Description
Mark For Everyone
MARK 3.20–30
Jesus and Beelzebul...
...From the safety of my armchair, I watched the mass demonstration on the TV news. It started peacefully, at least on the surface. Banners and placards gave out a strong message, but the crowd seemed relaxed enough. The police were standing well back, watching for trouble but quite cheerful. Some of them joked with the marchers as they went by.
Nobody knew how it happened, but suddenly everything changed. There was a scuffle and a scrap, and a whole section of the crowd stopped marching and started shouting at the police. Some threw bottles. The police charged the demonstrators, swinging batons at random. The battle quickly spread up and down the street. Shops were smashed, hundreds were arrested.
The close-up TV shots, and the recordings of what people were saying at the time, made it clear what had happened. The police had decided that the demonstrators were ‘scum’. The demonstrators had decided that the police were ‘pigs’...
Taken from Mark for Everyone by Tom Wright