BALANCE

THURSDAY AFTER SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

Today is Mark 6:3--44. Today we read of Jesus feeding the 5,000…and he is about to walk on water. All of this comes right after the disciples have returned from their first independent outing as disciples.

Miraculously feeding people is sometimes seen as Jesus having “something up his sleeve,” some sort of magic trick. People puzzle at it. Some even suggest that the crowd really had food, and Jesus just really encouraged them to share it. Some of you reading this blog may have even been subjected to sermons along these lines. Before I comment on what I think this text tells us Jesus is doing, let me ask a different question. What do you think the guy who wrote this Gospel, we call him Mark, what do you think he was trying to communicate? Now mind you, in a moment he is going to tell us Jesus walks on water, and he has already told us that Jesus heals people and casts out demons. When reading a book, we might first make sure we understand what the author is saying…before we choose to re-write it.

Mark is saying Jesus, as God come to earth, is carrying out an act of creation. In the beginning there was nothing—and from nothing God made everything. Whatever your theory of how the universe all came into being…the Bible says He is the source and force behind it all. Jesus demonstrates that he is able to create…Jesus is God.

Now having written all that, this bit of the feeding is not what caught my eye. What caught my eye were Jesus’ words, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest while.” He feeds the people because they find him, he feels for them, and he cares for them. Before all this he looks at his disciples, exuberant upon their return, and his first instinct is to take them to a desolate place and rest. I am really taken by that part—and even within it—the idea of a desolate place, there is probably no cell phone service.

Some of us need to go away, even if it is for a few hours, to a desolate place. Others of us might need some company and activity. It seems like the disciples have had plenty of activity and so now they need some balance…which side of this situation do you need more? Ask God for his help to provide it.