Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
“Vacation”
July 22, 2012 - Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

         As soon as this sermon is over, I’m going to walk out the door and run to catch a plane. Let me assure you that I am deeply aware of the irony of what I’m doing on the same morning that I am called to preach this text and this message. Before I rush off to a week filled with teaching responsibilities and no day off, I’m going to try and talk to you about the importance of taking breaks, just like Jesus wanted for His disciples.

         You heard a similar irony in the text, because Mark tells us how Jesus’ own plan for a much-needed break for His disciples was frustrated by the crowds that gathered around them. As we discovered last week, verse 30 is the completion of another of Mark’s story sandwiches. Two weeks ago we watched Jesus send out His disciples on a mission of teaching and healing in chapter 7 to 13. Then last Sunday we found the long story of the death of John the Baptist sandwiched in between their sending and their return in verse 30.

         We heard last week that Mark was showing us, with a graphic example, that following the Lord is a hard and dangerous business. Jesus told the disciples they might be rejected in some places. Then Mark reminded us that the man who went before Jesus, John the Baptist, was not only rejected but beheaded.

         As our text for today opens in verse 30, read between the lines. The disciples are coming back to Jesus full of excitement, to be sure. They were ready to tell Him, as it says, “all that they had done and taught.” But remember this was no college road trip on which Jesus sent them. Verses 8 and 9 ordered them to take only the lightest clothing and absolutely no food along. Verse 11 gave them directions for what to do when a town would not welcome them.

         So we have to imagine that these men came back from their travels like Timothy and Gabe are coming back from CHIC, our Covenant youth gathering in Tennessee. They were excited, but exhausted. Our boys are probably going to have at least a couple days of sleeping late and filling up on their favorite foods at home. Jesus’ plan for His followers was another kind of break, a time away from the people they’d been sent to serve. In verse 31 we read, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest awhile.”

         Note what Jesus did not say. Unlike a manager or a coach in our fast-paced, overstressed time, He did not turn His response to their report into a pep talk for their next journey. There was no, “Way to go, guys! Now, the next time around, see if you can’t hit five more towns than you did last time,” or “Great work on those demons, but I’m sure with just a little more prayer you can up your exorcisms by ten percent!” No, Jesus heard His disciples’ excited, exhausted report, and immediately prescribed a time of rest.

         Forget about what happened for a moment. Forget that the divine vacation plan was frustrated by the circumstances, by the crowds that kept showing up. Just focus on the fact that Jesus was inviting His disciples, and I think inviting us, into a key spiritual rhythm. Work, then rest. We talked about it a few months ago in terms of the Sabbath. God built that rhythm into creation. We were made, created, to work for awhile and then to rest for awhile just like Jesus wanted for His apostles.

         It doesn’t matter how important the work is or how much we might be helping others. We still need to rest. They needed to rest. One basic fact of spiritual life is that you can’t give somebody else what you don’t have. If your own spirit is worn out and depleted from constant effort, then you won’t have much to offer anyone else to whom you might want to minister.

         But if your batteries are recharged, if you’ve spent some quiet time alone with God and with His Word, if you’ve accepted Jesus’ invitation to come away with Him and rest for awhile, then you just might then have a word, a helping hand, a prayer, even a miracle to offer to someone else.

         On the fourth of July, as we enjoyed a national holiday, there were a few news stories speculating about where the presidential candidates might take their vacations this summer. The point was that, for both president Obama and contender Mitt Romney, it would not look good to take their usual comfortable vacations in nice places. Whether it’s the president teeing off on Martha’s Vineyard or Romney jet skiing with his wife at their vacation home in New Hampshire, should the leaders of our country really be playing around when the economy is so bad and they are in the middle of a heated election?

         I’m sorry, but whoever it is, I’d like us to have a leader who gets the spiritual principle that Jesus understood for Himself and His disciples. A president who never rests, no matter how much good is accomplished, is not a good president. Likewise for all of us. A Christian who never rests, even if she’s preaching the Gospel and feeding the hungry, a Christian who never rests is not a good Christian.

         Having said all that, we have to face the fact that in our text, at this particular moment in the ministry of Jesus, their vacation plans were ruined. Verse 32 tells us that Jesus and the disciples set out. They took the boat and headed for some quiet, deserted place across the lake. The problem in verse 33 is that the crowds saw them launch and followed. While the apostles are rowing across the water, the people are running around the shore. So when they get to their retreat spot, they discover that the people have “arrived ahead of them.”

         You can imagine the frustrated groans of the disciples as they are drawing near to the shore. They were anticipating a quiet chat with Jesus around a campfire and a good night’s sleep. Then they spot thousands of people lined up on the beach, carrying their sick, waving their hands, just hoping to get close to them.

         We might think that Jesus had to make a major mental shift at this point. He was anticipating some downtime, but now it’s right back to work. But the truth is Jesus’ response to the crowd is in exactly the same mode as His response to His disciples. The key is there in verse 34. When he saw the crowd, Mark says, “he had compassion for them.”

         The compassion of Jesus is what this text is all about. It was compassion for His men that motivated Jesus to lead them off for their needed break. And it was compassion for all people that motivated Him to set those plans aside for the time being and minister to the needs He saw spread out in front of Him.

         It’s that compassion of Jesus which connects this text with our Psalm and Old Testament reading today, because we’re told that Jesus saw the crowd and “they were like sheep without a shepherd.” We heard Jeremiah 23:1 declaring the Lord’s woe to the bad “shepherds,” the leaders of Israel who were destroying and scattering the flock of God’s people. He gives the prophetic promise of good shepherds, of a Good Shepherd, who will gather and care for His flock, His people.

         The image, then, is of a restless flock of sheep, sheep with no good pasture, sheep who keep wandering around trying to find food and safety and rest. With the same shepherd’s compassion that wanted rest for His little flock of twelve apostles, Jesus felt the same need of rest for the larger flock of the crowds who restlessly followed Him, looking for their own good pasture in which to stop and rest awhile.

         To say it again and make it clear, just run through the beginning of that wonderful, comforting, familiar psalm we said together today. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” Then the absolutely first thing the Shepherd does is, “He makes me like down in green pastures.” “He makes me lie down,” He makes me rest. That’s the Good Shepherd at work in our lives, to bring us rest, to bring us peace in which we can lie down quietly and rest for awhile. That’s what Jesus looking out over that crowd by the Sea of Galilee wanted for all of them.

         Notice, though, what Jesus’ immediate response is to the crowd in verse 34. You can be sure, as I said, that they had brought their sick folk along. There had to have been some who were demon-possessed who needed to be delivered. As we see very soon in the text, they were hungry. But the very first response of Jesus was, “he began to teach them many things.”

         Jesus the Good Shepherd knew the physical needs of the people. He knew the very tangible hunger that they would soon be feeling in their stomachs. But He began, first and foremost, to teach them. He knew that their need for rest and food was not all physical, but that it was mostly spiritual.

         I hope I’m not talking too much about politics today, but that focus of Jesus is something we need to remember today in America. The media and the pundits keep telling us “it’s all about the economy,” it’s all about our material needs and how well those will be met and nurtured by the leaders we elect. Yet the Lord understood that it is not all about an economy, not all about jobs and housing and food. First, there is a spiritual hunger which needs to be fed by the teaching of Jesus, by His message of God’s forgiveness for us and our own forgiveness of each other.

         Jesus starting out with teaching the crowd had a side benefit. The disciples were able to get at least some of the rest they needed. They sat down in the back of the crowd and dozed off, like students in a class they’ve already had before. That fits with the facts in verse 35, where we’re told that they “…came to him…” They had gone off somewhere to take a nap and then as it grew late, they came back.

         The disciples came back reminding Jesus of the physical needs of the crowd. Send all these people away to find something to eat. And we know that Jesus then responded to the physical as well as the spiritual need. He took the little bit of food available and miraculously transformed it into a meal for thousands. But because of the way the lectionary is arranged, we’re going to skip that particular story today. In fact we’re going to skip Mark’s version of it altogether. Next Sunday we’ll start studying in John chapter 6 for several weeks to hear John’s longer account of the feeding of the five thousand and the spiritual significance of that miracle.

         So our text today skips the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and it skips the story of Jesus walking on the water in verses 45 to 52. We’ll read that too from John’s gospel. But I will note that in verse 46, Jesus Himself finally got a chance to be alone, to rest and pray. What was good for His disciples and the crowd, was good for Him as well. But now we jump down to verses 53 to 56 where we find the same story happening all over again.

         Get the picture here. Jesus and His disciples are crossing back and forth across a big lake, the inland Sea of Galilee. They seem to be doing most of this at the north end. The feeding of the five thousand was somewhere along the northwest coast. Then in verse 45 Jesus sent the disciples east along the north coast to Bethsaida on the east side. Now in verse 53, it’s not clear just how exactly, perhaps the storm blew them off course, but they land near Gennesaret which is back on the west side, farther south.

         In any case, just like before, they are mobbed again in verses 54 and 55. The news spreads and soon the whole region is coming to Jesus, carrying sick people on mats so they can be healed. In verse 56 we see Jesus traveling around, to villages, cities and farms, so that people might be able to touch Him and be healed.

         This is way worse than any candidate’s campaign schedule. There is hardly a moment’s peace. There is human sickness and suffering wherever the Good Shepherd turns. I asked one of our doctors to contemplate what the patient load would be if the word got out that everyone who came to you was healed! Jesus responded to every bit of it. Our text finishes by saying that they were content to even touch “the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”

         Jesus was surrounded by all the sheep who needed His help, all the agonizing, crying, desperate human need of His time. It would have been staggering, exhausting, overwhelming. No wonder He and the disciples needed a vacation.

         Even without the miraculous power of Jesus, we who follow Jesus find the needs around us overwhelming. Yes, the number of poor and homeless seems to be growing, but as Jesus told us, the poor have and will be always with us. We open our building to house some of them when it gets cold. We give offerings to feed the hungry in places like Haiti and Sudan. We open our hearts and wallets for people close to us like baby Zeke. And if we stop to ponder all the needs, it seems overpowering, impossible. There is so much need and we have only so much energy and resources. If we try to help everyone, we will only end up worn out and depleted and the needs will still be there.

         Realizing all that is exactly when we need to go back to the heart and center of this text, to the heart and center of our faith. We have a Good Shepherd who would have us lie down in green pastures. If we follow Him well, we’ll join Him in caring for all the restless sheep who also need to find those pastures. But in the end, He is the Shepherd. It is His compassion, His teaching which will save the world, not our hard work.

         So this morning, I invite you to think about all the needs, and all the ways you can do good work for Jesus. He’s sending you out like He sent out the disciples to share the good news and bring help where it’s needed. Yet I also invite you to take the breaks which your Shepherd wants to give you, to find times to come away with Him and rest awhile in His presence and recover your own health and spiritual strength.

         Yes, I’m going to rush off and get on a plane. But I promise you that I’m going to take a nap there, or watch the movie, or read a mystery novel. I’m going to rest a bit. And I hope and pray that you will rest a bit too. Get your naps. We have lots to do for Jesus, but we cannot do it well and we cannot do it in His true Spirit, unless we rest. May the Good Shepherd bring each of you into a restful pasture with Him soon.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj