“What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?

February 3, 2025

“What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?” (Mk 5:7 RNJB) I have the same question as the demoniac. What do you want with me? With any of us?

Mark's gospel today presents Jesus as more than a religious teacher with a message. His ability to command spirits reveals a spiritual authority over the unseen world and the intelligible beings that influence us from beyond this world of sense. As the esoteric Christian Community states succinctly in its creed, “he is the Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth.”

That lordship, though, works through us, over time. It doesn't end with the healing. The past and the present are connected in the now of God, so that what we do now fulfills what began before. In his letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul reflects that though the great heroes of his faith had “acted righteously and earned the promises… they did not receive what was promised.” (Hb 11:33, 39 RNJB)

It took Christ’s incarnation to catalyze that change. Those of us born into faith at this end of history, on the other side of the Resurrection and Ascension, are as instrumental to that work of salvation as the prophets, priests, and kings of old. “God foresaw for us something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us.” (Hb 11:40 RNJB)

Christ works in us, for all, across all time. What we do now in him echoes through history in both directions, perfecting ourselves, our world, and all who lived in it. So “go home to your people and tell them all that the Lord in his mercy has done for you.” (Mk 5:19 RNJB)