The Purpose of Reruns - Mark 8:1-21

This is the time when reruns are beginning on network TV shows. This gives you the chance to catch episodes you have missed and re-live favorite episodes as you hopefully begin to look forward to a new season with new story lines.

Our text this morning feels like it is a rerun. But it is not. Just two chapters back in Mark we read about the feeding of the 5000. Now we are reading about the feeding of the 4000 and it sounds very familiar. Let me read you the first part of the text again. As I do, I encourage you to turn back to Mark 6:34 and notice the differences in the two accounts.

The Hungry Crowd

About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, 2 “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.”

4 His disciples replied, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”

5 Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”

“Seven loaves,” they replied.

6 So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. 7 A few small fish were found, too, so Jesus also blessed these and told the disciples to distribute them.

8 They ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. 9 There were about 4,000 men in the crowd that day, and Jesus sent them home after they had eaten. 10 Immediately after this, he got into a boat with his disciples and crossed over to the region of Dalmanutha.

Many scholars feel that these two passages are really the same account spoken twice. That strikes me as odd since they are both in the same book of the Bible and only two chapters apart. I admit that I am now at the age when I sometimes tell the same story to the same group of people twice. However, I don’t think I am doing it in the same group on the same day (yet!) But let’s look at the differences in the accounts.

· In verses 18-21 (which we will get to shortly) Jesus mentions there were two different feedings.

· There is a different setting. The feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000 appear to be on different sides of the Sea of Galilee.

· A different duration. The feeding of the 5000 was after one day of teaching. The feeding of the 4000 was after 3 days of teaching.

· There is a different crowd. It appears the feeding of the 5000 was mainly with Jewish people. The feeding of the 4000 was likely primarily to Gentiles with some Jews scattered in.

· Jesus was not in the boat after the feeding of the 5000 (for the first hours) but was in the boat after the feeding of the 4000.

· The amount of food at the beginning was different (5 loaves and 2 fish vs. 7 loaves and some small fish)

· The amount of leftovers was also different.

The accounts are very similar, but they are shown to be different by the details.

Perhaps the most confusing part of this account is the disciples. Why didn’t they remember the last time they were in this same situation? Why didn’t they ask Jesus if they should see what food was around so they could bring it to Him? How dull were these guys?

There are several things to consider. First, this may not have had anything to do with dullness, it might be about respect. The men did not assume Jesus would do a miracle. If you have noticed, Jesus didn’t always follow the script.

Second, we think these accounts must have happened within a short period of time from one another, but that is not necessarily true. The Gospel writers were not writing to give us a biography of Jesus as much as they argued that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the world's Savior, and God in human form. They were trying to draw people to Christ. Consequently, they would organize their material differently for their audiences. All this to say, there could have many months between these events.

It is fair (and appropriate) to ask, “Why did Jesus provoke this crisis in the disciples?” I think He was teaching as a rabbi. Rabbis continually repeat their lessons so the students would absorb them. It seems like that is what the Lord was doing here. He needed the disciples to be CERTAIN that no circumstance could not be handled by trusting in Him (present or not). It would not be long into the future when these men would face conflicts and circumstances many times greater than this crisis, and Jesus would not physically be with them. They had to be convinced that God would supply all their needs according to the riches of Christ. (Phil 4:19) So, the lesson is repeated.

One humorous thought. After the feeding of the 5000, the disciples were sent off alone in a boat and faced the great storm, followed by Jesus’ walking on the water. I suspect that after the feeding of the 4000 and Jesus suggested they head back to the boat, I bet the disciples said, “We’ll wait for you. You do what you need to do and we’ll wait here.” There was no way they wanted to repeat the terror of being in a storm without the Master again. (You see, they were learning!)

The Hardened Pharisees

Jesus and the disciples crossed the Lake (back to the Jews). As soon as the Pharisees knew He was back they went on the attack.

11 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.

12 When he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign.” 13 So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake.

They demanded that Jesus prove that he was who He said He was with some kind of miraculous sign. Don’t miss the irony. Jesus had performed many signs in Israel and still the leaders resisted and asked Him to prove Himself again and again. While on the other side of the Lake the Gentiles were growing in faith, the Pharisees wanted something bigger!

There are some people who are so deeply entrenched with their beliefs that they are not open to anything that is different from what they believe. Most of us are this way to some degree. We believe what we believe because we think we are right. To admit that someone who presents a different belief from our own is right, means we are wrong. We don’t like to admit we are wrong. Besides, we have no right to demand a sign from God!

This is what we are seeing here. There was plenty of evidence for the leaders of Israel to see the true nature of Christ. But they kept asking for more.

The Greek construction of “I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign” is more in the form of an oath. It is as if Jesus was saying, I swear before the Father that I will give these people no new signs.”

The Lord is incredibly patient with us and does not give up on us quickly. However, the Bible does talk about a hardened heart. This is a heart that refuses to believe in spite of the evidence. This is a person who WILL NOT believe. It is not that they have examined the evidence and found it to be lacking . . . it is they refused to examine the evidence and refuse to believe anything other than their bias.

As believers it is important that we keep our minds open and our hearts soft. We can believe in Christ (removing the hard heart of unbelief) and yet still be hardened to the Spirit’s work in us in areas such as race relations, matters of justice, politics, social issues, and even many of the hot-button issues of our day. Holding to the truth of God’s Word, while remaining open to correction in our understanding of that Word, is essential to our growth in Christ. Christian growth is about growing deeper in our faith and understanding.

The Distracted Disciples

It is possible that these three sections did not all happen at the same time, but . . . if they did, they took the boat across the lake, Jesus taught all day and then they got in the boat and went back to the Jewish side of the Lake. I’m guessing they spent the night and then traveled on the lake again!

Regardless of the chronology, they are back in the boat.

14 But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. 15 As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

16 At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread. 17 Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? 19 When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?”

“Twelve,” they said.

20 “And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”

“Seven,” they said.

21 “Don’t you understand yet?” he asked them.

What we see in this passage is the disciple's preoccupation with the temporal made it impossible for them to see the deeper and more important spiritual truth. It is a problem that plagues us all. We are so concerned with this life; the events of this day, that we fail to look ahead to the big picture and then endgame.

The disciples were concerned that they hadn’t packed enough food. Jesus was trying to teach them an important spiritual lesson: He wanted them to beware of the leven (or yeast) of the Pharisees and Herod. Yeast has the ability to permeate wherever it is. Jesus warns them to be careful of the teaching and influence of these teachers. A little wrong-headed teaching, like yeast (or even poison) can reach many different parts of our beliefs and lives. One lie from Satan, “you will not die!” was enough to lead the whole human race into sin.

So, Jesus is trying to make a very serious statement here. He is warning them about false teaching. We must be extremely careful when we listen to others teach whether it is a Pastor in church, on the radio, or on TV. We must check everything out! Even a usually good teacher can sometimes, unintendedly, lead people astray.

As Jesus makes His point, they are arguing about who was responsible for the bread shortage! Jesus gives a stunning rebuke: “Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all?” What a stunning rebuke!

Jesus asked them about the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000! It is as if He is saying: “You saw me feed 5000 and then 4000 with just a meager amount of food. Don’t you see that it is not the amount of resources you have . . . it is about who you turn to with those resources. That one loaf of bread could have fed as many people as needed in the hands of Jesus. He is saying to His disciples: “Don’t you realize that I can provide for you whatever you need.?” He says the same thing to us.

They had seen the ability of Jesus to provide all things yet. They needed to remember . . . wherever they went (now or in the future) that the Lord was able to meet ANY need. They did not need to fret about earthly things. Neither do we.

Conclusions

Let’s come up with some simple principles we can take away from this text.

The people flocked to Jesus in a desert place and went hungry for three days without a single complaint. Don’t miss this remarkable fact: The people saw the treasure of Christ, the Pharisees did not. They were willing to be inconvenienced and go hungry just to hear from Him. We, on the other hand, are so concerned with schedules and convenience that we often find it hard to “squeeze in” the things of God. We schedule worship, Bible Study and other things around our other demands and sometimes our time with the Lord gets squeezed out.

The reason for this is we have failed to see the true treasure of Christ. When I know I am going to spend time with Debbie or have other family coming to visit, I will work hard to clear my schedule to give as much time as possible to these people who are valuable to me. I would suspect that you do the same thing. We make time for the things we value the most.

The challenge for us is to reflect on the true nature and person of Christ. We need to fall more deeply in love with Him than anything else. We are called to see the incredible treasure that is found in His words of grace, wisdom, encouragement and guidance. Once we see more of His greatness, we will somewhat naturally give greater priority to Him in our lives. We will get up earlier or stay up later to spend time with Him. We will seek good teaching more than we seek a “good time” in our worship.

A man by the name of Wilbur Rees once wrote what he sees as the heart of too many Christians today,

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 dollars worth of God please.”

We need to want more than $3.00 worth of God.

Jesus was a man of compassion. He wants us to show compassion too. Jesus saw the people were hungry. He not only diagnosed the problem, He also addressed the problem. It is tempting for us to see the problems in the world and merely discuss them (like the Pharisees might do). We might come with solutions that make sense to us. The problem is that discussing problems and proposing solutions does not solve those problems. It takes action!

It is the Christ controlled heart that is compelled to help others. We are compelled by the Holy Spirit within. It is time to stop talking about helping people and open our eyes to the needs of those around us and get involved in the name of Jesus. Talk is easy. Action brings change.

Like the Disciples we often have short memories and at times hardening hearts. There is value in keeping a record of God’s works in our lives. You might do this with a journal or by setting up a pillar or some other object that will remind you every time you see it of how faithful God is. Our memories are faulty. Satan will magnify every struggle and try to keep us from remembering how powerful and faithful God is.

Reading regularly in the Bible should also help us to remember. We need to recount the great stories. This is the purpose of reruns . . . they help us see what we did not see the first time or remind us of things we have forgotten.

I love watching THE CHOSEN again and again because I always see something I did not see before. We need to look at God this way. We will never reach a point where there is nothing more to learn about Him. There will never be a time when we have learned enough. There should never be a time when our hearts and minds become closed or hard.

The late Dr. R.C Sproul wrote:

How is your hearing? How is your perception of the things of God? How is your heart? Does the truth of God bounce off it? Or is your heart softened, so that God’s truth penetrates and sinks in? We all need to examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word to be sure the deadly leaven of the Pharisees is not working in us, blinding us to the light “and making us deaf to the life-giving Word.” (R.C. Sproul MARK)

I will miss seeing some of the shows I enjoy during reruns this summer. But every rerun I see advertised I hope will not cause me to remember the lessons on the purpose of reruns that we have learned today. And if you are afraid you might forget . . . get a copy of today’s message or find it on our webpage or video channel. And when needed, I hope you will remind me of what I said this morning.