December 2, 2005

TWELVE BASKETFULS LEFT OVER

Mark 6:30-56

Today, we are going to be looking at the second half of Mark chapter 6. We are looking at this entire chapter through the eyes of Jesus’ twelve disciples. As I mentioned last time, Jesus’ ministry ran on these parallel tracks of public ministry to the multitudes, and his more specific and sometimes private ministry of training his disciples. In this context, many of the miracles and even the teaching and public proclamations Jesus made served a dual purpose, with both a public proclamation purpose and a training purpose relative to the Twelve.

We come today to two more miracles. One was a very public miracle. The other was a very private one, done for the disciples alone. But we are going to look at both of the miracles primarily for their impact on the Twelve. When Jesus called the Twelve to follow him, we saw that he used the formula of a rabbi inviting students to join his traveling school. When these men accepted his invitation and followed him, they were enrolling in his school. Jesus now is training them by walking with them through a very specific curriculum. The fundamental content of the curriculum is faith. It is the answer to the question: Who is Jesus? And if he is who he claims to be, what are the implications of his identity?

The first miracle we are looking at is the one we read about in the Scripture reading this morning. It is the feeding of the five thousand. It is the only miracle that is recorded in all four of the Gospel accounts. What is Jesus teaching or demonstrating through this miracle? It is a miracle rich in significance. Looking at it through Mark’s Gospel and the impact on the Twelve, I think we need to look carefully at the way Mark introduces the story. Jesus has taken his disciples to try to get away for some rest and to be together to recover from their busy ministries as well as to take time to grieve and process the news of the death of John the Baptist. But their desire for a quiet retreat is frustrated when the people from the area recognize his boat, anticipate where he is going and run ahead of him, so that when they land, a large crowd has already gathered.

If I were going to give a title to this paragraph, I would call it, “Shepherd at Work.” Look at verse 34: When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Everything Jesus does in the rest of this paragraph is driven by that fundamental motive of compassion and by his own Shepherd’s heart.

The image of God as the Shepherd of Israel was clearly presented in the Old Testament. We see it in Psalm 80:1: Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock; you who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth…

In Isaiah 40:11: He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Again in Jeremiah 31:10b: He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.

This image of God as the Shepherd of Israel is then specifically related to the promised Messiah and his role among God’s people. We see this in Ezekiel 34:23: I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be the prince among them. Since David was long dead when this was written, it was a clear prophecy about the Son of David, the Messiah who will be the Shepherd of God’s people.

So when Jesus responds to the multitude with the compassion of a shepherd’s heart, he is responding consistently with the role that the Father has sent him to fulfill. His actions in the following verses portray this clearly. We know what the responsibilities of a shepherd were from another Old Testament passage that ironically lists the failures of a false shepherd in Israel. It is found in Zechariah 11:16: For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy…

Jesus as the True Shepherd not only has compassion on the flock, but he moves to meet their needs. He first of all provides their need for spiritual food. In Mark 6:34, at the end of the verse we read, So he began to teach them many things.

The account in Luke 9:11 tells us that he also healed all those who needed healing. So he “healed the injured.”

But then another crisis pressed in upon them. The hour grew late. They were in a remote area. The people had run, unprepared, to intercept Jesus. They didn’t have food with them. Now the problem of physical hunger became urgent. Jesus’ disciples wanted to send the crowd away. But Jesus, the True Shepherd, determines to feed his hungry flock. Jesus, by his actions that day, clearly reveals his compassionate heart and demonstrates his identity: I am the Great Shepherd.

But there is more here. You know the story, so well known to many of us from our earliest days in Sunday School: how he took the ingredients of a little boy’s lunch and used it to feed over 5000 people. He fed them with such abundance that not only were all satisfied, but there were 12 basketfuls of fragments left over.

What kind of miracle was this? It is clearly a miracle of creation. It is not creation “ex nihilo” or “out of nothing.” But it is a creation by which he took “little” and made it “much”. This is uncharted territory for Jesus’ disciples in their understanding of Jesus’ identity. They believed in him as Messiah. This was an early article of their faith when they decided to follow Jesus. But what kind of Messiah was he? He was not only a shepherd or compassionate leader in the model of King David. He was more. In the way he fed the people that day, Jesus made another statement to the crowd and to his disciples: I, the Great Shepherd, am also the Creator.

As I said before, this miracle was rich in meaning. It made Jesus hugely popular. We read in verse 45: Immediately, Jesus made his disciple get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. We know from John’s account that some in the crowd intended to come and make him king by force. It brought into focus the whole issue of what kind of Messiah or leader he would be and what kind of kingdom he had come to institute. The issue quickly became very controversial. We also know from John’s account that a crowd gathered around him the next day, anticipating another feast. This became the occasion for Jesus’ discourse in John 6, in which he declares himself to be the Bread of Life. But when Jesus made it clear that the real issue wasn’t about physical bread and more miracles, but rather about faith in himself as the One who “came down from heaven” many in the multitude, and even many who had counted themselves among his followers, “turned back and no longer followed him.”

But all of that is for another sermon and another day. Let’s come back to the impact of all this on the Twelve. Jesus sent them away in the boat. After dismissing the crowd, Jesus himself went up on the hillside to pray. In all the ferment of this critical episode in his ministry, Jesus takes time to pray and refocus his mind and will upon the will of his Father. While he is on the mountainside praying, his disciples are struggling. The wind was against them. They were straining on the oars, making little or no progress. A journey that should have taken only a couple hours drags on through the weary night into the wee hours of the morning. It was time for another lesson in their teaching curriculum. Jesus came to them, walking on the water.

Skeptics have tried every which way to find a naturalistic explanation for this event; he was walking on a sand bar, or on the shore and they just thought he was walking on the water. I prefer to believe what the Bible says. He walked “on the water”. His angle of travel was such that he would have passed by his disciples. When they saw him, they thought it was a ghost. They cried out in terror. Immediately, he spoke to them and said, “Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

What was the purpose of this miracle? Clearly it was directed at the disciples, because they were the only ones who witnessed it. It was part of their private curriculum. It was on this occasion that Peter walked on the water. It is interesting that Matthew records this, but Mark, who based his account on Peter’s experience, leaves it out. Maybe it was too personal, too private an experience in Peter’s mind, to be shared. But as a private miracle, what was Jesus trying to teach them? It is part of their faith curriculum. It is another revelation of his identity and the implications of who he was. It builds on the miracle they had just witnessed of the feeding of the 5000. The curriculum is cumulative. I am the Great Shepherd. I, the Great Shepherd, am also the Creator. Now he demonstrates: As the Creator, I am Lord over creation and the laws of nature. It was a clear demonstration of his Deity. “Yes, I am Messiah. And I am also God in the flesh.”

How did the disciples respond to their lesson that day? At the end of verse 51 we read: they were completely amazed. And then Mark adds: For they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

The word “understood” means literally “to put together”. That is what we do when we try to understand something, isn’t it? We try to put all the pieces together until they make sense. When we fail, we often say, “I just can’t put it all together.” That’s where the disciples were. They had the pieces. They just hadn’t put them all together to draw the right conclusions. The lesson of the loaves, that Jesus was the Creator, was not yet assimilated. Therefore they were unprepared for the truth that as the Creator, he was Lord over creation and the laws of nature. Their hearts were still too hard for this truth to penetrate and be assimilated.

Well, we’ll leave the disciples there for now. What about us? What can we learn from this account? When we become followers of Jesus, I believe we are all enrolled in his school. Just as it was for the Twelve, our curriculum is a faith curriculum. The primary question under study is, “Who is Jesus?” and the follow on question: “What are the implications of his identity?”

What are our study materials in Jesus’ school of faith? I believe there are two primary resources. The first is the Biblical record; the Gospel accounts; the accounts of the eye-witnesses who saw Jesus’ miracles and listened to his words. Jesus is not physically present on the earth today as he was in 30 AD. As John tells us in John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. For 33 years he lived among us, and people were privileged to “see his glory” and bear witness to his works. As John says in John 1:18: No one has ever seen God, but God, the One and Only…has made him known. And so we study the accounts of his life. And from those accounts, we ask and answer the questions: Who is he? What are the implications of his identity? He fed 5000 people with a little boy’s lunch. What does that mean? He walked on water. What does that tell us about him? This is our first resource in our faith curriculum (hold up the Bible).

But there is a second one. That is our own life experience. This is a very personalized faith curriculum. In this curriculum, Jesus walks beside us through all the circumstances of our lives. He says to us repeatedly in the storms of our lives: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid. Do you know who I am? Trust me. I am your shepherd. I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Who is Jesus? What are the implications of his identity? The key is to take the truths contained in this resource (the Bible) and apply them to the second data source of our life experience and “put it all together.” That is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. That is what it means to “walk by faith.”