Mark 6:30-56 As we start this week’s study, we find the Apostles returning to Jesus after He sent them out in 2-man teams to spread the Gospel. They are reporting back on what they did and taught on this short missionary trip (verse 30). This was not a mission trip to some far off country but rather to the surrounding areas where Jesus was performing miracles. It is very easy to get so caught up in God’s work that you neglect to rest. Often pastors and others involved in full-time ministry get so busy that it becomes a 24/7 job. This results in burnout. Jesus is teaching His apostles to take time to rest from the work and to spend time alone with God, because He is the source of true rest (Mk 11:28). The origin of the Hebrew word transliterated as “shabbat” seems to mean to stop or cease. It is rooted in Gods rest following the six days of creation ( Gen 2:2-3 ). The noun form is used primarily to denote the seventh day of the week, though it may occasionally refer to the Sabbath week ( Lev 23:15-16 ) at the end of every seven Sabbaths, or the Sabbath year ( Lev 25:1-7 ) in which the land was to be at complete rest. On the seventh day, God rested as an example to man. We need to not only rest from our labors but to find our rest in God. Sometimes the Bible refers to a “desert place,” such as in Mark 6:31. This is desert in the sense of not being heavily populated rather than desert in the sense of a climate zone. We know this because in this desert place, the people sat down on green grass (Mark 6:39). Jesus doesn’t have His disciples go to the local spa or resort to rest. Rather, they are going to a place that is not busy or hectic. It is a place where they should be able to sit quietly and contemplate God. Many of us vacation in desert places. We call it camping, but camping isn’t about lying around. I’m not talking about pulling our self-contained motorhome into an improved RV park, but camping in the wilderness. There is a considerable amount of work involved. Wood needs to be gathered or cut for fires. Meals need to be prepared in less comfort than one’s home. Sleeping areas need to be prepared and latrines need to be dug. Despite all this extra work, we find peace and rest when we enter these types of quiet places. This is the type of rest Jesus is describing. Let’s go away from the crowds, where we can rest in God. Many people complain that modern life is far more hectic than life was years ago. Some people are moving away from the cities and back to the country trying to achieve peace in their lives. Many who live in rural areas still find that their lives are hectic. We can’t always drop everything and go backpacking in the mountains to find rest, but we need to find a place and time where we can be quiet and rest in God. How are you balancing the call from Jesus to serve God and others, and His reminder that all humans need rest? When Jesus tells the Apostles to feed the people, their response is “...Shall we go and buy two hundred shillings’ worth of bread, and give them to eat?” (Mark 6:37). Some translations say: “two hundred pennyworth” or “two hundred denarii.” Denarii is the proper translation and is the plural for of denarius, which was a Roman coin. In the parable given by Jesus in Matthew 20:1-16, He describes the day’s wages of the workers as “a denarius a day.” It is believed that this was the average daily wage of a soldier or a laborer. Therefore, in Mark 6:37, the Apostles are estimating that it would take more than half a year’s wages for a man just to buy bread for the crowd that followed Jesus. John 6:7 records Phillip explaining that even that amount of money would only give each man a little, clearly indicating it would not be enough to give them their fill. This amount if money does not include drink or meat but just bread, and Phillip thinks it is insufficient to even buy enough bread. If we just had Mark 6:44, it would not be clear whether the verse indicates that the number of people in the crowd was about 5,000 or that 5,000 was just the number of men in the crowd, not including in that number any women or children. This miracle is recorded in all four Gospels and Matthew includes the words “besides women and children” (Mat 14:21). If we add an average of one woman and one child per man, that gives us a crowd of about 15,000. It could have been smaller or larger, but that seems to be a fair estimate. It would take more than a 45’ long semi-trailer just to haul enough bread to give each person 1/3rd of a loaf to eat. They start with five loaves and two fishes. Mark 6:42 indicates that everyone ate until they were filled. They collected the leftovers after they ate, and it filled 12 baskets (Mark 6:43). A number of the miracles Jesus performs were performed by other prophets. In 2 Kings 4:42-44, we find Elisha performing a similar miracle. In Psalm 132:15, we have a prophecy about God’s provision, so one meaning of this miracle is that God is a God who provides. Remember God’s name/title Jehovah-Jireh (God who provides) from our study notes on Mark 5:21-43. Yet in John 6:6, Jesus mentions that he was just testing His disciples when He tells them to give the people something to eat and they are baffled how to accomplish such a task. Would the correct response to the test be for them to look to Jehovah-Jireh for that provision first? If you agree, then how should we respond to tests in our lives when the task seems impossibly large? After Jesus feeds the 5,000 and they pick up the 12 baskets of leftovers, we see Mark recording the miracle of Jesus walking on water, and then suddenly verses 51 and 52 indicate that after seeing this walking on water, they were amazed because they didn’t understand the miracle of the fishes and loaves. Mark 8:1-21 records a second incident where Jesus feeds 4,000 with 7 loaves of bread and has 7 baskets left over, and Mark says they don’t understand the meaning. I will wait unto chapter 8 to discuss that meaning further. Does this show the ability of God to not only just meet our needs but to provide in abundance? When the Bible says that they thought Jesus was a ghost or spirit (Mark 6:49), the word is Strong’s word #G5326 “phantasm,” which might better be translated as an apparition or appearance. A number of scholars see this as an indication that the Apostles are seeing Jesus for the first time as a divine person rather than as a holy man. He has healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the multitude, but now walking on water they start thinking He is more than just a man. If the scholars are correct and His Apostles are just starting to see Jesus for who He really is, the people seem to be understanding that as well. When Jesus arrives on the shore, it says that the people knew Him and knew that He could heal them. Jesus can heal you from sin, which causes death. Will you go to the one you know can heal you, or cower in fear because of the storms of this life?
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 17:21:54 +0000
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