This is the first in a series of five messages looking at Mark chapters 6-8. I plan to share one each of the next few days. Overall we want to note this pattern:
6:30-42
Feeding Miracle
6:43-52
On the Sea of Galilee
6:53-56
Healings
7:1-33
Conflict with Religious Leaders (and conflict with a foreigner)
7:34-37
Jesus uses his spit to cure a deaf man
Then
(minus the healings) it happens again in almost the same order!
8:1-10
Feeding Miracle
8:11-13
Conflict with Religious Leaders
8:14-21
On the Sea of Galilee
8:22-26
Jesus uses his spit to cure a blind man
Mark
seems to have structured his gospel deliberately here. We’ll take our cue from him and study the
events in their pairs.
The
pair for today is the healing miracles:
Mark
6:30-44
30The
apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and
taught. 31He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all
by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had
no leisure even to eat. 32And they went away in the boat to a
deserted place by themselves. 33Now many saw them going and
recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived
ahead of them. 34As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and
he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things. 35When it grew late,
his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is
now very late; 36send them away so that they may go into the
surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to
eat.” 37But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and
give it to them to eat?” 38And he said to them, “How many
loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and
two fish.” 39Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit
down in groups on the green grass. 40So they sat down in groups
of hundreds and of fifties. 41Taking the five loaves and the
two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave
them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish
among them all. 42And all ate and were filled; 43and
they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44Those
who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
Mark
8:1-10
In
those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he
called his disciples and said to them, 2“I have compassion for
the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing
to eat. 3If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will
faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.” 4His
disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the
desert?” 5He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They
said, “Seven.” 6Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the
ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and
gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the
crowd. 7They had also a few small fish; and after blessing
them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8They
ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven
baskets full. 9Now there were about four thousand people. And
he sent them away. 10And immediately he got into the boat with
his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.
A shift takes place when enter the 6th
to the 8th chapters of Mark’s gospel. Prior to this Jesus has been going from town
to town in the region. Yes, crowds have
been forming wherever Jesus is but they have not been actually following him. Now we see the crowds are indeed following
Jesus wherever he goes. Part of this is
due to the success of his ministry.
Jesus is famous! He has a
reputation as a good teacher, a healer, and a person who can perform miracles. And part of this reveals how hurting and
desperate the people are that Jesus is ministering to.
In the two feeding miracles we hear
echoes of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the
wilderness. They had taken no provisions
with them. A huge food crisis developed. Bible stories report there were hundreds of
thousands of hungry mouths to feed and absolutely no food in sight. Through Moses God sends manna and quail on a
regular basis to feed the people.
Now again these rural Jewish people
are like sheep without a shepherd. They
are in desperate need. Like Moses, Jesus
proves he can fulfill their needs.
Many people remember the famous
feeding of the 5000 account. They forget
the second smaller feeding miracle.
Mark’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel report both. Luke’s gospel and John’s gospel do not. It should be noted that Matthew interprets
the second miracle differently than Mark.
For Matthew the feeding of the 5000 took place among Jews. The smaller feeding of the 4000 took place
among Gentiles, or non-Jews.
In
Mark the feeding of the 5000 takes place after the crowds have followed Jesus
around the lake. They had been home the
day before. While they were hungry, they
were not famished. However, for the
second feeding miracle it is not about a non-Jewish crowd. It was about a crowd that has journeyed three
days with Jesus without food. Their
situation has become more desperate.
In
both cases Jesus shows compassion for the crowd. Even though he is tired he puts their needs
above his. Jesus does not always ignore
his own needs for others, but he does here.
In
both cases there is a miniscule amount of food compared to the need. The disciples rightly point out what is so
little among so many? Yet in both cases
Jesus makes it be more than plenty.
Some
people like to misinterpret these miracles as miracles of sharing. The logic goes like this: everyone actually
had a secret stash of food and once they saw the disciples willing to share
they pulled out their private stash.
When all was said and done there was a lot of leftovers. The meaning behind that interpretation is
that if everyone shares there will be an abundance.
Interpreting
the text that way is indeed sweet. But
that not only misses the point the text clearly states the opposite. In both cases the people had no food. They were in need. Jesus, taking a meagre amount provided by the
disciples, created an abundance. In both
cases the text says that Jesus took the food, broke it, gave it to the
disciples, and the disciples distributed it.
If
you are skeptical of the possibility of miracles then the sharing idea can be
appealing. But if you can accept that
Jesus could indeed provide miraculously, then you can feel the full wonder of
these stories. People were in need. Jesus had compassion. Jesus created an abundance.
That
is the message we the readers are to take.
Perhaps we won’t have our pantries miraculously refilled every time they
go empty, but we are to know that God sees us.
God knows our needs. God sees our
lives. God has compassion for us. The people who followed Jesus weren’t acting
very wisely. But Jesus wasn’t cruel to
them. He fed them.
May
we always trust that God sees us, cares about us, and is working to provide for
our needs.
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