Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:45-53 (day three)

“Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea; and he intended to pass by them.”

What to make of Jesus’s apparent non-interactive close encounter? There are various viewpoints on this, but perhaps Jesus intended merely to look in on them to see how they were handling a potentially dangerous situation, not necessarily intending to interfere if things were fine. If so, that action would indeed be in keeping with Jesus’s tender shepherding. Where there is danger, the Savior is near. But he also desires us to the greater things – he says so elsewhere in the gospels – and so he leads us to live with power and ability. His nearness, though, means that in our cries for help we can discover he’s already there.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:30-44 (day three)

“He saw a large crowd, and he felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

When did compassion well up in Jesus? When the people’s anxious experience of life washed over him. He felt in his body the emotions at work in their bodies. That’s empathy – remaining with people in how they’re experiencing their circumstances, witnessing how hard it is for them, feeling the weight they feel as they show you how it is for them. And empathy gives birth to compassion, always. Where there is no compassion, there’s no empathy, and there’s no seeing another person – not really. There’s only agenda and disdain and shaming. The Incarnation forever puts the lie to the claim that empathy is a fancy word for coddling. The Incarnation is itself the ultimate empathy. And so we now follow the Savior’s lead.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:14-29 (day three)

“But when Herod heard of it, he kept saying, ’John, whom I beheaded, has risen!’”

Herod had a bad feeling about executing John. Not bad enough to keep him from killing him, though. And now his life became a nightmare. This wasn’t superstition, as if his first-century mind didn’t know that people who are dead tend to remain that way. No, this was much more serious. It was reality. Not that John had risen from the dead, but that Herod’s sins were finding him out. Herod was running out of room to maneuver. The man with so much power grew weak-kneed at the enormity of his transgression. Herod could save face in front of his dinner guests. He couldn’t save his soul in the face of God’s judgment. He couldn’t bring himself to humble his body and soul before God.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:7-13 (day three)

“They went out and preached that men should repent. And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.”

The timeline can seem wrong in this passage. First comes Jesus, then comes the crucifixion, then comes the resurrection, then comes the Holy Spirit, and then comes the preaching in power. Right? That’s orderly and clean. Except that’s not what the Bible shows us here. The disciples begin seemingly ahead of everything else that was to come, so was this just a dress rehearsal? Repentance from what? To what? When Jesus taught in the synagogue from the book of Isaiah, he said to the people, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” And so it is. Wait not for future things when Jesus is right here, right now. Go with him this moment.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 6:1-6 (day three)

“Is not this the carpenter…?”

There’s an exotic allure in someone strange from somewhere else promising something new. But Jesus presented as just Jesus from the other end of the village. The people wanted Messiah to come as a conquering hero wielding a sword. What they got was a Nazarene wielding a try square. To this crowd, it felt like an insult. Everyone in the town had lived close to him and his family since they’d returned from Egypt years ago. How could the people not already know everything he knew? Yet the folks couldn’t quite catch on to what he was saying, which they found all the more annoying. Was he talking down to them? Was he disrespecting his roots? Was he rabble rousing? Whenever God has acted in the world, it’s always been difficult to take in. It still is.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 5:21-34 (day three)

“A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse…”

Not only did this woman suffer from severe anemia, but also from violations of her bodily autonomy and privacy by men hawking various purported cures. In addition to that ignominy, the repetition of useless curative attempts had siphoned away hope, leaving her weaker and more poverty-stricken than ever before. She wasn’t just bleeding, but humiliated, shamed, exploited, poor, and neglected after her encounters with every alleged healer for over a decade. No wonder she wanted anonymity. The Lord’s mercy allowed her that dignity. Only after curing her body did Jesus inquire about her identity and restore her self-worth by addressing her as “daughter.”

Re:Verse passage – Mark 5:21-23, 35-43 (day two)

“Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.”

In life’s events, there is a point beyond which experience has taught you that it’s useless to press for a certain outcome. It’s too late, or too little, or too painful. It’s over, it’s gone, it’s empty. It’s beyond repair, it’s beyond recognition, it’s beyond anyone’s ability. It makes sense that you would come to the conclusion to walk away from hoping for a certain thing. Still, some longings persist. And when those longings keep running into disappointment, you can start to feel despair that no one seems to be able to answer those longings. Jesus goes right there to the deepest places in you. What you thought was ended, over, failed, dead, he can revive. The risen Savior has given new meaning to these words: “It is finished.”

Re:Verse passage – Mark 5:1-20 (day three)

“No one was strong enough to subdue him.”

It might be tempting read the above passage and think, “…except Jesus. Jesus was strong enough to subdue him.” But Jesus doesn’t subdue the man – not in the sense of vanquishing him anyway. Even the unclean spirits aren’t presented as opponents in a cage match won by Jesus. Instead, this remark seems to point out that everyone who had tried to intervene in the man’s life approached the circumstance as a power struggle, not as a redemptive moment. Jesus wasn’t interested in shutting him down, but in raising him up. This man was made (by the very Lord who encountered him that day) to laugh and to know beauty and to love and to work and to rest. Jesus knew the man’s true identity – not a weirdo, but a wonder.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 4:35-41 (day three)

“Jesus himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.”

Jesus’s sleeping in a boat during a storm on the lake was one indication that he found himself at home in his Father’s world. Another indication: entrusting his body’s safety to the skills of those who piloted the boat while he slept. Would you feel at ease sleeping – or even riding at all – in a vehicle operated by certain folks? Jesus lived in the world unconstrained by overarching concerns for his personal safety. Do you think he minded eating a meal in a public place with his back towards the door? Was he reticent to touch someone with a communicable disease? He cared for his body’s basic needs. The rest of his energy he used to listen and laugh and befriend and shepherd. Seeking to live thusly is a holy quest.

Re:Verse passage – Mark 4:26-32 (day two)

“The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.”

Nothing remains unchanged of all that has been created. All things in the world proceed according to their way. And everything has a way, whether good or bad, desirable or undesirable – fruit, results, effects, endpoints. Sometimes you can trace the origin of an outcome, and sometimes you can’t. It’s all too much to track, regardless. You’ve blamed yourself for hardship when you had no power to change what happened. You’ve credited yourself for success instead of expressing gratitude for good fortune. And amidst it all, unseen, God acts to move this universe along according to his purpose. To learn the way of yielding to God’s activity is the lifelong discipline from which come contentment, thanksgiving, humility, and joy.