the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (23)

Mark 8:1-21

1. Wednesday night – ash Wednesday + all-church prayer
2. phil stombaugh schedule
3. cac membership class – 4/21

1. U2 sings a song called Vertigo. It’s about a guy in this awful nightclub. He’s supposed to be having a great time but he wants to leave. It’s really a song about the world we live in.

Bono - It’s that woozy, sick feeling of realizing that here we are, drinking, drugging, eating, polluting, robbing ourselves to death. And in the middle of the club there’s this girl. She has crimson nails. She has a cross around her neck and the character in (the song) stares at the cross just to steady himself. And he has a little epiphany. It’s a song about a disused soul in a well-used nightclub.

Lyrics -
I can’t stand the beat
I’m asking for the check
the girl with crimson nails
has Jesus round her neck
swinging to the music
swinging to the music
oh oh oh oh

I can feel your love teaching me how
your love is teaching me how
how to kneel…

The song points to Jesus. This night-clubber has been check-mated by Jesus. Jesus’ cross – the girl with crimson nails, has Jesus round her neck, swinging to the music. Jesus’ love is calling him to prayer – I can feel your love teaching me how, your love is teaching me how to kneel.

2. the gospels are full of Jesus stories similar to this one. Jesus meeting people in the ragged reality of their lives. Giving them hope; pointing them to something better.

3. like in today’s story of the feeding of the 4000. Jesus is not home. He’s ventured into Gentile territory. He’s on a mission to prove that he & his message are for everyone, Jews & Gentiles. This is a Jesus story about physical & spiritual hunger.

The feeding of the 4000
large crowd – remote place – 3 days – Jesus
1. we find a large crowd (1) in a remote place (4) that has spent 3 days (2) with Jesus (1). After 3 days they have nothing to eat.

2. Jesus says I have compassion for these people. Compassion is the Greek word for intestines. It came to mean feeling something very, very deep within you. Jesus’ compassion for these people was no shallow, superficial thing. His insides ached for them because they were in need of food.

Do we feel compassion for the hungry people of our world? our community? To do so is to be like Jesus.

3. Jesus performed a miracle & fed them, took care of their physical hunger.

4. but it was their spiritual hunger, their Jesus hunger, which led them into the wilderness in the 1st place. They wanted to be near to Jesus, to hear him, to see him & experience him. They were drawn in by his ‘enormous magnetism.”

5. I want to make a statement that I hope you will never forget: our real & deep hunger in life is for Jesus & Jesus alone. Here’s what I mean…

Genesis 1-2 = all of us were created for oneness with God; this is central to our spiritual DNA

Genesis 3 = oneness was spoiled by sin; Adam & Eve choosing their desires over God’s desire for them; jagged rip in the fabric of the universe

Genesis 4 following = primal hunger to be one with God buried under layers of & layers of sin, selfishness, disobedience, etc. Hunger becomes directed to money, sex, power, success, self-autonomy

Matthew Mark Luke John = God sends his son Jesus to stand in our place, die for our sin & rebellion & make a way back to oneness with him

Colossians 1:16,17 speaking of Jesus = for by him all things were created…all things were created by him & for him. He is before all things & in him all things hold together. We have been created by Christ & for Christ. Our true & only meaning in life is found in union with Jesus.

John 6:35 = I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. Jesus is the bread of life, the satisfaction of life.

6. this large crowd dropped what they were doing & followed Jesus into the wilderness for 3 days. He touched their spiritual DNA. They sensed a stirring in their souls. Their spiritual hunger transcended their physical hunger.

7. retreat: when do you ever retreat to be with Jesus? to a remote place? to sit at his feet? and let him fill your soul with his life? We are a vacation-oriented culture BUT not a retreat-oriented one. We take all kinds of vacations & spends all kinds of money doing so – that’s fine, that’s good. But shouldn’t we take some time & money during the year to follow Jesus into the wilderness for our soul’s sake?

8. space is important for pursuing Jesus. Whether it be the wilderness or a quiet corner of your home. It allows us time, silence & solitude to begin to dig down though the layers of self, distractions, pursuits to our deepest selves where we have been wired from eternity to commune with God.

9. identify your daily space. Plan a yearly retreat.

the 7 loaves for 4000+
1. 7 loaves & a few fish for 4000 men & whatever women & children who were there. That’s not much.

2. there’s a very important spiritual principle here: offer whatever you have to God & he will bless it. Think of the big 3 – time, talents & treasure. Your limited & fought-over time. Your God-given & humanly-developed talents. Your treasures of money, possessions & resources.

3. almost always they are like the 7 measly loaves & the few small fish in our story. How will they feed over 4000 people? They won’t. They can’t. UNLESS we turn them over to Jesus, the miracle working Jesus.

4. Wednesday & Thursday I was in Seattle at a district leadership meeting. The meeting was held in the Styren House. A couple from the Woodenville Alliance Church gave this house worth $1,000,000 to our district. Now it’s ours. It’s going to be used as a place of rest & renewal for our pastors.

5. Offer whatever you have to God & he will bless it. Instead of this house taking care of 2 people it may very well lead to the spiritual renewal of lots & lots of pastors. Which will lead to the renewal of people in their churches. Which will lead to lives being touched in numerous communities all over Washington & Oregon. Which will lead to…only God knows.

6. how can you offer to God your time? Your talents? Your treasures?

take – blessed – broken – shared
1. from v. 6 the Ancient Church created a 4-fold Eucharistic pattern – taken, blessed, broken & shared. This forms the core of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In liturgical churches the priest for the presiding minister takes the bread & wine; blesses them in prayer; breaks the bread to be distributed; and shares them with the people.

2. this 4-fold pattern is also to lie at the center of our lives in the Spirit:

We are taken by God. We are chosen. As Jesus says in John 15:16, you did not choose me but I chose you.

We are blessed by God. We all of us have been given gifts & graces, blessings & benefits.

We are shared by God. He uses us to bless others. Something of who we are is valuable & useful & meaningful to God & others in some way.

We are broken by God. This is the part we don’t like. Jesus was the most chosen, the most blessed, and the most shared one of us all – as well as the most broken. Like Christ we are to be broken in order that we can be shared.

3. taken, blessed, broken & shared. Not just bread to the 4000. Not just the bread & wine of communion. But the lives we live as we attempt to live them for Christ.

4. I long for us to be a new people for a new building. A new people in hot pursuit of Christ & his kingdom. A people taken, blessed, broken & shared. I wonder if its truly possible to be shared unless we have been broken?

5. what needs to be broken in your life? in our church? in order that Jesus can share us with each, our community & our world?