PrintToday's "Moment with Mark" (83)
12 February, 2013
So Jesus sent two of them into Jerusalem to make the arrangements. "As you go into the city," he told them, "a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. (Mark 14:13 NLT)
".....a man carrying a pitcher of water...." That's strange. I thought it was the task of women to carry the water. Imagine the confusion of the disciples if Jesus had nominated a woman carrying water; they would be everywhere.
The instructions of Jesus are otherwise clear and decisive. It would seem, however, that Jesus has done some forward planning and organizing. Some would say that what we witness here is simply the natural results of making arrangements ahead of time. Somehow Jesus had previously had contact with the man and made those arrangements with him. How? I've no idea! When? Search me! But there are more than sufficient time gaps in the Biblical account to allow for such contacts.
Others want to have Jesus living a life that was a ceaseless succession of miracles. They wouldn't hesitate to attribute His knowledge of the man carrying water as yet another example of His divinity. Who is right? My guess is that what we are observing here is a mix of both - human planning and divine enabling. I like the quirky little saying: "Jesus didn't always walk on water, sometimes He went by boat".
Actually, my interest at the moment is in the man carrying the pitcher of water. I think we are observing here something out of the ordinary, something that catches our attention as odd without it being any great deal. Having seen him, the disciples follow him and it all unfolded just as Jesus had said it would.
My counsel to you is this: Try and be aware today of anything that strikes you as odd or out of the ordinary. I'm not talking about anything spectacular. What I'm thinking of is something that many others around you miss altogether. It may be no more than a man carrying a pitcher of water.....or our 21st century equivalent of that oddity.
Pause long enough to ask yourself this question, "Why is that odd (whatever it is that struck you that way) and is this some kind of divine observation that links with something that God may have been saying to you in recent times?"
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