Compassion for These People

Mark 8:1-3 (NIV)
¹ During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said,
² "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.
³ If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance."

Jesus fed another large crowd not long ago in this Gospel. Two things were quite different in this case. Jesus brings up His concern for their hunger. Earlier the disciples had brought up the matter of feeding the crowd, urging Jesus to send them away to get food. Secondly, this time the crowd is made up of Gentiles, not Jews.

In these two accounts I believe the message is that Jesus came to feed and bring the Gospel to everyone, not just the Jews. The good news is for everyone. The disciples would have naturally been more concerned with their own people. Were they not chosen by God Himself? Here Jesus makes a statement that speaks to all people and of why He came.

He tells them, “I have compassion for these people;”

You and I are included
His love endures forever

Where Are You?

Genesis 3:8-9 (NIV)
⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
⁹ But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"

God comes to the place where He expects to find the man, but the man and his wife are not there. Instead of joyfully receiving His Company in the cool of the day, they flee His presence and hide behind the trees in the garden. Disobedience has brought guilt, fear, and shame.

God called out, “Where are you?”

He came again in the man Jesus. He did not come to the place we should be, but where we are, in a fallen world subject to the heat of sin and disobedience. He calls to us with His offer of our return to the garden. His peace and forgiveness are before us. The question is the same:

"Where are you?"

Beloved, Be Love

The essence of Christianity can be summed up:

Love and be loved
To God be the glory

Giving and receiving love
Are two sides of the same thing
One does not exist without the other
In love we are one
With God and with one another
His love endures forever
In this we have life

Our Resting Place

Psalms 62:5-8 (NIV)
⁵ Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.
⁶ He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
⁷ My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
⁸ Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Selah

Psalms 62:5-8 (MSG)
⁵ God, the one and only— I'll wait as long as he says. Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not?
⁶ He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, An impregnable castle: I'm set for life.
⁷ My help and glory are in God —granite-strength and safe-harbor-God—
⁸ So trust him absolutely, people; lay your lives on the line for him. God is a safe place to be.

Our rest is in Him
Our life is in Him
As we pour out our hearts to Him
He pours in His love and Spirit
This is our rock and salvation
Our resting place
We with Him
He in us

Now We Can Get There

Mark 7:20-23 (NIV)
²⁰ He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.'
²¹ For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
²² greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
²³ All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"

Mark 7:20-23 (MSG)
²⁰ He went on: "It's what comes out of a person that pollutes:
²¹ obscenities, lusts, thefts, murders, adulteries,
²² greed, depravity, deceptive dealings, carousing, mean looks, slander, arrogance, foolishness—
²³ all these are vomit from the heart. There is the source of your pollution."

Jesus is responding to a question of what makes a man acceptable to God. The teachers of the law are offended and complaining because the disciples are not following the traditions handed down from their elders. They are good at the form of the law, but not so good at the spirit of the law. Because the disciples have not properly washed, they see an unclean act. An unclean act makes one unacceptable to God, but they are not truly able to see.

Jesus corrects them. What makes a person unclean in God’s sight comes from the heart. We all have one and we are all capable of behaving in ways that remove us from God. It is the heart that God looks to and the heart that will be judged. If left on our own, our prospects are hopeless. We cannot get there from here.

The good news is that Jesus came that our hearts would be made clean and acceptable to God. What is impossible for us is accomplished by the Father’s will and the Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. Now there is a way to get there, only we start from a different place. When we put our faith in Jesus we are immediately brought close to God. The journey then is a walk with Him. Now we can get there.

Traditions of Men

Mark 7:5-9 (NIV)
⁵ So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"
⁶ He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
⁷ They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'
⁸ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
⁹ And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!

It is easy for our own thoughts and ways to become added to the Word of God. In the garden story, Eve adds to God’s command not to eat of a certain tree. She told the serpent that they were forbidden to touch it, which was not what God said. As the discussion continued, she was drawn away by words that appealed to her, but which took her focus from God to self. The result is a fallen world.

Jesus speaks harshly to these leaders of a faith that has been diluted and made useless. They have so embraced and elevated the words of man that they obscure the Word of God. They have traded the Holy for the mundane. The result is worship in vain.

The question for us is what are we holding on to? Are we holding hands with things of man and the world? Spending time in His Word will allow for closer walk with Him. The result will be a heart closer to God. That is one tradition worthy of keeping.

May God richly bless you

How Many Loaves Do You Have?

Mark 6:35-43 (NIV)
³⁵ By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. "This is a remote place," they said, "and it's already very late.
³⁶ Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat."
³⁷ But he answered, "You give them something to eat." They said to him, "That would take eight months of a man's wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"
³⁸ "How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see." When they found out, they said, "Five--and two fish."
³⁹ Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.
⁴⁰ So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.
⁴¹ Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.
⁴² They all ate and were satisfied,
⁴³ and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.

Jesus continues to teach the disciples. He feeds a large group of people with very little, a miracle which speaks of the sufficiency of God; the One Who can do all things. Remember that Jesus is teaching them a new way of thinking and seeing the world. It takes time.

They see a need and offer a solution that makes sense to them. Jesus replies in a way that confounds them. “You give them something to eat.” They immediately see their poverty and can’t see the abundance before them in the person of the Son of God. They don’t see a way. Jesus then asks them, “How many loaves do you have?”

He takes what they have, blesses and breaks the loaves, and gives them back to the disciples. He divides the fish as well. The disciples take the food from Jesus’ hand to set before the people. The people eat their fill and are satisfied. The disciples end with more than they started with, there is a basket full for each of them.

Jesus is able to use us in miraculous ways. If we give Him what we have, He does things which go beyond our expectation and imagination. He takes the little we have to accomplish His work. Not only does He multiply what is offered to feed the people, the ones who offer what they have end up with so much more. May this word dwell inside us all that we might be more ready to rightly answer when Jesus asks us: “How many loaves do you have?”