Search & Rescue

Mark 6:30-34;53-56

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Closing prayer. No, I'm just joking. That was great. Thank you. Peace be with you.
Hallowed with you. Let us pray. Father, may your will be done, Jesus, may your word be proclaimed in spirit. May your work be accomplished in us. We pray.
Amen. In today's gospel reading, there are two passages we encounter two scenes, two situations that involve Jesus and the crowd. And in the first scene, we get. I like to identify as a searching is going on. In the second one, we're going to see that there's a rescuing going on.
And so today, if you want a title for a sermon or what we're going to learn today is that there is this theme that Mark is presenting to us in his gospel of search and rescue. We find this first situation, and we countered the crowds first in Mark, chapter 633 34. Let me read this again for us. The people saw them going, and many recognized them and ran there together on foot from all the cities and got there ahead of them. When Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
And he began to teach them many things. The disciples had just came back home to Jesus after being sent out on their missionary journey. Jesus receives them and says, hey, let's go to a secluded place and get some rest. But as they were going, as they got into the boat and began to journey up the coastline, people, the crowd recognized him. Mark tells us.
Mark uses this refrain of recognizing, and then they run. And it's what the crowd recognizes about Jesus that causes them to take flight. And they run as a crowd together as a cross country team, if you will, up the coast. And they beat Jesus and the disciples to where they were headed, so that when Jesus gets out of the boat, he encounters this large crowd. What is it about Jesus that the crowd recognizes?
I think, as we are about to see, the crowd recognizes Jesus for who he is. They long for a shepherd. They long to be led, and they identify Jesus by recognizing who he is. And they want to come and follow him. They want to come and be shepherded by him.
And so how is it when they're searching for Jesus, they run after him? What do they end up finding? They finding the one that they're searching for. Jesus coming out of the boat and confronted Jesus face to face. Jesus gets out of the boat, and what does he do?
He does two things in this first situation. He offers them one, compassion. He sees them compassionate through his eyes. He is moved with compassion over this large crowd that just got done running, searching for him. The second thing he does is teaching.
But before we move to talk a little bit about what he teaches them and teaching them many things, I don't wanna blow past this first thing of Jesus looking on the crowd and having compassion, we would assume that, yes, he's Jesus, the son of God, and he is compassionate towards all. But oftentimes, we just assume that we deserve compassion. That's the first thing that we should receive from a good, holy God. But that's not the case. If we were really honest with ourselves and searched within our own hearts, we would come to find out that we are sinners, that we have violated God's holy law from the very beginning, that we are deserving of the punishment that Jesus will later receive upon the cross.
That's us. That's what we deserve. Yet when Jesus sees the large crowd who is in search of him, the son of God looks upon that crowd with compassion. In this, we learn what God's posture is towards us. Right when you think the father approaching a wayward son ought to chastise him and give him what's coming to him, that is not the first step that Jesus takes towards us.
The first step that Jesus takes towards us. And his whole posture comes with compassion. And he looks upon the crowd with compassion. He looks upon sinners, vile offenders, those who have committed a cosmic treason against all that he has created to be good. He looks upon those who defiled that which he created to be good.
Moved with compassion, John would tell us, for God did not send the son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And I think this is something that we ought to ponder much in our lives. This is something, parents, as you seek to raise your own children, that as your child comes to you to confess that they've done something wrong, like the crowd comes to pursue Jesus in search of him, knowing what they are, knowing that they need help, knowing that they've done something wrong. Do we meet them and greet them with chastisement, or should we look to them being compassionate? There is a difference between a kid who wants to conceal their own sin and hide it and not draw it out, versus a kid who wants to confess it and comes and says, I've done a bad thing.
Both situations and both kids deserve chastisement. But one already realizing what he's done wrong and bringing it to you should be met with the same type of compassion that Christ, who, being confronted with the crowd, demonstrates to them. Compassion. I remember one time I had discovered our Christmas gifts in my parents closet. Me and my sister were there and we were folding, doing our chores because mom and dad were about to come home from their work, and I discovered a Nintendo.
What do you call those? Console. It's right when Nintendo came out and I was so excited and yet realized that I had done a bad thing. I should not have been snooping around looking for the Christmas gifts. And my sister's like, hey, this is cool.
Don't say anything. I was like, got it. Went over to the phone, picked it up, called mom, said, mom, I'm sorry. We found the Christmas gifts. She's like, what?
You're in trouble. Wait till the dad gets home. And that's the last thing you want to hear. All that to say is that there is something, there is a difference. That when we come and realizing our sin, what the Lord himself treats us as his children, what he does for us, there are some situations that do require discipline, for God does discipline those he loves.
But there's also a time when God draws people to repentance through his loving kindness. This is the very thing that romans two four says. Or do you think lightly of the riches of the kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? See, in our world, it seems like what will bring people on their knees to repent of the bad things that they do is if they feel the weight of it, and I want them to feel the weight of it. That might be true in some cases, but what we're told in the scriptures, and what you're looking up at the screen is how God leads people to repent of their sin.
It's because God is a loving, kind God, that he is who he is, regardless of how right or wrong you are, he continues to remain loving kindness. And that is his first step towards us. That's how good of a father he is. That's a good shepherd who shepherds his sheep, who is compassionate towards them. I'll never forget.
I talk about my dad a lot. He's passed away. He's been passed away for six years. And I didn't always appreciate him growing up. He was a very rigid man, a very kind of firm and hard man, a man that was easily led by his passions and emotions.
Quite a bit of. And that's the guy you don't want to hear who's coming home and you're sitting on your bed waiting for him. Whatever I did, I can't remember. I probably did something really horrific because I watched my own son. I'm like, okay, I probably did something like that.
And my mom says, you need to go downstairs and wait on your bed for your dad. And those are just the words. I would rather just die than have to hear those words, because my dad coming into my room can only mean a butt spank. And, boy, that dude had the roughest hands I've ever seen in my whole life. As a matter of fact, it's why I don't wear gloves.
I hope to be a man that has man hands. Like his. And his were dry, rough, and just the hardest things I've ever seen in my whole entire life. Anyway, I'm sitting on my bed, and we're living in Anchorage, Alaska, and we're in a duplex. So my parents had their room, and I had a room, and I was.
Had a bunk set of bunk beds that I shared with my sisters. And I was sitting on my bed, and I was just thinking about how I haven't even lived much life. I just lived life for just a few years. My dad's about to kill me, things about to happen, and I'm sitting there swinging my legs, and then this wonder, wonderful, glorious thought came into my head. Our closet is our food pantry.
And I'm thinking, I bet I can get off this bunk bed, go in, open the box of twinkies, grab one, shove it in my mouth, eat it before my dad even gets down here. So I do that. I mean, I talk myself into it. So I go in, I open the closet. Sure enough, the delicious box of twinkies is right there.
I open it up like it is manna from heaven. And I grab a twinkie, and I climb up all the way to my bunk bed, and I just devour it. I eat it pretty fast. The whole thing. Put it in my mouth, right?
And at that moment, as it's still, like, dissolving in my mouth, I hear the creaking of my door open. And my back. The door is behind me, my back is on, looking the opposite direction. And so I'm trying to think of how I can swallow this thing whole. I do.
I just open my throat, and down it goes. And I'm trying to, like. My dad is like, what are you doing? And I'm trying not to talk because I'm still trying to process the swallowing. And I'm like, you know, swallow hard.
Finally, I said, waiting for you. And then I can tell immediately on my dad's face, he knew exactly what I had done. Because though I am pretty successful in getting all the food into my mouth, there is this little bit of cream on the side of my mouth that I was not aware of. He says, you have something to tell me? And I'm thinking back to my fence, and I was like, yeah, I did something I deserve, you know, to be punished.
And he's like, do you have something else to tell me? And, man, I felt this overwhelming sense of guilt, you know, I can't keep secrets. He's like, did you eat a Twinkie? And for a split second, I thought about lying to my dad, but then I said, yes, I ate a Twinkie. And I just broke into tears.
And then something happened that I've never experienced since with my dad. He laughed.
He smiled, and it's the only time I get a piggyback ride up the stairs from my dad. And I think about all the times that I was in trouble with as a kid and how hard he was on me. And now, as a grown man, I really appreciate him, and I can't tell him that now. That story sticks with me, because when I hear that God the father moves us to repent of sin through his loving kindness, I think about my dad and his shoulders that I rode up on on those stairs, never having received a spanking. And in that moment, I realized that I wanted to obey what my dad said, if that got me another ride on his shoulders.
That's how loving kindness moves us to repentance. That was more effective for me, speaking to you as a man, than all the whippings I got. I was moved by loving kindness, and that's what Jesus does to this large crowd. He sees them as a sheep, a herd, a flock of sheep that has not been successfully shepherded. He says this as much.
He views them as lost sheep, that he himself wants to pasture, that he himself wants to shepherd, that he himself wants to tend. He wants to feed them. He wants to bind their wounds. He wants to care for them. And it's because of his compassion that he has for them.
That's what never moves Jesus to thwart his chastisement on you, but receives it himself. He says, these people do deserve wrath, but I will take it on myself, and I will give them my loving kindness. I will see them through compassion, and that will move my sheep. My people who want to believe in me, to repent of their sin, a life that is distant from me, they don't want anymore because they have tasted and seen that I'm compassionate. And so when Jesus meets this crowd, he sees them with compassion.
And what does that compassion motivate him to do? You would think he would just go around, start hugging everybody and singing and having a great celebration. But he sits them down and we're told. Mark tells us that he begins teaching them many things. You mean to tell me, Jesus, that people who are in search for a shepherd and they run up the coastline to meet you, searching for you, seeking after you, and you see them through your compassionate eyes, and your first act as their shepherd is to teach them many things?
That's what Mark is leading us to believe. So what must that mean for the word of God and the role it plays in the sheep's life before they're bound up, before he cares for any of their needs, he cares and tends for their soul. And the only, the only thing that is a remedy for the aches in our soul, the only thing that can help us in our soul, is Christ and his word to us. And we can read through all the scriptures and recognize what it is that Christ is teaching his sheep, the way, the truth and the life, how it is that they ought to now live, how it is that they ought to hunger and thirst for righteousness, how it is that they ought to cling to the truth? That's what he does first and foremost.
And what that often means for us today is that we have to be a sheep who hunger and thirst for the word. The teaching of Christ found right here in the holy scriptures. This means that we love or come to a position where we are loving and longing for the word to be preached and taught to us, and that we're desiring to also preach and teach it to others who are wanting the compassion of Jesus. That it is of first importance for a community of believers to be centered and founded and surrounded in absorbing God's word, not just reading it personally for ourselves, but also engaging with others to celebrate it and having it wash us so that we can be presented to Jesus Christ as a beautiful bride adorned in his righteousness. That's what this does, and that's what Jesus gives first.
That's the first things.
And then we come and encounter the second situation, the rescue. And that takes place in mark 653 56. I'll read it for us. And when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and moored to the shore. When they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him and ran about the whole country and began to carry here and there on their pallets those who were sick to the place they heard he was.
Wherever he entered, villages or cities or countrysides, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces and imploring him that they might just touch the fringe of his cloak. And as many as touched it, they were saved. I know it says cured, but I did the greek work. That word means saved. And so here we got another situation.
The first situation was the crowd was searching. Now the crowd is rescuing. They recognize Jesus, and instead of running towards him, they run towards others. And mark uses the refrain, they recognize and run. They recognize and run.
These people love to run. I don't know if I would have hung with them, because running sounds really strenuous and I'm not really good at it. But they ran. They're moved by who Jesus is. They've already came, and they sought after him.
So what's the difference? And I think Mark is highlighting these two situations for you to understand, that one result in searching and finding Christ, the other one results in seeing Christ and yet going to others.
What can we learn from the difference here? Well, I think the difference is, is whatever Jesus. Cause Mark doesn't tell us specifically the many things that Jesus was teaching, but there's something that they learned from Jesus and is teaching to them that when they saw him the next time, they said, we gotta go get other people. There's something about what Jesus was communicating to them. Oh, say maybe that they need to live for the sake of others, that they need to be willing to give up of themselves for the benefit of others, that they need to go and love their neighbor as they would love themselves.
That when they. The next time they saw Jesus, they recognized him. And then they took off running, going throughout all the cities, all the places, picking up people on their pallets and bringing them into the marketplaces so that Jesus was walking through every city, and the marketplace would just be filled with people that can't walk, who can't hear, who can't see, who are diseased, who are filthy, who are just needing a shepherd to bind up their wounds. And maybe it's because the difference that caused them to run to others is because they were so overwhelmed by the compassion that Christ had for them, that they had to begin sharing it with everybody back in their community. That compassion poured over them and filled them up so much that the sense of peace that they felt, the healing that they got to see their shepherd caring and loving on them, that they couldn't hold to themselves, that they had to go and report it to people and say, you know what?
If you can't walk, I will carry you. I'm a good runner. I will run you to Jesus. That's what these people do. And I think it's a lesson that here we're a crowd.
And so when we recognize what Jesus is doing, we need to take off running. Sometimes we need to run to Jesus, and sometimes we need to run in the other direction to go bring people the same compassion we've received, to go bring people the same forgiveness that we ourselves have received. I think that's the difference between these two situations. That one is searching for Jesus. Now that we found him, we're going to go and rescue others who need Jesus and bring them to Jesus to be completely and utterly rescued and satisfied.
Jesus then heals them. As he's walking through the marketplace, we're told as much. We're told that he is shepherding not only souls, but he's a full shepherd. Not only does he provide the word of God to them to shepherd their souls, but he's now binding their wounds, healing them, caring for their needs. He is a full and complete shepherd.
He's just not heavy in one area and not heavy in the other. He's the full package. He's everything we need. He cares both for our souls and our needs.
But here, too, I don't want to move past Jesus healing. Oftentimes we read that, we read it quickly, and we're like, Jesus is good. He heals people, but at what cost? Have you ever considered this? Have you ever considered the means by which people that Jesus touches gets healed?
Do you know what that cost is? First, Peter 224 shines light on this. And Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds, we are healed. Let me break this down.
As he's walking from city to city, post to post, in the marketplaces, healing, it's not as if those wounds vanish into thin air. He exchanges his life, placing it on them, creating them to be healed, and receiving and absorbing their wounds, their sin, on himself. And as he's passing through the marketplaces healing, he's receiving all their affliction, all their sin, as he goes to the cross to put it to death.
Healing costs doesn't vanish in a thin air. What it costs, it costs Jesus his life. And he's happy and joyously doing it for us. Anytime, even presently, somebody is healed and they experience some radical thing. It costs something for that healing, and Jesus paid it so that you can be healed.
It's by his wounds that we are healed. And what this teaches us is right. When we thought we understood the compassion of Jesus Christ, when he looked upon us, this gets so much deeper, the fact that he just doesn't wash us clean, but he also absorbs the punishment that we deserve. He also, by his wounds and for his wounds, we are and become healed. Something has to be done with those things, and he takes it on himself.
And that shares with us, that teaches us the real deep compassion that Jesus has for his sheep, but not only this. And this is the cool part, I believe, in this healing passage. The first time they were met with compassion and received teaching. This time they're met with deep compassion, Jesus healing, providing for their needs, but then also the means of salvation. And it's hidden in these words.
You actually have to study the scriptures to know what he's talking about. And that is when it refers to mark refers to something here at the end of this passage about the fringe of the cloak that's touched, that they are just hoping, as they're being set in the marketplace, they're hoping just to touch the fringe of his cloak to be healed. Where did they come up with that idea? Well, they come up with that idea because there's already one who's touched that fringe and has received healing. And it's her faith who made her, that made her well, and she has been reporting and testifying to the healing power of Jesus because of her faith.
And so the people are following after the Hemingene woman, as she has shared her experience with Jesus, is sharing it everywhere she's going. So now other people are like, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to believe and trust that that can happen to me, too, demonstrating that how our faith in Christ can influence others and call them to have faith in Jesus. But it's more than that. It's just not an example of faith and how faith spreads to more faith.
It's also a revelation of how the gospel, the word of God, does save and heal people. And it's found all the way back in numbers 15, what does a jewish man wear, and why does he wear it? Numbers 15 says this. The Lord also spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the sons of Israel and tell them that they should make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations. And they shall put on the tassels on each corner a blue cord.
The cord of blue. It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord so as to do them and not follow after your own heart or your own eyes, after which you played the harlot, so that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy to your God. That's what his cloak is representing that's referenced here. That's what that fringe is, the tassel. What that tassel represents is the word of God that came to the people.
And so, symbolically touching the taSsel, the word of God, is how it is that they came to be cured, which I told you is actually saved.
And so Mark is sliding in here an Analogy for you to show you that the power of the Gospel leads to salvation. Paul says it in romans one. He says, for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
So those who are laying in the marketplace, how is it that they came to be healed? They came to be healed by looking at the word of God, trusting in it and touching it.
That's how all of us come to be truly healed. The power of the gospel. And you tie this to the first things that Jesus offers out of his compassion to his sheep, the teaching of many things. What is he teaching them? He's teaching them the gospel, the good news that he has come, the messiah, to redeem them, to bring them the forgiveness over their sins, and to lead them into a life of righteousness, giving them his righteousness so that they can stop living a sinful life and that they can start experiencing the loving kindness and the goodness of how God created them to be in the first place, that's what I believe he's teaching.
That's what us as a community of believers need to be doing. I have said this many times when we do the food pantry, that it is a good and right and kind compassionate thing just to be giving people food. But what they ultimately need, and if we really cared and want to be compassionate towards people, is we have to be giving them the gospel. If the first things for Jesus, experiencing compassion for his sheep is to teach them many things and then turns around and then offers them healing, what does that teach us about what God wants us to do? To be first and foremost about telling people the good news.
The gospel for it has the only power of salvation. You can give people boxes of food, but that doesn't lead them towards salvation. You give them the gospel, and it comes with power, the Holy Spirit, to move them, to give them a new heart, to believe in God and save them. The gospel has to be on the edge of our tongues and in the forefront of our minds. Every time we try to offer some kind of compassion service to somebody else.
There was this gentleman at the last church I was with that showed up quite frequently, and I. This gentleman wanted to get a ride just to work. I see him walk by the church every day. Finally, I was opening up the church one time, and he comes by and he says, pastor, can you give me a ride to my work? I said, absolutely.
I said, but here's the deal. There's a difference between me and an Uber driver. Uber driver you could pay to give you a ride, or I could just offer my services for free. But I'm not an Uber driver. So I'm going to sit here and I'm going to talk to you about Jesus Christ and the good news of the gospel and give you a ride.
Because that's me loving you to the full capacity. I'm going to give you both. I want to tend to your soul, and I'm also going to take care of your need. If we remove the first and primary thing, we're just a soup kitchen. We're just an Uber driver.
We're just a boys and girls club hanging out with people. But what makes us christians and tending to people in our communities is we bring the gospel of Jesus Christ. For there is nothing else that can truly say. There is nothing else that can truly transform their life.
And so, in closing, there's some things I think that we learn from this gospel lesson this morning. One, it should stir our hearts up to love God more because we come to encounter how compassion and loving kindness he is towards us. If that doesn't move you to deepen your relationship with God, I can't do that any other way. The scriptures don't do that any other way. Teaches us to love God more through seeing how compassionate he is and that his first posture and step towards us is loving kindness.
It also teaches us how to love others better, because it teaches us that once we've experienced the compassion of Jesus Christ himself in our lives, we can't help but to go run to others so that they might be rescued, too, and we bring them to Jesus.
It also really confronts us with something to consider, doesn't it? What are we running to? If we could just use Mark's refrain, what do we recognize that might seem to help us in our lives that isn't Jesus? What things are we running to that's not Jesus or the gospel or others to bring them to Jesus? There are people that run to pills and their addictions to find comfort and peace.
That gets you nowhere. There are people that run to men and women in relationships to fill some kind of void in their life. And that doesn't cut it. We run into our work because we want to be recognized and highly respected and do these things while neglecting the things that God has called us to do. What do we run to?
I think the passage speaks that to confront us, to look at our heart, engage it by this word. Do you recognize and run to Jesus as the only thing that can help you in your life? Or have you found Jesus plus something else to help you in your life? The scriptures only say there is no plus sign. It's Jesus.
He's your whole life. He's all you need, period. It's all you need. And lastly, I don't know if you picked up on it, but I was heavily moved by the lectionary readings of, because in Jeremiah, that Jeremiah reading, the Old Testament reading what God is speaking of, there is the fact that there's been no shepherd that can tend to his sheep and there's not going to be one besides his son. God is chastising the shepherds that were supposed to tend to Israel and they didn't do it.
And so he says, I'm going to come down and I'm going to be their shepherd. The one that comes from David is going to shepherd his sheep. Oh, that's good news. That's glorious news. We all are.
Sheep are in need of a shepherd, a good shepherd. And Jesus says when he shows up, I'm the good shepherd. I'm here. Those who will seek after me will find me and I will shepherd them. Now I'm wondering, as, as we bring this all to a close and as we bring this all just down to, we know what Jesus is saying.
He's showing his hands. He says, I'm the shepherd, but I'm wondering if you will be able to say what David says. There's a response to be had here about recognizing Jesus as a good shepherd, recognizing him as a compassionate, loving, kind son of goddesse, one who cares for our souls and one who tends to our needs.
And I'm wondering if you could truly say what psalm 23, which is the psalm for today, is, which is the response to knowing and recognizing the good shepherd. Can you say, the Lord is my shepherd? I shall not want, I shall not add anything to him. I don't need anything else. He gives me everything I need and want.
He cares for my soul and provides for the things that I need. He heals me. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Jesus leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. That even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies and you anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows. I gotta get another cup and share it with somebody else. It's overflowing so much. And surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I think that's the point of today, is to recognize Jesus as the good shepherd, to run to him and then be a sheep that sings psalm 23 to her shepherd.
Let's pray.
Oh, good shepherd, thank you for tending to our souls, binding our wounds. Thank you for looking upon us with compassion and taking on our chastisement. You are good, you are kind, you are loving. And for this, we trust in you fully. We love you, we praise you, and you are our shepherd.
And we do have no.