Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Greetings, dear people.
After sending this, I want to do a little jog. Then I’ll bundle up some of my sawmill blades so Becki can take them when she runs off to Woodburn. Following her Bible Study there, she’ll head north and do a big fat loop that will drop the blades off for resharpening at Wood-Mizer at Wood Village, and also pick up blades that have been resharpened. That will save some of my time—no need for a special trip.
Have a great day. Blessings.
Love, Dad/Ray.
I have no idea why the translators of Mark’s gospel would retain this little snippet of the original language when the role and function of translators is to translate. But it’s happened before in our English Bibles (Matthew 5:41; 27:43). Rather than to take time to explore reasons for that, I find myself musing over the two times in this reading that Mark describes Jesus as responding with “a deep sigh.” He did so here before performing a healing of a deaf and mute man brought to Him at Decapolis. He did so again when the Pharisees came to harass Him, asking Him to call down some spectacular sign from heaven. The record reads, “He sighed deeply and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it’” (8:12).
In the first case, is it possible that Jesus is saddened by the reality that the mainstream of people around Him were more interested in miraculous physical and temporal healings than they were with the more important and eternal need for deliverance from SIN? In the second case, is it possible that He was irritated by hard hearts of those who chose to oppose and hassle Him rather than to connect some vital obvious dots and come to receive Him, trust Him, believe Him, and follow Him? Whatever the case may have been, I think we are given some hints as to what causes God to sigh. And those hints offer guidance. I, for one, do not wish to inspire His negative sighs due to my preoccupation with my own comfort zone—or with my lust for supernatural displays that I use as trophies to show how wonderful I am. I admit to being like a broken record—A HEART AFTER GOD continues to stand out as the very best option available.