September 11, 2025 - Mark 6-8

While teaching and much healing, Jesus and his disciples had no time even to eat (6:31), and so, they went away in a boat across the lake to a desolate place.  “Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.  When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (6:34).  Can anyone say “rock star?”  Except that there really is no comparison.  The crowds around Jesus were huge, but also constant, day after day.  And no “rock star” has ever lived as Jesus lived, taught as Jesus taught, or has done the things that Jesus did.

The story just never seems to get old:  the feeding of the 5,000, walking on the water, the healing of multitudes in Gennesaret, the confrontations with the religious leaders, the demon cast out of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter, the deaf made to hear, and on and on the story goes.  One of the amazing things in Mark’s Gospel is the regular mention of the crowds.  Though tired, and wanting some time alone, Jesus “could not be hidden” (7:24).  And, “again, a great crowd gathered” (8:1).  People brought the blind to him (8:22).  And not long hence, he would enter Jerusalem, and the crowds simply would not leave him alone.

John Lennon might have been right.  For a time, the world seemed to pay more attention to the Beatles than to Jesus.  But what a deluded conclusion, that somehow or other a musical band is more significant, or that its music will carry some sort of eternal weight, or that multitudes, two thousand years in the future will live by its precepts.  And, of course, the idea that a music band has accomplished to any degree anything remotely as important as that which Jesus accomplished, well, that’s just ludicrous.  The Beatles’ music is fun to listen to, but Jesus brings life, both abundant and eternal!

All the way my Savior leads me.

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt his tender mercy,

Who thru’ life has been my Guide?

Heav'nly peace, divinest comfort,

Here by faith in him to dwell!

For I know, whate’er befall me,

Jesus fashions all things well.   –Fanny Crosby (1875)