To Read Click Mark 6:30-34
- This Teaching episode of Jesus is sandwiched between two events
- The coming back of the 12 from their missionary journey successful yet tired.
- Jesus recognises this and wants them to rest
- And also help them understand all the wonders they have done on their missionary journey,
- In the correct way
- Lest they get carried away by pride or false understanding.
- The other end of the sandwich is the miracle of feeding the 5000.
- Where Jesus feeds the physical hunger of all those gathered.
- Just like God fed the hunger of the Israelites in the Sinai Dessert.
- The coming back of the 12 from their missionary journey successful yet tired.
- So what is it that is being taught here by Mark.
- Jesus’s zealousness for the kingdom
- He is mindful of the physical requirements under him
- (asking the 12 to go a lonely place, so they may rest)
- Yet he has invested his all, so he does not spare himself to go about the work God has asked him to do.
- Jesus will pass on this mantle to Peter in the episode of John 21:15-19
- “Feed my lambs.”
- “Tend my sheep.”
- “Feed my sheep.
- Jesus understood
- A boat without a rudder is directionless
- He was helping people to understand how to worship God
- In a proper spirit of charity/love
- With all their heart, might and strength
- With the proper understanding
- Yes the miracles drove people to chase Jesus all over the countryside
- But also his teachings/instructions
- Because the Gospels say
- He taught with great understand and insight (authority)
- Unlike any of the priests, scribes or pharisees of that time.
- Jesus’s zealousness for the kingdom
