Reflection on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

 

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

When Jesus sends his disciples out to teach and heal, they minister among large numbers of people. Their work is motivated by Christ’s desire to be among those in need.

³⁰ The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹ He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. ³² And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³ Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴ As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

  ⁵³ When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. ⁵⁴ When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, ⁵⁵ and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Reflection

“I have no idea what to do!” he said, turning and exiting violently through the door.  The man was normally even tempered, but this was at the end of weeks and weeks of unending work and demand for his attention.  His brain was fried.  He could no longer make even the easiest of decisions.  “What do you want from Dunkin?” his wife asked that morning.  He did not know.  “Get me whatever you want, I don’t know,” he said a little too annoyed…a little too on edge.

As he sat in his desk at work, the man’s supervisor came to stand in front of his desk, looked him square in the eyes and said, “Your little outburst back there has led me to one conclusion.  You need to take the week off.  You need a vacation.  Go.”

When the man tried to protest, the supervisor stated it again as a plain fact, “You need to rest.”

It was not a reprimand.  It was a gift.  Everyone needs to rest.  Everyone needs to clear their mind and get it grounded once again.  Even God rested on the seventh day after creating the world.  Even God gets tired.  I imagine that even God starts to make mistakes when too tired.  How else do you explain giraffes and mosquitoes?  I just know when I get to heaven and ask “Why the mosquitoes?” God is going to say, “You try creating an entire universe!”

The Bible tells us that “on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:2).  God needed rest, and so do we.

And, so do the apostles.  They had just returned from the hard work of visiting stranger’s homes and figuring out ways to preach to them the good news of the kingdom; they had just returned from allowing oil to drip on people’s heads and instantly seeing their broken limbs heal and the milky eyes of the blind clear; they had just returned from the hard work of sitting with those who are not right in the head, and then discovering that they could cast out the debilitating demons, trusting that the power of Jesus’ name would accomplish it; they had just returned from doing all of this when Jesus rewards them and invites them to “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). 

“Come away to a deserted place,” Jesus invites.  In the Greek Jesus is actually inviting the apostles to “Come away into the wilderness” in order to rest.  And, that is so curious to me, because as a good buddy’s wife once informed him after he made the arrangements for their summer vacation, “The wilderness is not a spa.” 

She said that as they left for their vacation.  “The wilderness is not a spa.”  Except she did not say it a nice as I did, and she did not say it without swear words.

Apparently, hiking twelve miles in the wilderness, slathered in sunscreen and bug spray, was not on his wife’s list of top destinations for rest and relaxation.  As you can sympathize, there is no one to provide room service in the wilderness.  No one will rub the tension out of your back as you cut your way through the thickets of the wilderness.  There are no massages in the wilderness, unless you consider the work of a colony of mosquitoes to be a multi-therapist full body massage.  I will agree with her that the wilderness is not the first place most people envision when asking their husband to book a place where they can “rest.”

But, it is the place that Jesus invites his followers to go in order to find rest.  Do you not find that curious?  What is it about the wild chaos of the wilderness that Jesus finds particularly restorative?

Remember that Jesus says, “Come away to the wilderness all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).  And, the first thing that catches my attention in this command is the “all by yourselves” part.  The reason that particular phrase catches my attention just might be because I was in a house with four active and loud children while writing this sermon.  The “all by yourselves” part was really calling out to me.  I remember in ancient history, way back in the past, a time when I was able to sit and read a book, alone, in the quiet.  I remember when I could take a nap and not be awoken by, “She took my snack!”  “You said that I could.”  “No, I told her that she couldn’t take it and then she took it!”  I remember when I could go into the bathroom and be alone…actually alone in the bathroom.  Oh, the wilderness just keeps looking more and more like a spa, does it not?

But, that is just my own life influencing how I read the Bible.  I do not think that Jesus is talking at all about the annoyances of life when he mentions going into the wilderness. 

Rather, I think that Jesus has in mind that gift of bread, which floated down in little flakes and filled the bellies of the hungry and wandering Israelites; a gift of God in the wilderness.  I think that Jesus has in mind how those same Israelites only learned to trust God, and God alone, when they were helpless, searching for water in the dry wilderness.  I think that Jesus wants his apostles, more than anything, after tiring from a lot of work, to take some time to center themselves in God once again.  The busyness of life can so easily distract us from God and what God desires.  Life can become distracting and tiresome, even when you are doing God’s work.

Is that not why our minds get so flustered and discombobulated when we are busy?  Is that not why we start making really, really simple and dumb mistakes when we are plowed under in the busyness of life?  Is that not why the busiest and most hectic of times in life are when the bad choices in life are made?  Affairs, substances, withdrawing from things that bring joy, withdrawing from God, these all usually can find a root in a profound lack of rest. Ask any therapist and they will tell you again and again that they see all of these problems stemming from a profound lack of rest.  God is the one who told us that we need to rest.  All of these problems can find a root in a profound lack of trust in God.

Jesus does not want this for us.  Jesus goes out of his way to invite us to rest.  You are invited to go into the wilderness where you have no choice but to trust in God, and find some rest away from the world.  Jesus gives you the gift of a type of wilderness rest where you can finally learn about your place in God’s world once again.  “Come away to the wilderness all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). 

And, that would be a lovely ending to a sermon, would it not?  I could release you all from here, telling you to find a place of rest in the wilderness of these Pennsylvania mountains so that you might learn to trust God once again.  Then you would go off for a while and be restored.  “Amen, go in peace, find your rest” I could say right now, but I will not.  As much as I want that for each of us, and I truly do want that for each of us, myself included, Jesus wants you to know just one more thing before you go.

It is the same truth that I learned while on vacation twenty-three years ago.  Randele and I were taking a break from studying and working and had gone on a trip to a lake in the desolate sand hills of western Nebraska.  While wandering from our campsite, down to the edge of the lake to soak up some sun and rest, I heard a young voice say, “How are you mister?”

I was shocked.  Number one, twenty-three years ago I was not a “mister.”  Number two, I was there to rest.  But, an elementary aged girl sat down next to me anyway.  I guess God was just trying to prepare me for the rest of my life; no peace and quiet.  She jabbered on about nothing for a while, and I just nodded in silent agreement, trying to wish her away, when she suddenly started telling stories about the kind of abuse that she had suffered at the hands of her mother’s various boyfriends.  They were not stories of the worst kinds of abuse, but they were stories of complete indifference to her and rude comments designed to drive her away so that the mother and her boyfriend could exist in a world without the likes of her.  It had to be true.  How else did she end up sitting by the edge of a lake, talking with a complete stranger?

As I was wishing to be alone, was I quietly wishing the same as her mother’s boyfriends?  Was I just prolonging the general desire that she go away? 

As God allowed this to dawn upon me, I sat up and listened while she told her story.  I wondered, has anyone else had ever taken the time to listen to her story before?  And, while she talked, Jesus created in my heart a gift that overcomes our personal annoyances and selfish desires.  That gift is called, “compassion.”  Suddenly, I was looking upon this young girl with compassion.

Compassion.

Compassion is the type of grace that teaches us to care deeply about others.  Compassion is the type of grace that Jesus shows when he and the disciples arrive in the wilderness to get their rest, but rather than finding isolation they are encountered by an abundance of people in desperate need.  Mark tells the story:

“And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.  Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.  As [Jesus] went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mark 6:32-34).

All of this makes sense.  If our intentional time in the wilderness is supposed to restore us and, once again allow us to trust God and care about all that God cares about, then it makes perfect sense that while in the wilderness Jesus will remind us how to show compassion.  It makes sense that a bunch of people will be there in need of a compassionate shepherd.  It makes sense that a little girl will be there, needing someone to listen and prove that she is worthy of love.  It makes sense that our wilderness rest is so much more than a day at the spa, rather it is a day of being drenched by Jesus with the waters of compassion.

Go ahead, take a vacation into the wilderness.  Learn how to trust Jesus once again.  But, do not be surprised if you find someone there.  Learn, as if for the first time, just how essential compassion is for our lives.  Find your rest in the grace and compassion of Jesus Christ our savior.