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Have you noticed how sometimes things just don't work out. You
plan how you should do something and everything seems to go wrong. People
don't turn up, or the wrong ones turn up. The weather's all wrong. The caterer's
are late. And so forth. But then as you look back on it you realise that
God had a greater purpose in mind. |
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It seems
that that was even true for Jesus at times. Look at
today's passage from Mark 6. Just before this the
disciples have been sent out in pairs to preach the
gospel. Well, now they've returned and they gather round
Jesus to report what they've done and taught. Now, just
as an aside, notice that Mark doesn't say much at all
about what they've done or taught. What seems to
be important is not their task, but their relationship
with Jesus. They're apostles, that means ones who are
sent out as representatives or ambassadors of Jesus, but
it's their centring in Jesus that matters. It's their
gathering around him again. That's an important lesson
for us who are called to be ambassadors for Christ, that
if we're to be effective ambassadors, we have to remain
centred in Christ, constantly returning to him for
strength and encouragement. |
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But
that's just an aside, so let's move on. Here they are,
having just returned from their first missionary foray,
and they're surrounded by people. People who make demands
on them for teaching and for healing, so much so, we're
told, that they don't even have time to eat. So what does
Jesus do? He says "Let's get out of here." He
recognises that there are times when you need to retreat,
to get away from ministry, so you can rest, otherwise you
won't be able to go on. I remember Steve Monaghetti
saying once that he only runs a marathon about once in 18
months because his body needs to recover if he's to run
at his best next time. Well, the same goes for people in
ministry. If you're working in some area of ministry in
the church you need to have a rest from time to time. |
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So Jesus
and his disciples jump in a boat and start rowing,
heading for an out of the way place they know about.
Unfortunately, however, someone sees them, and Jesus'
well-made plans are wrecked. If you think about it, it's
much easier to run around the shore of a lake than it is
to row a fishing boat across the lake. And so the crowds
are waiting for them when they arrive. |
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Now what
would you have done if you'd been Jesus? Got back in the
boat and gone somewhere else? That might have been the
sensible thing to do, but it isn't what Jesus did. No,
when he saw them, his heart went out to them, because
they were like sheep without a shepherd. You see,
sometimes you can't do the sensible thing, because love
and compassion overrule your intellect. Ministry is never
about rules or law, it's always about grace and self
giving. We can plan and strategise, and that's right and
proper. It's a good thing, for example, to have a parish
plan, but it must only ever be a provisional plan,
subject to change if God directs otherwise. If things in
that plan don't work out, we have to be ready to change
it and to trust God to lead us in some other direction. |
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Well
that's what Jesus does "He began teaching them many
things." These people were hungry to be taught so
that's what Jesus does. I was talking to someone a while
back from another church who said she was sick of going
to church and receiving teaching. I'm not sure what she
wanted, but I thought how sad, that either she'd come to
a point where she thought she had no more to learn, or
else that the teaching she'd received had been so
lifeless that she didn't want any more. Yet here were
these people who were hungry to learn more from Jesus.
And when Jesus saw how lost they were, when his heart
went out to them in compassion, what was his response? To
teach them. Presumably to help them understand the nature
of the kingdom, to understand how they could enter that
kingdom, to understand what it means to be God's sons and
daughters. He didn't form a therapy group or an encounter
group, he taught them. I hope we'll never tire of
learning from God's word. |
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But then
the disciples notice the time. Now it may well be that
they've been noticing the time for a while now. They
thought they were getting away for a rest on their own
with Jesus and it's all been spoilt. The crowd has taken
him away from them - again! So they remind Jesus of the
time and suggest he sends them away to find something to
eat. But no. Jesus has a lesson to teach them
about ministry. He says, "You give them something to
eat." Now why do you think he says that to them? Did
he really expect them to provide food for some 5 or 6000
people? What do you think they thought? Well, it's pretty
obvious from their reply isn't it? "You've got to be
kidding! 5000 MacValue meals @ $3.95. It'd take $20,000
to feed this lot! Do you really want us to spend that
sort of money on feeding all these people? No, there's no
way you could feed all of these people." / Have you
ever felt like God was asking you to do the impossible?
Have you ever wondered what he must be thinking? I'm sure
the disciples were at this point. They couldn't see how
these people could be fed. I'm sure we would have been
the same. |
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But let
me take you back for a moment to the late 6th century BC.
In fact to about 520 BC. The people of Israel have been
in exile for nearly a hundred years but now some of them
have returned. Under Ezra and Nehemiah they've rebuilt
the walls of Jerusalem and begun the rebuilding of the
Temple. But times have been hard. There's been opposition
from the people around them, their resources have been
strained and the rebuilding has fallen by the wayside.
They've given up rebuilding the Temple because they've
needed to rebuild their houses & farms. It's been
something like 16 years since they first returned and
there's still nothing there but a rubble heap. But then
along comes a prophet named Zechariah. He has a message
for the governor, Zerubbabel and the high priest, Jeshua.
Do you remember this from last year? His message is
"get on with it!" Don't look at your shortages,
trust God and restart the work. Well, Zerubbabel isn't
convinced. He knows how poorly off they are. How
stretched are their resources. He's looked around the
city and seen how few skilled craftsmen there are. How
few men of an age to do the heavy work involved in
rebuilding the temple. And he isn't at all sure they can
do it. But this is what God says to Zerubbabel through
Zechariah (Zec 4:6-10) "This is the word of the LORD
to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my
spirit, says the LORD of hosts. 7What are you,
O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a
plain; and he shall bring out the top stone amid shouts
of 'Grace, grace to it!'" 8Moreover the
word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9"The
hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this
house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will
know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. 10Who
despises the day of small things? They shall rejoice when
they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel." |
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The issue
for Zerubbabel wasn't the size of the task or the
strength of the work force, it was who was behind the
work. It wasn't their might or power, but the Spirit of
God who would bring them success. |
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It seems
to me that we find ourselves in a very similar situation
to Zerubbabel and to the disciples, here in Wattle Park.
We don't have a temple to rebuild, or a crowd to feed. We
have a church to grow. But our situation is similar. We
have few resources. Our congregation is small: far too
small to do the work we'd like to do. When you see our
5-year plan you'd be forgiven for thinking it's
outrageous to think a little congregation like ours could
do all of that. I was talking to a colleague on Thursday
about how hard it is to grow a small Church when your
resources are so stretched. But we have to be careful
that we're not among those who despise the day of small
things; careful that we don't rely completely on our own
might and power and forget about the power of God's Holy
Spirit; careful that we don't forget that the gospel that
we preach is the power of God for salvation for
those who believe. That we don't forget that the Jesus
that we proclaim is the Jesus who could take a few loaves
and fishes and out of that tiny offering bring abundance.
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Because
that's what happens isn't it? Jesus is both testing and
training his disciples at the same time and they still
have a long way to go. So he asks them what they can find
to feed the crowd with. All they can come up with are 5
loaves - oh, and 2 fish. Their answer as reported by Mark
is almost petulant. Like someone in a bad mood, who isn't
going to co-operate if they can possibly help it. Or
who's really saying "I told you so!" "5
loaves - and 2 fish." But that's enough if you're
the Son of God, if you have God's Spirit with you. And so
he proceeds to break the bread and the fish into pieces
and distributes it to the people - all 500 or so of them,
and at the end they collect up 12 baskets of leftovers.
There's a real sense of overflowing generosity in this
isn't there? They've all eaten as much as they wanted and
there's still 12 baskets of pieces left over! |
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Far from
despising the day of small things, we should look for God
to bless us in abundance when we ask him for help, as he
has done over the past few years. We should look to the
future with real hope, because we have a Father in heaven
who loves to give good things to his children. |
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Well,
dinner is over and Jesus decides that the disciples
really do need to get away, so he puts them in a boat and
sends them on to Bethsaida while he dismisses the crowd.
And then notice what he does. You see it isn't just the
disciples who need to recover from ministry. (v46) He too
needs to be refreshed. So he goes up a mountain to pray;
to spend time in communion with God. To seek again God's
Spirit to fill him and empower him. |
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But then
he comes down the mountain and looks out across the lake
and sees the disciples still out there rowing. It seems a
wind has come up and they're struggling to make headway
against it. So he goes to them, walking on the water.
This is told so matter of factly that you can't help but
think this can only be an eye witness account. I mean
there's no exaggeration or colourful description. He
simply "went out to them, walking on the lake."
But then he does an interesting thing. He simply walks
right past them. It's as though he wanted to check that
they were all right, and when he saw that they were
coping he went on. At least until one of them notices
him. |
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You can
imagine it can't you? Peter's there pulling at the oars,
pretty tired, feeling his muscles starting to cramp up
under the strain, and then he notices something white
shining in the moonlight over his left shoulder. Now what
would you expect him to do? Nudge John who's rowing next
to him and say, "I say old chap isn't that Jesus
walking on the lake over there?" No, he'd be more
likely to say something like "Hey John, look over
there, do you see what I see?" And then John gets a
bit excited and starts yelling "Lets get out of here
it must be a ghost." "Shh!" says Peter,
"he'll hear you. Oh no, now he's seen us and he's
coming this way." And they're terrified. But then
Jesus speaks to them and reassures them. "Take
courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." And as soon as
he climbs in the boat the disciples calm down and so does
the wind. Then we have this strange comment: "They
were completely amazed, for they had not understood about
the loaves." Now, what does that mean? What should
they have understood about the loaves that would have
removed their amazement? Well, a clue comes in the
parallel passage in John's gospel where the discussion
goes on to talk about the giving of manna in the
wilderness. It seems that the thing the disciples should
have understood from this miracle is that Jesus giving
bread to the crowd in the wilderness was like a
reenactment of what God did for the people of Israel in
the wilderness. Jesus was demonstrating by giving them
this miraculous food that he was God incarnate. |
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So when
he came to them walking on the water they shouldn't have
been so amazed. If God is present in the form of Jesus,
if that's the meaning of the feeding of the 5000, then
there's nothing surprising in him walking out to them on
the lake. The God who fed his people in the wilderness
was the same God who led them out of Egypt through the
waters of the Red Sea and through the Jordan into the
promised land. So too Jesus feeds his people and he comes
to them through the waters of the lake. |
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Our
passage finishes with the people flocking to see Jesus,
to be healed by him. This time however, there's no
mention of teaching or preaching. These people haven't
come to be disciples, they've simply come for healing.
These people needed to be healed and it seems that they
achieved that. But they needed much more than that didn't
they? They needed to hear of the salvation that Jesus was
bringing to the world. I wonder did they get this greater
need fulfilled. My guess is they didn't or Mark would
have mentioned it in some way. |
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Well,
this passage is almost a summary statement of Mark's
gospel to this point. The disciples are beginning to see
the truth of who Jesus is, but they're still far from a
full understanding, while the crowds continue to flock to
him because of what he can do, but with little or no
appreciation of who they're dealing with or of the true
source of his power. |
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What
we're left with from this passage is a challenge. The
same challenge in a sense that Jesus gave his disciples,
yet with a difference. The difference is that we have the
advantage of living after the resurrection. We've seen
the power of God at work in Jesus' death and
resurrection. That of course means we have no excuse when
it comes to believing in Jesus or trusting him to help
us. Because the challenge is to trust him despite our
outward circumstances. To believe that he can do what
appears to be humanly impossible. To go ahead when he
tells us to preach the gospel to all people, even when we
feel like we haven't got the energy or the resources to
succeed. I think the tasks we've set ourselves as a
congregation are way beyond us. Yet I believe that those
things will all be achieved if we commit them to God and
ask for his help to achieve them. That's the challenge
for us. Do we believe that his strength is made perfect
in our weakness? Do we believe that God is with us even
to the ends of the earth. Do we believe that God is with
us even in middle class, settled, and comfortable Wattle
Park. Or do we give up before we've even begun and send
everyone home to find their own spiritual food. Let's
continue to trust God and work hard as we wait to see
what he'll accomplish through us. |
