Rest

Christ Has Compassion For the Weary

7.28.24 [Mark 6:30-34] River of Life (9th Sunday after Pentecost)

Eph. 2:1 Grace & peace to you from…our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

They were as electrified and exhausted as kids coming home from summer camp. Despite their sore feet, weary eyes, and overtired minds, they had a thousand stories to tell about all that they had seen and heard and done over the past many days. (Mk. 6:30) So the apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Like excited campers on the drive home, they told Jesus all about the places they visited and the work they had done.

The apostles told Jesus how they preached the same message they had heard him preach so many times. (Mk 1:15) The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! They repeated this message about (Mk 6:12) repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And even though they weren’t as powerful or polished or prepared as their Rabbi, they saw that this message he gave them was powerful. It was preparing hearts and minds for the kingdom of God. God’s Word was advancing his kingdom and accomplishing his divine purposes.

And there were signs of its power, too. When they met sick people, they were able to do miracles. Men who were fishermen and tax collectors, not doctors, (Mk. 6:13) anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. They healed as they had seen Jesus heal. When they encountered those possessed by evil spirits, they were able to do what they had seen Jesus do. (Mk. 6:13) They drove out many demons. It’s no wonder why they were so excited to tell Jesus all about their most recent ministry journeys. That kind of experience isn’t something you keep to yourself. It must have also been encouraging for each of the apostles to hear that their fellow apostles that they also had very similar experiences. The apostles must have been running high on dopamine and adrenaline, and not much rest.

News that Jesus’ disciples power and success only added fuel to the fire of Jesus’ popularity. Mark tells us that when the apostles returned to report to Jesus all that they had done and taught, they were not alone. (Mk. 6:31) So many people were coming and going that the disciples didn’t even have a chance to sit down and eat with Jesus. So many people were in need. But Jesus also recognized that there was another need.

The apostles, his beloved disciples, and he needed time and (Mk. 6:31) a quiet place to get some rest. Not only were the apostles physically and mentally tired from traveling, preaching, exorcizing, and healing, but recent events would have been emotionally draining as well. John the Baptist, who had been arrested and languishing away in a remote prison, had recently been executed. He was beheaded because Herod had made a rash promise to his step-daughter and was too proud to deny her demand for John’s head on a platter. This news is distressing to us today, some two thousand years later. It all seems so needless and tragic.

But it would have been especially jarring to Jesus and his disciples. John was Jesus’ relative and the one who had the privilege of baptizing Jesus before his showdown with Satan in the wilderness.

But there were more connections. In John 1, we are told that John the Baptist personally told Andrew and another of the disciples, likely John (the author of the fourth Gospel) that Jesus was (Jn. 1:36) the Lamb of God. John the Baptist was the driving force behind two of his disciples becoming two of Jesus’ disciples.

So knowing that his disciples were physically, mentally, & emotionally running on E, Jesus made it a priority to get some rest. That reveals a whole lot about the heart of our Redeemer, doesn’t it? Jesus did not say to his disciples that they needed to just push a little harder or strike while the iron was hot. He cared about them personally. Their value wasn’t rooted in what they could do for his mission.

The same is true for us as Christians, today. Now, there are two ditches we can fall into. One ditch is laziness & negligence. An attitude that says God is gonna do what he has promised either way, so I don’t need to do anything. That’s a sinful attitude. Doing nothing is nothing to be proud of. Christians can’t claim to have already put in their time.

On the flip side, doing more for God doesn’t make us more valuable to God. If it did, (Rom. 11:6) grace would no longer be grace. God wants us to be faithful, not engrossed in frantic, frenzied activity. It does not please our heavenly Father to see his children so engrossed in ministry and “working for God” that they neglect the needs of their family or their own health. God doesn’t want us to wreck ourselves in working for him.

God also doesn’t want us to be wracked with guilt when we no longer can serve him as we once did. Perhaps in days gone by, you had a beautiful voice that was crucial to your church choir. What a gift! But that gift, like many other physical gifts, doesn’t last a lifetime. At times, Satan wants us to feel like our songs of praise are less valuable today. He can do this with any kind of service—teaching children, fixing things around church, making meals for those in need, & financial generosity.

The devil loves to tell us, as the people of God, that our best days are behind us. That what we do today isn’t really as important as what we once did. Do you know why? Because that frame of mind stifles all our service. It convinces us that offerings are more precious than prayers, that ushering or evangelism are the only ways we can glorify our Lord.

But Satan is not satisfied to just get us to evaluate ourselves in strictly pragmatic—what have you done for me lately—terms. He wants us to look at our fellow Christians that way, too. He wants us to compare our pastor and his gifts to all the other pastors we have ever had. He wants us to measure our fellow members merely by what we think they bring to our local congregation. He wants us to think less of a church where there are more canes than pacifiers.

One of the great lies that Satan tells the people of God is that God will love you more if you do more for him. It makes a degree of sense to us. It is how people are evaluated and treated in so many areas of life. But it’s not how God looks at us. Because while we are called to be faithful servants of the Most High God, that is not our primary identity. Your identity to God was founded at your Baptism.

At your Baptism, God did not hire you to be one of his workers. He adopted you. He made you his beloved child. Knowing that we are a beloved child of the heavenly Father sets everything in its proper context. When you are a beloved child, you are a part of a family. Nothing you do changes that, just as you didn’t do anything to earn that status. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t work to be done. Beloved children in happy and healthy households are still given chores to do. There are expectations. But you are not a hired hand. You are a child of God because of what the Son of God has done for you.

We get a hint of that at the very end of our short reading from Mark 6. When Jesus sees the crowds he has compassion on them because he recognizes that they need him. Jesus has a big heart for the exhausted & the desperate. Despite all that he was dealing with, Jesus still made lost sinners his greatest priority. We are his mission. We’re the reason that he left heaven and came to earth. We’re the reason that he suffered and died on the cross. We’re the reason he rose from the dead.

Jesus did all this so that we might be with him and find real rest. He invites us all when he says (Mt. 11:28-30) Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I am gentle and humble in heart, so you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My burden is light.

Jesus removes from us the yoke of the law, the pressure to live perfectly and make ourselves righteous in God’s eyes. He did that for us and he gifts it to us, by grace through faith, not by works so that no one can boast & so that no one will despair. God does it all for us.

And yet, God in his love, recognizes that we flourish when we find meaning and purpose for our days. We want to have a reason we are here. And God gives it to us. We are called (1 Cor. 10:33) to seek the good of many, so that they might be saved. This is how we follow the example of Christ.

Jesus didn’t spend every waking moment healing or teaching. At times, he enjoyed a meal with his disciples and the company of those who were notorious sinners. Why? By rubbing shoulders with mankind, he was pointing people to the truths of God. He wanted all to see that (Rom. 3:23) all had fallen short of the glory of God. He wanted all to know that all are justified freely by God’s grace. He also made it his priority to spend time in prayer and in worship—even when there were people waiting for him, even when there were people in the synagogue who hated him. Why? Because prayer and worship are important.

This is the easy yoke Christ gifts us. This is the joyful pack he places on our shoulders. Be light in a land of darkness. Be salt. And be refreshed by spending time in his Word. Be renewed by his Supper. Be daily rejuvenated by the gifts he has given you in your Baptism. Be his child.

This is one of the great truths that Martin Luther uncovered in his study of the Scripture, especially Romans and Galatians. In his day, he and most others thought that only full-time ministers—people who were bishops, priests, nuns, and monks—were really pleasing God. That’s why when he was caught up in a terrible storm, he vowed to God that if God spared his life he would leave law school & enter a monastery.

But as he studied the Scriptures he learned that God is glorified by faithfulness in all kinds of ordinary tasks. Mothers doing the unglamorous work of feeding, changing, and raising children are serving their Lord more than monks who have retreated from the secular world. When God’s children lift up their voices, he is delighted even by a joyful noise. When God’s people pray fervently and in a focused manner, God acts powerfully. So dear child of God, hold on to this promise. Your work is important and valuable, but God will see to it that his will will be done. So you can rest easy and still be faithful. Amen.