Mark: The Right Now Gospel

Pt. 11

“Miraculous Feeding and Jesus Walks on Water”

Mark 6: 30-32 “Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, ‘Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.”

Here we see the importance of rest. Jesus is essentially saying to his disciples, “Come apart to a desert place before you come apart.” As the great preacher Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength. In the long run we shall do more by sometimes doing less.” The wise Christian worker will establish a healthy cycle of work, fun, and rest to avoid burn out!

But their rest was short lived:

33 “But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.”

Rather than being irritated with the persistent crowd, Jesus was “moved with compassion.” Eleven times in the gospels we read of Jesus being “moved with compassion,” and it almost always preceded him doing a miracle on behalf of those he had compassion on. Interestingly, the Bible couples faith and love working together.

“For [if we are] in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but only faith activated and expressed and working through love.”–Gal 5:6

It is when we are “moved with compassion” that an extra edge is added to our faith on behalf of others!

Feeding the Five Thousand

35 “When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. 36 Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”

37 But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.”

Now, the Lord knew that the disciples would not have a clue as to how to feed the vast multitude of thousands. Any time the Lord directs his children to do something impossible, he is about to show his supernatural provision. The disciples responded:

And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”

38 But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

Tell me, says Jesus, what you have to work with. And it wasn’t much. In fact, it was a ridiculous and paltry amount compared to the vast need!

And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

39 “Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties. 41 And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all.”

Now notice what Jesus did. First, he PREPARED the crowd for a miracle by placing them in groups. Then he TOOK, BLESSED, BROKE, AND GAVE. It turns out that this was a pattern with the Lord. When instituting the first Lord’s supper, it says that “Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples.”

What can we learn from this? It says that for something or someone to ever be useful to the Lord, it must first be given to Him. He TAKES it. Then having TAKEN it, he BLESSES it. Then having BLESSED it, He BREAKS it in that it becomes pliable in his hands. And having TAKEN it, BLESSED it, and BROKEN it, He GIVES it, uses it to feed and minister to others.

Is this not in a very real sense what he does with us? We come to the Cross, repent, and give our lives to Him wherein he TAKES us. And having TAKEN us he BLESSES us with the blessings of salvation. And having TAKEN and BLESSED us, he BREAKS our strong self will so that we are submitted to his lordship. And finally, having TAKEN, and BLESSED, and BROKEN us, he uses our lives to bless and feed and reach others with the good news!

It says:

 42 “So they all ate and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish. 44 Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men.”

Now, this feeding of the multitude is a miracle that will be mentioned again by Mark as something the disciples did not fully understand, as we’re about to see.

Jesus Walks on the Sea

45 Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away. 46 And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray. 47 Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He was alone on the land. 48 Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them.”

Now remember, it was Jesus that commanded them into the boat to sail across the sea to Bethsaida. And when the disciples reach the halfway point, in the middle of the sea, a strong, resisting wind began to push against them. We see in the gospels that the disciples experienced two crises while at sea. One was a sudden, overwhelming storm. The other this crisis–rowing and getting nowhere. Fighting a stubborn, resisting wind that was preventing them from getting where the Lord told them to go.

It says that Jesus saw all of this from the mountain where he had gone to pray. He saw them “straining at rowing.” The word ‘straining’ here is strong–βασανίζω, (bas-an-id’-zo). It means tormented, tortured, battered, vexed, in pain.

The disciples were at their wits end. They had no more strength left to row. Every pull of the oar was sending their muscles into agony. They would soon have had nothing left and been at the mercy of the wind. And that is when Jesus showed up in a miraculous way!

“Now about the fourth watch of the night (3-6 AM) He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by. 49 And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost (phantasma, apparition, a spectre) and cried out; 50 for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

Now, keep in mind everything the disciples have already seen Jesus do. In front of their very eyes he has cast out devils, healed desperately sick people, cleansed lepers, healed a paralyzed man, healed a withered hand, stopped a storm at sea by commanding the wind to stop blowing and the waves to stop rolling, raised a dead girl to life, and fed 5,000 people from five loaves of bread and two fish. And now, He’s defied gravity by walking on the water. But after everything they’d already witnessed, why were they still so shocked?

Mark comments on that very question:

51 “Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled. 52 For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.”

What does that mean? Well, they had not drawn from the miracle of the loaves the conclusion they should have–that all natural forces were subject to the Lord’s sovereignty. In other words, they were not quick learners. As the resurrected Jesus said to the 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus, “O foolish men, and slow of heart to trust and believe in everything that the prophets have spoken!”–Lk 24:25

__________________

Many Touch Him and Are Made Well

53 When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him, 55 ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick to wherever they heard He was. 56 Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.”

Now, a confession. In the account of the woman with the issue of blood, Mark clearly says she touched only his clothes. But Matthew says the hem. So when I taught it, I missed this because in all translations of Matthew 9 it says she touched the fringe. And the Greek word for fringe can also mean hem. So apparently she DID touch the hem!

And here also we are told that the sick made a point of touching the hem of his garment. Perhaps they had heard of the woman’s testimony and sought to do the same. The significance of the hem is found in Numbers 15:38-39,

“Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined…”

Now, the outer garment of the Jews was a four-cornered cloth, which was also used by the poor as a bedspread of sorts. It was slipped on over the person’s head with half covering the front and half the back. The tassels themselves were placed at each of the four corners. They were white with a blue thread wrapped around them.

The tassels were reminders of the commandments of God. They were not appointed for trimming and adorning their clothes, but to stir up their minds to remember that they were God’s covenant people.  If they were tempted to sin, the fringe would warn them not to break God’s commandments. And the beautiful blue thread was symbolic of heaven where God dwelt. So wearing the tassels is an OT picture of ever keeping the word of God fresh on your mind, and of God who dwells in heaven!