Perspective: How Many Times?

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How Many Times?

Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?

Mark 8:18 (NRSV)

God, You know where I've been

You were there with me then

You were faithful before

You'll be faithful again

I'm holding Your hand

From "Let the Waters Rise" by MIKESCHAIR

One day, Jesus and the Disciples cross the Sea of Galilee to spend some time to themselves.  A crowd sees them board the boat and heads around the lake on foot, and by the time Jesus and the Disciples reach their destination, the crowd is already there, waiting for them.  As always, Jesus has compassion on the crowd and starts teaching them.¹

Hours pass, and the Disciples become concerned that such a large crowd is in a secluded place without any food.  They urge Jesus to dismiss the people so that they can go to nearby marketplaces to get something to eat.  Jesus suggests that the Disciples give the crowd something to eat, and they start figuring out how much money it will cost to buy bread for everyone in the crowd.  Jesus asks them how much food they have, they scrounge up five loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus takes the loaves and the fish, blesses them, breaks them up, and gives them to the Disciples to distribute to the crowd.  Even though there are five thousand men in the crowd - meaning that there could be as many as twenty thousand or more people present - miraculously everyone has enough to eat.  Somehow, the Disciples gather up twelve baskets of leftovers.²

Believe it or not, Jesus performs such a miracle more than once in the Gospel story.

Later on, after a crowd has been with Jesus for several days, Jesus tells the Disciples that He is concerned because the crowd has nothing to eat.  Again, the Disciples wonder how they are going to feed so many people.  Jesus asks the Disciples how much bread they have, and they report that they have seven loaves and also a few fish.  Again, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks for it, breaks up the loaves and fishes, and gives the food to the Disciples to distribute to the crowd.  Once again, even though there are four thousand people present, everyone has enough to eat, and the Disciples gather up seven baskets of leftovers.³

These two stories follow the same basic pattern:

1. Someone suggests that the crowd needs to eat.
2. The Disciples wonder how they could possibly feed such a large crowd.
3. Jesus asks the Disciples how much food they have.
4. Jesus gives thanks, breaks up the food, and gives it to the Disciples to distribute.
5. All people in the crowd eat their fill.
6. The Disciples gather the leftovers and find that they have more than they had when they started.

That said, there are a few minor differences between the two stories.  In the first story, it seems that the crowd is with Jesus only one day, but, in the second, the crowd has already been with Jesus for several days.  In the first story, the Disciples are concerned that the crowd needs to eat, but, in the second, Jesus is the one who expresses concern about the crowd.  In the two stories, there are different numbers of people in the crowd, different numbers of loaves and fishes, and different numbers of baskets of leftovers.

In my opinion the most significant difference between the two stories is not explicitly stated.  In the first story, the Disciples have never seen someone feed thousands of people with only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, so it is understandable that the Disciples do not know how they will ever feed the crowd.  In the second story, the Disciples should remember what Jesus did the first time, yet they still have no idea how they will feed the crowd.

After a run-in with some Pharisees, who were some of Jesus' staunchest detractors, Jesus boards a boat with the Disciples, where He warns them to beware the "yeast of the Pharisees."  Jesus is speaking metaphorically, but the Disciples think that He is literally talking about the stuff that makes bread rise, and they become concerned because they only brought one loaf of bread with them.  Jesus becomes rather annoyed with the Disciples and says to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?"  He then calls to the Disciples' minds the twelve baskets of leftovers they gathered the first time He fed the crowd and the seven baskets of leftovers they gathered the second time.⁴

It was as if Jesus was saying to the Disciples, "You've seen Me miraculously feed two massive crowds, and you're still worried that you don't have enough bread?  How many times do I have to feed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread before you stop worrying about having enough food to eat?"

The Disciples could be rather dense at times.

When Jesus and the Disciples reach their destination, a blind man is brought to Jesus.  To give the man his sight back, Jesus anoints the his eyes with His saliva and places His hands on him.  The man is then able to see, but he is not able to see very well since everything is very blurry to him.  He says that he can see people walking around but that they all look like trees to him.  Jesus tries to restore the man's sight again.  He places His hands on the man once again, and then the man is able to see clearly.⁵

Basically, this story shows us that sometimes Jesus struggles to get people to see things clearly.  Some people think that His apparent difficulty in getting the blind man to see represents His difficulty in getting the Disciples to see.⁶

It's easy for us to look down on the Disciples for being so thick-headed, but what we need to realize is that the Disciples represent us in the story.  We are the ones who can be thick-headed, for so often we too need to be taught the same lesson over, and over, and over again before it finally sinks in.

For me, these stories call to mind my tendency to worry.  To say that I'm an anxious person would be an understatement.  It would be much more accurate to say that I'm tangled mass of nerves.  Again and again, I've found that I worry needlessly, yet I still stress out about everything.  I anticipate the worst, though the worst rarely happens.  How many times do I have learn how pointless it is to worry before I finally stop worrying and just enjoy my life?  I fear going through times of pain and difficulty, yet, when I look back on my life, I see that the most difficult times in my life were probably the times when I felt closest to God.  How many times does God have to walk with me through the dark valleys of life before I stop fearing the valley and start trusting that God always walks with me?

How many times do we have to be taught the same lesson before we finally take it to heart?  How many times does God have to come through for us before we actually start trusting God?  How long before we finally see clearly?


Notes:

1. Mark 6:30-34
2. Mark 6:35-44
3. Mark 8:1-9
4. Mark 8:11-21 (NRSV)
5. Mark 8:22-25
6. Kent Dobson.  "Healing Fail."  Mars Hill Bible Church, 06/07/2013.

Christ Healing the Blind Man was painted by Andrey Mironov in 2009.  The image is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.  The painter is in no way affiliated with this blog.