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Meditative Reflection
A Faith Mission

“They went out and preached that people should repent.” (Mk. 6:12)

It is of course interesting to note that Jesus would send out these twelve apostles at this time when they were still slow to understand or even hardened (Mk. 6:52) to preach the gospel of repentance and to perform miracles. It is even more perplexing to think that amongst them, even Judas was able to drive out demons.

With the earlier incident in Mark 5 concerning the demon-possessed man, we have come to understand that it is not how deep a biblical understanding we have that matters, but whether we have a genuine conversion experience for us to be able to bear witness to Christ. And, the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23 also explain why a person like Judas could perform miracles in His name.

These instructions by Jesus to these Twelve apostles bear continued significance to all who are sent by the Lord (hence the name, apostles) for the sake of spreading the gospel in that it is a faith mission. If we are sent by the Lord of the harvest, He will be responsible for our needs. Our task is to remain singularly focused on the mission given and to look to the Lord for all our needs, including our financial need.

Such is not the picture I see these days among some of the servants or would-be servants of the Lord—the constant bickering over money between pastors and the church, and the worries over fund-raising by would-be missionaries or seminary students. We are either being called and sent by the Lord or we are not. If we are, we should, as He said, “take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.” (Mk. 6:8).

The truth of the matter is God has not changed, nor has His faithfulness.

Meditative Reflection
The Abrupt End of John’s Ministry

We can say that the ministry of John the Baptist began with a bang. He appeared in the most unusual way—dressed in camel hair; ate locusts and wild honey; and drew large crowds, although he stationed himself far from the hustle and bustle of the marketplace. His preaching was so powerful that “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him” (Mk. 1:5), receiving his baptism of repentance. This even included many priests and Pharisees. (Matt. 3:7)

The impact of his ministry reached beyond the common folks and extended all the way to the palace of Herod. That was where he got into trouble. As he challenged the adulterous affair of this king (or rather governor), he was jailed. But his fame and ministry commanded such respect that King Herod did not dare touch him beyond having him jailed. But in a very sudden and dramatic turn, John died basically in the hands of a girl—the daughter of King Herod, over what appeared to be an innocent interlude of a wild party in the palace. Then this all-important prophet, the champion of the Messiah was gone. Just like that.

One has to wonder, “Why?”.  The end does not seem to befit the beginning!

The truth of the matter is, the end does befit the beginning, because John’s death is not “THE END” that we see at the end of a movie.

For one, the impact of his ministry continued. It was because of John that some of his disciples, like Peter and Andrew came to follow Christ. And, in the Book of Acts, we read that many of his disciples spread across Asia Minor and beyond and played an important part in the spread of the gospel.

What’s more—he will receive his crown before the throne of Christ in heaven. That “end’ will prove to be even greater than his beginning.

And, his death was perhaps an answer to his prayer that “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). Now with his death, the focus of the people, naturally would be on the One to whom he had born witness—“the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29).

In essence, his death shows nothing more than the fact that, as much as his death preceded that of Christ, he was following His footsteps after all.

Meditative Reflection
A Time to Rest?

The story of how the Twelve Apostles, after a wearied journey, excitedly gave their report of their first ministry to Jesus and how Jesus graciously invited them to a quiet place to rest only to be disrupted by the insensitive crowd, reminds me of a story told by Henri Nouwen (Guide to Prayer):

"Often we’re not as pressed for time as much as we feel we’re pressed for time. I remember several years ago becoming so pressed by the demands of teaching at Yale that I took a prayer sabbatical to the Trappist monastery at Geneseo, New York: No teaching, no lecturing, or counseling—just solitude and prayer.

"The second day, there was a group of students from Geneseo College. They walked in and asked, 'Henri, can you give us a retreat?'

"Of course at the monastery that was not my decision but I said to the Abbot, 'I came here from the university to get away from that type of thing. These students have asked for five meditations, an enormous amount of work and preparation. I don’t want to do it.'

"The abbot said, 'You are going to do it'.

" 'What do you mean? Why should I spend my sabbatical time preparing all those things?'

“ 'Prepared?' he replied, 'You’ve been a Christian for forty years and a priest for twenty, and a few high school students want to have a retreat. Why do you have to prepare? What those boys and girls want is to be a part of your life in God for a few days. If you pray half an hour in the morning, sing in our choir for an hour, and do your spiritual reading, you will have so much to say you could give ten retreats.'"

The question, you see, is not to prepare but to live in a state of ongoing preparedness so that, when someone who is drowning in the world comes into your world, you are ready to reach out and help. It may be at four o’clock, six o’clock, or nine o’clock. One time you call it preaching, the next time teaching, then counseling, or later administration. But let them be part of your life in God—that’s ministering.

Meditative Reflection
Care for the Total Person

“You give them something to eat.” (Mk. 6:37)

I believe Mark purposely sets the feeding of the 5,000 by Jesus against the backdrop of the end of an exhausting ministry, both by Jesus and the Twelve Apostles. But the contrast between Jesus and the Twelve cannot be clearer—while Jesus “had compassion on them” (Mk. 6:34), the apostles asked Jesus to “send them away” (Mk. 6:36).

Jesus cared not only about these people who were like “sheep without a shepherd”, but He was also concerned about the Twelve treating people like a “project”. The people had been taught, they had been healed, the ministry was over, and it was time to send them home.

Unfortunately, this is exactly how we treat people we seek to evangelize and serve. Once people have heard the message, once the meeting is over, our work is done. We are heading home!

But Jesus demands that we treat people as people, not as a project. The feeding of the 5,000 sends us a very important message and that is we need to shepherd not only their souls, but to care for them as a total person. The Great Commission certainly concerns soul saving, but the Bible never teaches us to approach people with a dualistic mindset separating the soul from the body. A person is a person who is made up of both his body and his soul. If we love their souls, we love them as a total person.

Meditative Reflection
The Long Road of Conversion

“They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.” (Mk. 6:51b-52)

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand has consistently been dismissed by liberal Christians. They opt to speculate that it was the generosity of those or someone who took the initiative to offer their food which in turn prompted the rest to give out what they had. This resulted in having enough food to satisfy the hunger of the five thousand.

Of course, such a dismissal simply reflects their “hardened hearts” in refusing to believe in miracles and to believe that Jesus is not a mere man, but the Son of God.

But Mark makes the same comment about the disciples, who were first-hand eyewitnesses of this miracle. It is obvious that these disciples could not deny that Jesus did perform this miracle, nor could they disbelieve in miracles, because they too have been empowered to perform miracles (Mk. 6:12-13). So, what was Mark referring to as he said that their hearts were hardened for they had not understood about the loaves?

These disciples who personally experienced the power given to them to perform miracles (likely in the name of Jesus), who were terrified at the sight of Jesus calming the sea (Mk. 4:41), who handled the five loaves and two fish with their own hands and saw how it was multiplied  enough to feed 5,000 people— these had to believe that Jesus was no ordinary man and they would, like most Jews at the time, consider Him to be at least a prophet (Mk. 6:15). But Jesus desires that they would recognize Him as more than a prophet, but the Son of God. This, presumably, had not been the case up to this point. At this point, they remained, like the liberals of our days, with hardened hearts.

But the Lord was patient with their disbelief and would continue to allow them to walk with Him, seeing, hearing and experiencing more of His teaching, His miraculous deeds and His life. Then finally their hearts were opened, and through the mouth of Peter, they acknowledged to Jesus, “You are the Christ.” (Mk. 8:29)

This reminds me of the conversion of Sally Read, a modern-day English poet, a winner of an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2001. She was also an atheist whose hardened heart led her to say that Christianity was a symptom of bigotry or feeble-mindedness. But her hard-heartedness began to be softened through the process of writing—a collection of monologues in the voices of psychiatric patients. In her own words, “in the usual tussle and pain of writerly creation I suddenly understood that my act of creating the voices of these damaged people was linked to an overarching creation. That there could be an ultimate author. The sky seemed to peel off a layer. I was full of a latent happiness I hardly dared interrogate.”

She began to half-heartedly attend church and at one such occasion, while looking at the cross, she felt the undisputable presence of Christ. She abandoned her atheism and turned to Christ. If I am not mistaken, this happened when she was 40.

Meditative Reflection
When Traditions Trump the Words of God

“You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions.” (Mk. 7:9)

I think most Christians would have heard of how the Jews of Jesus’ days turned the Law of Moses into many fine and external rules which if observed would gain one's righteousness. Lenski informs us that this was their halacha, the fence erected around the law, a total of “613 of them to which seven additional duties were added” (Lenski, Mark, 283).

These were oral traditions which were only written down in the third century after Christ, known as the Mishnah.

Some of these traditions bordered on the ridiculous and Jesus highlighted a few in Mark 7.

The first one deals with the washing of their hands before meal. While the spirit of the Leviticus law serves to remind them of the need to be holy before God, they have turned it into something rather bizarre. Mark describes their tradition of washing with their hands with their fist (the original Greek word in 7:3). Barclays tells us that this tradition is so “fine” that the hands had to “held with fingertips pointing upwards…and cleansed with the fist of the other”. In addition, Lightfoot tells us that if the water “had gone above the juncture of the arm” it would have contaminated the water itself, which could not be used for a second cleansing (of the other hand).

Mark also mentions their tradition of having to wash their whole body after they ventured into the marketplace, lest they had contact with the Gentiles or things that had been touched by the Gentiles.

The rules that govern the cleansing of utensils were just as ridiculous, as they made detailed distinctions concerning the rules governing vessels that were hollow versus flat, metal utensils versus wooden ones and three-legged tables versus flat boards.

Now, we can understand why Jesus was so indignant as He accused them quoting from Isaiah that, “They worship me in vain, their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (Mk. 7:7)

However, if we are being honest, we have to admit that we, too, have inherited the same legalistic mindset as we seek to worship and serve the house of God. Many still regard stained glass and pews as sacred as the words of God. I like stained glass, I like pews, and I even like kneeling pads in front of the pews. But, when it comes to worshipping God in truth and in spirit, I have to admit that they are still our own “traditions”, and not the “command of God" (Mk. 7:9).

Meditative Reflection
Search Me, O God

“All the evils come from inside and make a man unclean.” (Mk. 7:23)

As the Jews added many rules to the Law of Moses in an effort to bolster their sense of piety, we have seen that these rules (as summarized in the Mishnah), were merely external rules and regulations. They had utterly ignored what is inside their hearts. Therefore, as Jesus points out that nothing outside a man can make him unclean, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean, He purposely cites a list of “evils” in Mark 7:21-22. As much as we are reading the list as born-again believers, the list is still for us to examine our “inside”, to see if there are any offensive ways in us. Let’s use the lyrics of the following hymn (which is based on David’s prayer in Ps. 139:23-24) to search the inside of our hearts:

1
Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.

2
I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
Fulfill Thy word and make me pure within;
Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
Grant my desire to magnify Thy name.

3
Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine;
Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.

4
O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
Send a revival, start the work in me;
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.

(Search Me, O God by James E. Orr)