These are Jesus’ instructions “Take nothing for the journey except a staff - no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the that town” Mark 6v8-10. The items mentioned vary in the gospels, but that isn’t what matters. What it’s basically saying is that this message is so urgent that you don’t need to worry about where your staying, what you’ll eat or wear! The business of evangelism is that of life and death. Taking nothing with us means that this mission takes faith, these verses are focused on looking out not in at ourselves.
John the baptist beheaded
Well the title of this passage tells you exactly what happens, John is beheaded because the daughter of Herodius asks the king to bring John’s head to her on a platter. The king arranges the beheading and John is murdered. John was a humble leader who could of taken the glory but He always brings it back to Jesus. What a great role model for Christians today! This is reflected back in chapter one, where John says “After me wil come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie” Mark 1v7. It’s interesting to see what happens for John. He’s probably one of the first martyrs in the Bible and I wonder how he expected his life to end? As John arrived and ushered in the ministry of Jesus, pehaps his death is a sign of things to come. Sometimes as Christians we expect a good outcome, and aim for success but things don’t always work out how we expected them to.
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
This passage starts out fairly normally with Jesus is with the disciples, and a large crowd joins them. It says “when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd , he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things” (Mark 6v34). As the people had been there all day and they were hungry the disciples mention to Jesus that the crowd are hungry and need food. Jesus replies ” You give them something to eat” (Mark 6v37). The disciples as usual panic and say something along the lines of how will we do it, it’ll cost a nearly a years wages! Here they show their lack of faith and belief in Jesus’ authority..all they can see is a few loaves and a few fishes and five thousand hungry people! Does this scenario remind you of yourself? Time and time agin God does something in our lives and it’s a miracle - but doubt creeps in and our memories are just too short! Jesus gives thanks to God and provides! To reinforce this miracle it happens again in Mark 8 but this time its four thousand people! Ultimately, one of the things that stands out to me is that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and the disciples, this is the same compassion that he shows us on a daily basis.
Jesus walks on water
After Jesus has fed all of the crowd, He retreats for a time of prayer on the hillside. Later, as darkness falls, Jesus spots the disciples having difficulty in the boat on the lake. He goes to help them and walks out onto the lake, directly towards them. What do the disciples do? They panic, they cried like babies! They are afraid. Jesus said “Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Mark 6v50.) The miracles that have happened before, just don’t seem to have registered. I’m not knocking the disciples becasue I am a modern day disciple, with the same short memory and lack of faith!
