Mark 6

1. What is the background?

Jesus ministry thus far has been no smooth road for His followers.  The miracles and message He is preaching has been met with opposition and scorn.  They’ve been over the raging sea to lay it all on the line for one demon possessed gentile.  Everyone hears the same message and same parable, but there is a clear disctintion between those who do not.  Now Jesus has stirred the pot even more with His most recent miracle, raising the dead.  What manner of man is this?

2. What can we observe about God?

God does not play favorites, v1-6.

In our passage Jesus returns back to His earthly home among his own neighbors and relatives.  They did not respond to preaching in faith but rather rhetorical questions of rejection, v3.

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, an of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. And they were offended at him.

Their offense is a peculiar element I’ve witnessed elsewhere in human behavior.  They have become inoculated to the gospel message because of some sense of familiarity with the messenger. In this case, Jesus grew up in Nazareth as a child and so the feel like they enough knowledge to make judgment on Him.  In other words the same something in effect, “How can this be the power of God seeing we have known Him and His family since birth?”

The point of the matter is they did not choose to believe Him, even those who you might expect to be treated with privilege. Does not human beings often make special deals for their own family and kinsmen?  Might not Jesus use His power to benefit His closest relatives? No, God does not operate that way, but blesses those who respond to Him in faith.  The Gospel is the agent that separates God’s people from those who will reject Him.  Jesus is either the Rock that will crush God’s enemies or act the foundational stone of His church.

Elsewhere in the Bible we see God’s unbiased goodness particularly in Joshua chapters 1 through 6.  Joshua tells the story where Rahab who is accepted into the covenant of God though she has no bases for a claim seeing she was an outsider.  Contrarily Achan who is born Hebrews is outcasted and put to death because he and his family rejected God’s covenant.  The central issue in their story is belief in God.

God temporarily tolerates attacks against His kingdom as apart of His purpose,v7-30 .

Another scene opens up in chapter six when Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the gospel of God’s kingdom.  They are being sent out to do as their Master has done, v12-13.

And they wen tout, and preach that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anoined with oil many that were sick, and healed them.

The scene is interrupted with a violent scene that depicts the beheading of one of the Kingdom beloved heralds, John the Baptist.  Details are given to his demise, but at the end the initial scene resumes again with the disciples returning to Jesus to report what God has done through them.  They are excited as they performed miracles and did what they have been seeing Jesus do.  The kingdom is hat hand.  But why the inserted scene of John the Baptist?

God does allow His Kingdom to suffer violence and that implication means followers of Jesus must further count the cost.  Is following Jesus and God’s kingdom truly worth it?  Would you continue to trust God even it if meant martyrdom and suffering?  Wouldn’t you be physically safer at home rather than preaching the gospel?  God would have you count the cost, because He does allow these attacks temporarily to take place.

This should not shock you about God, although the American culture in particular commonly proports that being in the center of God’s will means physical safety, the Bible assures us it does not.  Where in the Scriptures has God’s people never faced tribulation of some kind? Either because of their own sin or by the raging evil of the world, it has been common place for God’s people to temporarily be thwarted. Walking with God will mean testing and trials of all sorts.

Deuteronomy 8:2

² Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands.

As Deutermony 8:2 indicates, sometimes such trials are used by God improve the quality of our faith.  Those who value physical safety and living comfortably higher than knowing God will not walk the path of faith.  Instead they will accuse God of some sort of injustice and excuse their unbelief.  As the mixed multitude murmur against Moses and God, so do people today murmur against God when they see the atrocities that exist in the world.  God did spare them from going certain way that would lead them into imminent war and destroy their faith.

Exodus 13:17

¹⁷ And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:

What we can see in scriptures is God’s strategy with His people to allow His kingdom to be resisted for the purpose of growing their faith.  God’s people do not lose when they lose their life, but people lose when they reject God in unbelief.  What then can be so good about God that one would consider giving over one’s life to suffering and even possible martyrdom?

God provides for the needs of His kingdom, v32-52.

Jesus did not immediately usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom with His first coming.  That would have meant judgement for us all seeing all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Between Jesus’ first coming and second coming is a time period where the work of the Kingdom will continue in the current sinful condition of this world.  Here in this fallen world, it will be protested against, sometimes violently.  Because it is a work with opposing forces raging against it, it will suffer need, but that too God uses to qualify the faith of His Kingdom’s citizens as we see in this passage.  Because people have so adamantly went after Jesus, they have come to the point of their physical needs and God is going to provide.

It’s true if you follow Jesus you will wind up in situations far from what you expect and perhaps past the scope of what your able to plan for.  Isn’t that what we see with their meager rations of a few loaves and a bit of fish?  God knew the need would arise, but perhaps no one else could foresee the needs this day of following Jesus would give rise to.  Still the precedent has been set.  Jesus doesn’t send people home fasting, rather He commands His disciples to feed them with what they have, v.

He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes.

What could they do with this paltry sum?  Nothing apart from the power of God to bless.  God does bless and distributes the blessing through His chosen men. This is a detail worth observing if one is going to understand the kingdom of God.  People too often expect God to operate on someone else’s terms.  Why doesn’t He bless?  Perhaps He has and we just fail to understand where.  On this day, the blessing was distributed by the hands of the disciples and if one were to receive, they were to be seated in the order as Jesus commanded.  It would do no good to wander of into the desert in pursuit of one’s own path and then cry to God for help when He has already blessed Jesus and His disciples.

The same precedent would logically continue for us.  God is blessing and wants to bless.  He blesses His way according to His word. His blessing is concerned for the benefit of His kingdom, not ours. We cannot command the skies to open and demand the blessings of God to work in our own fashion.  But God on His own terms and His own goodness will distribute His blessing, particularly through His servants who are busy about gospel work.

In like manner the following scene illustrates a different kind of need and reveals the same truth we have seen Mark already explain.  As they cross the sea again their lives are in apparent danger from the storm.  They are confronted yet again with an opportunity to respond in faith or fear.  As their knowledge of who Jesus is still incomplete, they falter again sliding into fear. He passes by them on the water in the midst of the storm, something no human can do under their own power.  Their encounter with Jesus leaves them amazed and confused. What manner of man is this?  The answer is there, but their heart was still unable to receive it yet.

Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.

Have we not seen this before? Have we need seen God lead His people out into the desert place before and feed them with bread?

Exodus 16:15

¹⁵ And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.

Haven’t we seen the Lord pass by before in glory and majesty?

Exodus 33:22

²² And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:

Doesn’t this all seem very familiar? The bread, the sea, the storm? Or is your heart also hardened?

3. How is the passage is fulfilled in Jesus and the Gospel?

God does not play favorites because He has already chosen Jesus.

Ever since man left God’s presence in Genesis 3, nothing they tried ever availed themselves to God’s favor.  Every act of God to finally bring a people to Himself directed them to Jesus Christ who was chosen before the world was even created.

Ephesians 1:4

⁴ According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

There is never a question of whether God will accept someone based on who they are or what good things they have been able to do.  Since the foundation of the world, God has ordained and already made His choice to accept those who are in “him” that is Christ Jesus.

What manner of man is this?  This is He whom God has chosen to be the Savior and Judge of the world.

Psalm 2:12

¹²  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,

And ye perish from the way,

When his wrath is kindled but a little.

Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Jesus is either the rock that crushes and destroys or He is rock of salvation, a sure promise to stand on for eternal life.

Romans 9:33

³³ As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

It is He whom is the bread of life.  It does not matter what we possess or how much we possess, all that matters is have we given it all to Jesus in faith?  He is the Savior of what comes to Him in faith, have you given your heart wholly over to Him?

John 6:51

⁵¹ I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

In the midst of the need, Jesus is the great I AM.

If the allusions to the Old Testament didn’t make it obvious enough, then perhaps Jesus’ own world will draw the final picture of what He is saying about Himself. Αs Jesus “passed by” them, they feared and He encourages them by saying, “It is I”.  Such an allusion is unmistakingly a picture of the Great I AM who passed before Moses in all of His glory.   Jesus is walking as only God can walk in the midst of a tempeous storm.  The disciples would not be out there in this storm if it weren’t for Jesus command as Moses would not be leading God’s people through the wilderness if weren’t for God’s command.  But here is the picture.  God is human flesh leading His people through another saving exodus from their sin.  He feeds them in the wilderness and He sends them where there is need to preach the gospel.   Needs and storms arise but Jesus is in the midst of it and says, fear not, It is I.  Or as it is written in the original form “Εγω Είμι” (I am, in Greek, cf LLX Exodus 3:14)

Only a hard heart could fail to see it. But faith does not automatically spring about because you are in the same boat with Jesus, or because you have witnessed a miracle.  A daily decision to trust is a decision for today.  Faith is an attitude that is renewed everyday.  God is there to work in the hearts of His own to produce stronger faith as He is doing with His disciples.  Still we do well to do our part and incline our hearts to Jesus.  Not much makes sense in the midst of chaos.  The storm is above our ability, but the Lord Jesus is there, especially if the storm we find ourselves in to be the outcome of obeying His commands to cross the seas for the sake of the Gospel.

4. Application

Much of my anxiety is based in the unknown of the tempest ahead.  We are facing quarantine in Taiwan.  My mentor is heading to the hospital as I write this struggling to breath.  We all struggled to make proper decisions to worship the Lord on Sundays while being told to stay home.  The haters of God laugh us to scorn.  Our people have fallen ill because we chose to honor the Lord on His day.  We are leaving our comfortable country home to head to Taiwan where we do not know how Ian will fair in overseas education.  He does not speak Chinese, will he be able to manage?  I’ve experience panick attack before and I feel as though worrying about such things can easily trigger another.

I will look to the Lord who walks on the seas and commands the waves.  I have chosen in whom I will trust, it is He.  I will trust Him in life or in death, in the hospital bed, or on my couch.  He is the Lord who raises the dead.  All that I give Him, He transforms and uses for the kingdom, so I will give Him my anxieties too, my children, and the rest of my time left on this earth.