When the Lord is pleased to reveal His wisdom to us, we must take very great care not to add our own improvements.
In the book of Mark, Jesus is recorded as praying three times. The first is here, the second is after the feeding of the five thousand (6:46), and the third is in Gethsemane (14:32). We also know from the other gospels that Christ was much in prayer, and His pattern clearly indicated disciplined prayer (v. 35). We sometimes think that He was perfect, so of course He could pray like that. But flip it around. If He, a perfect man, needed to depend upon God in prayer like this, how much more do we need to cultivate the discipline of praying to God? This is necessary because, among many other things, prayer protects us from the obvious. The rest of this passage shows the wisdom of Christ in sharp contrast to the wisdom of men. But it is not enough simply to go through the motions of praying (because we might pray in all the “obvious” ways as well); we must seek to imitate Christ in how He prayed. This should be measured in the result.
We can see how this prayer resulted in an unexpected turn. The Lord Jesus communed with His Father in prayer. Because He came to do the Father’s will, and not that which seems obvious to sinful men, He neglects to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity He now has. He refuses to go through this particular open door. The central point we must always remember is that God’s ways are not our ways, and this truth is not altered simply because we deem ourselves to be pious and religious.
There are other ways in which Jesus turned away from the obvious. We can see this in the implied rebuke of Simon, and Christ’s response to it. First, Christ was absent and Simon (and those with him) had to hunt around for Jesus (v. 36). He was not around first thing in the morning to take advantage of the crowds. Simon appears to think this to have been unwise, judging from the implication of “all men seek for thee” (v. 37).
But what was the point of the healings? Jesus says they are to go throughout the neighboring “village-towns” because He had come in order to preach. The point of the healings and exorcisms was not simply to display power. “Miracles” are certainly unusual to us, but unreflective and sinful men can adjust to them quite quickly, like that monkey who figures out which lever makes the banana drop. The point was to preach (v. 38). And so Jesus travelled throughout the region, preaching in synagogues, and casting (ekballo) out devils (v. 39).
Then a leper came to Jesus, and sought His help. He knelt before Christ and pleaded for healing. He said that if Jesus were willing, He could make him whole (v. 40). Christ had compassion for him in his desperate condition (v. 41), said that He was willing, and touched him. Under the law, this would have made Jesus unclean, but the reverse happens here (v. 42). But we must then consider some incongruities. When he was a leper, Jesus touched him. When he was clean, Jesus cast him out (ekballo). Before he healed the leper, He was filled with compassion, a gut-wrenching compassion. When he was healed, Jesus dismisses him with great indignation, even anger (v. 43). The most likely explanation is that Christ foresaw the disobedience that was soon to come. Jesus told him to go to the priests for a declaration of cleansing, and to do this for a testimony (v. 44). There is an ungrateful disobedience here. The leper simply ignores what Jesus told him to do, and spreads the word all over the place. The word used for this is the same word used to describe Jesus’ preaching (v. 45). Jesus said He came in order to preach, but because the leper disobediently preached, the preaching mission of Christ was hindered. But do not react to statements that Jesus “could not do” something. Remember the Incarnation. Jesus consequently stayed out of the cities, and the people came to Him from all points of the compass (v. 45).
Pray for the work of God, and pray that God deliver us from the obvious. Pray for the reformation of the Church. But do not for a moment expect that it will arrive through a well-watched doorway.