September 4, 2024 - Mark 6-8

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!

O Thou who once in Galilee

Didst make the deaf to hear,

The mute to speak, the blind to see,

Blest Son of God, be near.

O deign to hear the silent prayer

Of Thine afflicted own;

Yea, bid them cast on Thee all care,

Thy grace to them make known.   -- Anna B. Hoppe (1930)