Mark 7:33

ASIDE FROM THE MULTITUDE

‘And He took him aside from the multitude.’

Mark 7:33

Our Lord seems to have taken this man apart from the multitude. This is unusual.

I. Aside from the multitude.—As we, too, follow the Redeemer, may we not feel that in our own lives He has taken us aside from the multitude? We have had moments—awful, yet precious moments they were—when something of God’s mercy has made us feel that God and we exist alone in this mighty universe, something that has shut out the crowd, drowned the noise, stopped the wheels of the world, taken us into a kind of sacred solitude, made us feel in deepest earnestness, ‘I live; God lives; my God and my Lord.’

II. A Divine law.—You have sometimes seen in the glories of outward nature, the parable of this grand Divine law of Christ’s blessed life. You have seen in the perfect cloudless heaven the sun shine forth in splendour. You have seen that splendour cast upon the great sea that lay underneath, until the heaving mass threw back a kind of golden, restless glory, and reflected on its large, enormous surface, the glory of that sun in the heavens; but you also have stood on the edge of the wave, and have watched every wavelet and ripple that came up and fringed the shore, and in every tiny single wave the whole orb in the heavens was perfectly mirrored and perfectly given back in its glory. So when we come in contact with the Divine hand, then we feel that we are alone with God; it is then that we know the earnestness of our life, must confess—our hearts are obliged to give utterance to it—that the unseen world and the eternal is the imperishable, while that which is seen is but temporal.

III. A vision of the future.—These are the moments that light up the destiny of man, that take him into the eternal future, open the vistas, and show him the shore of the resurrection of the other side of the waves, and Jesus standing on the shore, and ourselves standing before the judgment-seat of Christ.

Rev. Canon Rowsell.

Illustrations

(1) ‘There is wonderful blessing vouchsafed to those who come apart from the multitude and are alone with God. There was each morning, during the late General Gordon’s first journey in the Soudan, one half-hour during which there lay outside his tent a handkerchief, and the whole camp knew the full significance of that small token, and most religiously was it respected by all there, whatever was their colour, creed, or business. No foot dared to enter the tent so guarded. No message, however pressing, was carried in. Whatever it was—of life or of death—it had to wait until the guardian signal was removed. Every one knew that God and Gordon were alone in there together; that the servant prayed and communed, and the Master heard and answered. Into the heart so opened the presence of God came down. Into the life so offered the strength of God was poured; so that strange power was given to Gordon, because his heart became the dwelling-place of God.’

(2) ‘Many reasons have been given for the Lord’s taking the man aside. The following beautiful passage from Trench is worth quoting: “His purpose was that the man, apart from the tumult and interruptions of the crowd, in solitude and silence, might be more receptive of deep and lasting impressions; even as the same Lord does now so often lead a soul apart, sets it in the solitude of a sick chamber, or in loneliness of spirit, or takes away from it earthly companions and friends, when He would speak with it and heal it. He takes it aside, as He took this deaf-and-dumb out of the multitude, that in the hush of the world’s din it may listen to Him.” ’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

TAKEN ASIDE BY SICKNESS

Is there not a good deal here for one on a sick-bed? The benefit received by this man was conferred in a short time, quietly and privately, and in a manner somewhat different from what had been anticipated. Yes, and even a short sickness may be turned to great advantage, and that too, although it may come at a most inconvenient time and seem a strange and unexpected way of blessing.

‘Well,’ you may say, ‘ how can I make use of my sickness?’ Well, then, to glance at the story in search of hints. The man was taken aside from the multitude for awhile. So are you. And he had two things done for him; he was enabled (1) to hear, and (2) to speak. So may you be.

I. The gift of hearing.—You live in a favoured land where the voice of God is continually speaking to you on all sides. Do you hear it as you might? Do you hear His call as you might in the various efforts for good going on around, in which your help might be valuable? Even a short sickness might be used as a reason of special treatment for this deafness, and the results might be great and permanent. Ask Him to speak to you during this period of being taken aside from the multitude those potent words, ‘Be opened.’

II. The gift of speech.—And then with regard to your dumbness—for have you not been at least comparatively dumb?—have you not at least had an impediment in your speech upon the most important matters? I mean that so many of us entertain a sort of inactive wish that good may prosper, and we know many people whom we should like to see leading better lives personally and doing more good with their time and opportunities. But how seldom is the truly friendly word spoken which might induce them to do so.

—Rev. R. L. Bellamy, b.d.

Illustration

‘I always remember reading of a man who was very indignant, because when he was laid aside for a time none of his friends came to see him; but when he was asked whether he had ever been to see any one who was in a similar case, he was obliged to acknowledge that he never had. And it had never before occurred to him that he might have done so. If, when you are upon your feet again, you were to make a point of going to see friends who happen to be sick, and were to go, not merely to retail the small-talk of the world, but with your ear opened and your tongue loosed by your own taste of the invalid life, to “speak plain,” it would indeed be abundantly worth while for you to have been thus taken aside from the multitude.’