unbelieving spouse holy? And their children as well? I believe Paul is returning to his Jewish roots and the laws of purity in some ways but is also working out what it means to have the Holy Spirit in the believer. We just saw how Jesus transformed the situation of incredible impurity into something different by his presence and we have seen Him reach out and touch a leper and make him clean. The Jewish law recognized that God was holy, set apart, and that humans never reached that level. Clean was the normal state of a person but much of the world would make her unclean by touch or proximity, and that state had to be rectified through sacrifice, time and ritual. No one could render an unclean thing clean by touch, that worked only the other way round. Jesus, however, could touch uncleanness and make it clean without defiling Himself, and the proof was that the unclean became clean, only God had that power. Paul, here, gives recognition to the reality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer in the same way between spouses. He doesn’t, however, mean to say that this saves the unbelieving spouse, as indicated by his words in verse 16. Again, his final admonitions in this chapter make clear the belief that this is the final generation and therefore energy expended in changing status is energy better spent on proclaiming and preparing for the coming of the kingdom.

We give thanks to you, O God;
we give thanks, for your name is near.
We recount your wondrous deeds.