Mk. 3:7-12 “Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, "You are the Son of God." 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was.”
In Mark 3:7-12 the leadership wisdom of Jesus stands out clearly once again. Jesus recognizes the need for the setting to change within his ministry. The crowds are massing around Him everywhere He goes and He is operating within a very sensitive religious and political climate. Because of this He takes His disciples and withdraws from the town He has been ministering in out to the lakeside areas, away from the confrontational setting of the Synagogue.
For Jesus to be ministering healing on the Sabbath right in the Synagogue had been a very confrontational thing for Him to do. It was clearly intended to provoke opportunity to deal with the issues that He had addressed in response to their accusations but now Jesus moves to where He can minister to the multitudes without the atmospheric tension of the Synagogue. In this setting Jesus demonstrates an awareness of His setting that is insightful. He is not just intently focused on doing ministry. He knows the dangers of crowd frenzy and creates a control mechanism that isn’t dependent upon large numbers of security people for crowd control.
Imagine the message it would have sent if He had a lineup of armed security personnel surrounding him like the president to keep Him safe while He ministered. Jesus identifies a way to create safety and a rapid means of escape if things get out of control without communicating a dictatorial or militaristic style that would have undermined His message. Jesus was consistently creating a certain atmosphere amongst even the crowds that followed Him so that it sent the right message about who He was and what His purpose was. There was never a time when He let others use Him to create a wrong message by the structure, style or response to people that would compete with the message of His words.
When the disciples tried to keep the children away, Jesus called them to himself to send a clear message about who He was and how the Father felt. When the woman in Mt. 26 was criticized by the disciples for pouring out the alabaster jar of perfume over His head Jesus defended her actions for the purity of worship that they represented. The disciples were focused purely on the financial waste that this act represented, but Jesus was able to align them with the act of worship that was at the heart of this extravagance. When it was time to feed the multitudes He had the people sit in relational groups of fifty and served them in an orderly way, establishing a sense of structure and relationship and identifying the role of His disciples as servants of the people. This was such a powerful message to the crowds about who the disciples were.
The wisdom of how Jesus worked in ministry was consistently proven for its effectiveness. Because He created a setting with clear boundaries it also kept His audience in front of Him not surrounding Him and through this structure He was able to minister to large numbers of people. Even in this setting the people pushed forward to touch Him but it created a limitation that would provide safety to the workers and for himself. One of the valuable leadership lessons of this passage is the importance of accurately assessing the situation that you find yourself in. Learn to look not just at the obvious but at the potential within every situation. Jesus learned how to use the natural setting for His advantage. He was able to forecast the negative possibilities in the immediate future and evaluate the best possible structure for success within the setting. Ask the Lord to give you eyes to see both the problems and the possibilities of every situation!
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