Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

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11 Apr 10

    Greetings on this Sunday night.

    I feel my head shutting down.  I need the bed.  There were just too many things invading my flow for the day...so I didn't get this off before going to church...although I did squeeze in a jog and allowed our dog, Daisy, to come along this time, cast and all, then church, then dealing with other unavoidable matters, plus our afternoon Gospel Sing at an assisted living center in the afternoon, plus dinner this evening with Lorna and Ray Wilson, etc.  A full day already.  And tomorrow will be a big one too.

    Keep looking up.
        Love and prayers.
            Dad/Ray

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11 April 2010
Passage: Mark 6:1-29
Focus: “…they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.”  Mark 6:52.

            My paraphrase might go like this: “They failed to connect some significant dots; they were typical humans.”

            I must admit that if I had been among the disciples of Jesus, I probably would have had difficulty understanding too.  I mean, take another look at what began this particular episode in the life of Jesus and His disciples.  It began when Jesus said to His disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (v. 31).  “Oh, goody!...a little sunbathing by the pool…a little golf…”  It most likely sounded pretty good to these weary disciples who had just returned from an exciting and intense outreach campaign.  But did they get any “rest?”  No.  Not in the way they expected.  They faced a lot of work operating their boat across the Sea of Galilee to the other side.  There they faced another mob of people that required a lot of attention.  The “quiet place” sure wasn’t very quiet.  Jesus engaged them in that sensational feeding project that day that, although it was miraculous, still required a lot of work.  Can you imagine serving a meal to over 5000 people?  And when that was over, they didn’t even get a night’s sleep…not even a nap!  Instead, Jesus had them get right back into their boat and go back across the Sea to Bethsaida.  Still more work!  To make matters worse, the weather changed and created very rough conditions.  I don’t know about you, but fighting a rough sea all night when you’re already very tired is not my idea of rest!  And I’m sure it was not their idea either.  I probably would have been complaining about then saying something like, “Sure a lousy holiday this turned out to be!”  Hmmm—could that be where the problem lies?—our ideas in conflict with His ideas?

            “They had not understood” what?  Perhaps they had failed to remember, like I often do, the danger of leaning to their “own understanding” (Prov. 3:5-6).  Perhaps they failed to recall the principle of Isaiah 55:8-9 which says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Perhaps they had not yet grasped the principle of Romans 8:28 that “All things work together for good…”  So it would seem that Jesus was saying in all of this that His idea of REST, contrary to their/our idea, is not necessarily determined by the absence of work, and a QUIET PLACE is not necessarily achieved by privacy without noise.  Rather these valuable qualities are realized by simple trust in Him and obedience to His Lordship.  Think about it.