1Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.

“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

4Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”5He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.7Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

8These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.9Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”

12They went out and preached that people should repent.13They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

Mark 6:1-13

How do people respond when you tell them the Gospel?  I’ve had all kinds of reactions.  Some people have told me that Jesus did not exist, and that it’s all a fairy story.  Others have said that Jesus, whilst a brilliant moral teacher, could not be the Son of God – because God does not exist.  Some of my friends have told me that creation was all an accident, and that there could therefore be no “messiah.”  Most surprisingly to me, quite a lot of people have commented that they thought I was an intelligent and well-educated man, and how could I possibly believe in Jesus!  In this passage, we can see how Jesus responds to those people who reject his teachings.  We also get a reaffirmation of the purpose of Jesus’ earthly ministry and see how Jesus tasks the apostles to spread the message of the kingdom even further.

What do you think Jesus saw as the main purpose of his ministry?  Yes, he came to die on the cross to fulfill God’s plan of salvation, but there was clearly more to it than that, otherwise he would have been killed much earlier.  What has repeatedly leapt out at me during this Mark Marathon is the emphasis that Jesus places on teaching.  Wherever he goes, the first thing he does is teach people.  He teaches at every available opportunity – in the synagogue, in towns, in the countryside and by the sea.  This passage is no exception.  Jesus heads back to his hometown, and the first thing Mark tells us he did there was to speak in the synagogue, and teach people about the kingdom.  We see a similar response to Jesus’ teaching as that which we have seen before; the people were amazed.  People had heard others teach who had received years of training, and plenty of experience, and yet they were nowhere near as Jesus.  They cannot grasp that Jesus, the man whom many of them had known since childhood, who worked as a humble carpenter, and who was the son of their friend Mary, has suddenly shown himself to have absolutely remarkable speaking skills.  They don’t know how to take this revelation, and end up taking offense at him.  This is the response that I often get when I share my faith; people think I’m some kind of idiot who has allowed himself to be duped by a social misfit and crazed moral teacher.  It’s interesting to note that Jesus got exactly the same.

How did Jesus respond to those who rejected him, who took offense at him?  Mark tells us in verse five that he “could do no miracles there.”  I’m sure that this does not mean that Jesus lacked the power and ability to do miracles – he was the son of God, after all!  I think the key here is in verse 6, where Mark tells us that Jesus was “amazed at their lack of faith.”  Faith seems to have been a vital factor in Jesus’ miracles thus far; the people whom Jesus had healed had all had faith that he could heal them if he wanted to.  They all accepted without questioning Jesus’ ability to heal.  It stands to reason, then, that if the people of Nazareth had no faith in him, and chose to regard him as simply a carpenter, that Jesus would not be able to do any miracles.  There’s an important lesson for us here; when we pray, do we trust that God can answer our prayers?  Or do we think that he probably can’t/won’t answer our prayers, but it’s worth sending one up on the off chance?  Perhaps that it is the wrong attitude to have, perhaps by taking this attitude we are similar to the people of Nazareth.  It is interesting to see Jesus’ response to this negative attitude; he seems to accept that he won’t be able to do any miracles, and does nothing to try to convince people that he was the Son of God.  He doesn’t force his miracles on them; it is their decision to accept him as the Messiah, or to reject him as a jumped up carpenter.  I wonder if we can learn from this attitude?  Do we get downcast when people don’t respond to our evangelizing?  Perhaps we have to accept it is their decision, and turn to prayer, praying that one day they will have a change of heart and come to know Jesus as their personal saviour.

Jesus does not get downhearted by this lack of acceptance by his neighbours, however.  He knows that his mission must go on, whether or not the people of Nazareth accept or reject him.  We then see him utilizing the apostles in a way in which we have not before.  Up to this point, they have been shadowing Jesus, watching what he has been doing, and listening to his teaching.  They’ve been serving a kind of apprenticeship.  Now, though, it is their turn.  They head out to preach, to heal the sick, and to expel evil demons.  It is notable that this is an instruction issued specifically to the apostles, so, whilst we can learn from his orders and the apostles response to them, I don’t think we need to worry that we have yet to heal any sick people!  What is worth reflecting on, though, is that Jesus wants them to trust in God’s provision for them; to trust that those people they encounter will provide for them, and look after their needs.  If we’re not necessarily called to follow the apostles here, perhaps it is worth thinking about whether we fit into the other category – the people who provide for those undertaking God’s work.  Do we contribute generously to our churches, to ensure that our ministers are sufficiently supported?  Do we encourage and support those who feel they have been called to a specific ministry, perhaps witnessing in a university or working as a missionary overseas?  Maybe we should ensure that we are supporting God’s work through our wallets.

As is usual for Mark’s gospel, there is a great deal packed into these thirteen verses.  I have simply picked out three themes that jumped out at me as I read through this passage – the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus’ response to those who rejected him, and Jesus’ statement to the apostles to rely on the support of those around them when on their own ministries.  Do reflect on these verses over the next few days, however, and seek out what it is that God is saying to you through this scripture!

Header image produced by DALL-E 2 AI on 30 April 2023.

Talitha Koum!

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” ). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.

Mark 5:41-42

I’ve just been to Auschwitz, a former Nazi death camp.  During the Second World War, somewhere between a million and a million and a half people were brutally killed, for no other reason than the leaders of the Nazi regime did not like who they were.  The numbers are so vast that it is almost impossible to grasp the sheer horror of the place.  In display cases in the barracks visitors can see several tons of hair, thousands of shows, and hundreds of pots and pans, all stolen from the victims.  What really made the horror real for me, though, was a mountain of suitcases.  By homing in on one case, with the name and address of the owner written in large letters, the horrors of the holocaust become humanized again; this case belongs to one individual who was killed.  The case I focused on belonged to a man called Klement Hedwig, whose case stated that his date of birth was 8th October 1898, which would have made him in his early forties when he was killed.  Then I drew my eyes away from the one case to the thousands on display, and it became clear that all of these cases belonged to individuals, who, like Klement, had been living ordinary lives when they were rounded up and killed by the Nazis.

In today’s verse, Jesus displays that characteristic so lacking of the Nazis; compassion.  He demonstrated that he had the power to restore life.  People die everyday, and had Jesus brought back all those who died during his earthly ministry, he would not have had time to do anything else.  Instead, like when I was confronted with the thousands of people who had died choosing to single out one individual, Jesus also chose one person at this moment to bring back to life.  That was all he needed to do.  He simply had to demonstrate that he could do it to show that he was by no means an ordinary person.  Just as he had demonstrated that he had the power to control demons, and the power to control nature, here, through this one incident, he demonstrates that he also has power over life itself.

This resuscitation, however, is just the beginning.  If you accept that Jesus is the Son of God, the promise is that you too will be restored to life after death – not in the same way as this little girl, but in a more perfect way.  We can live again, for all eternity, alongside Christ in a new creation.

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

Mark 5:36

As I write this, I’m sat in a coffee shop at Heathrow Airport waiting to meet my girlfriend.  She lives in Northern Ireland, and I live in Sussex, in the south of England.  It’s not an ideal arrangement – but it does mean that I’ve been able to rack the air miles up in recent months!

Before I met my girlfriend, I hadn’t flown a great deal.  Neither of my parents like flying, so it’s not something that we did as a family when I was growing up.  It wasn’t until I was at university, in fact, that I flew for the first time.  I can still remember that trip; I was concerned about whether the plane would stay in the air.  I was also very worried if the sensation I was experiencing in my ears as we landed was normal.  But I trusted that all was as it should be, because millions of flights have been made over the last hundred years or so, and thousands of people fly thousands of miles every day.  I had to believe that the plane was safe, though, otherwise I would never have got on it!

Belief, in the case of flying, was my antidote to fear.  I believed that the plane was safe.  In the same way, Jesus, not for the first time in Mark’s gospel, emphasizes here that the antidote to fear is to believe.  This seems remarkable in the context presented here; Jairus has just been told by his friends that it is not worth bothering Jesus any more, because his daughter has died.  I cannot imagine what Jairus must have felt on hearing that news.  I suspect that his whole world would have collapsed.  And yet Jesus calmly tells him not to fear, but just have faith in him.  He trusted him sufficiently to come and find him when his daughter was ill, and he should continue to trust him now that his daughter has died.  Jairus’ faith is subsequently rewarded, when Jesus brings his daughter back to life.

This for me is an image of the Christian faith in microcosm; if we have faith in Jesus to protect us, to look after us, to watch over us, and – of course, if we have faith in his death as a sacrifice on our behalf – then there is no need to fear.  Just as Jairus was rewarded for his faith by the resurrection of his daughter, so too we will be rewarded with our own spiritual resurrection after our deaths.

Header image produced by DALL-E 2 AI on 30 April 2023

Your faith has healed you

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Mark 5:34

One of my most significant early memories is going to court with my family at the age of six.  It was something that we had prepared for for many months, and my brother and I had been fully briefed by my parents of what to expect.  The reason for this unprecedented outing was not because anyone in my family had broken the law, but because we had decided to adopt a little girl.  On that day in court, Charlotte went from being someone who I had known over the last year or so, to my sister – my sister who I would love, grow up with, and with whom my whole family would share our lives with.  Even now, twenty-four years later, I can still remember the excitement of my sister joining my family.  After the court appearance, my brother and I took our sister to school to show to all of our friends and teachers.

Family is extremely important to me.  I am very close to all of my family, and love them all very much.  We have been through good times and not so good times together, but we have always been there for each other, and have always loved one another.  It’s great to have that unconditional love.  The poor woman in our current Mark Marathon article, however, was an outcast; she was considered to be unclean because of her bleeding, and no-one would have wanted to go near her for fear that they, too, would become unclean.  She must have had a rather tragic, lonely and unhappy existence.

Imagine her joy at meeting Jesus, then.  Not only was she healed, but she was accepted by him and shown love, possibly for the first time for twelve years.  She must have been overjoyed.  Look at how Jesus speaks to her, though.  He calls her “daughter,” and accepts her into his spiritual family.  Once more, she belonged.  She is told that she has been healed, precisely because she has had faith in him.  She is told to go in peace and be freed from her suffering, effectively giving her a fresh start in life.  It almost makes me want to weep with happiness for this poor woman.

Yet this love is extended to you and me, too.  If we have the same faith as this woman, we will be healed all of our wrong doings, and be accepted into Jesus’ family.  We can look forward to living in peace and free from suffering in God’s kingdom.

No matter what we might experience in this fallen world, we have so much to look forward to.