Mark 6 30-34
Pentecost 9
Mark 6:30-34
August 7, 2003
“Rest and Compassion”
Introduction: According to Bill Heider, “The only thing wrong with being retired is that you never get a day off.” I know in my conversations with some of you, you have told me that you’re actually busier now that you’ve “retired” than when you were working! Some of you still live such full and active lives that you need an hour stretcher to make your days long enough in order to complete your busy tasks. We are all familiar with the old adage: “No rest for the wicked.” If that’s the case then some of us church-going people must be very wicked! However, there is also an add-on to that old adage which you may have heard before: “No rest for the wicked, even less rest for the good!” Even though we cannot rest as much as the wicked, lest the powers of evil get the upper hand—nonetheless, WE ALL, ON OCCASION, NEED OUR REST!
A traveler in Papua describes how his guides and carriers would sometimes sit down by the road-side and refuse to go any further without a rest—they explained “We must give our souls a chance to catch up with our bodies.”
The need for rest is why many people try to take time off for vacations, to get away from work for a while. Whether its two weeks or twenty four hours the weight of work remains. It’s like a man crawling out from under a large rock that he is holding up. Returning from his rest he crawls back under and reassumes the crushing weight. Still, the rest somehow makes holding that weight up bearable.
Tiredness is not just a physical thing—a person may feel weary at the thought of cutting the grass or going off to work, yet go off cheerfully for a round of golf. Most often, the person that is most tired and wearied in life is the person that is tired right down to their soul.
Human beings need to rest. We need to rest. For this reason our Lord instituted a day of rest, the Sabbath Day -WHICH LITERALLY MEANS A PERIOD OF REST. Now we live in a culture that keeps us going. Some of us work seven days a week, and it seems, 24 hours a day. Families are running in every direction, there is precious little opportunity for family members to gather together for rest and relaxation; to do the enjoyable things in common that strengthen the bonds of marriage and the parent-child relationship. Worse yet it seems like people are making less time to rest in God by going to church where they can find rest for their souls. It begs the question, how can we live a healthy and meaningful life in a world where there is little or no time for us to rest as individuals, or together as husband and wife or as a family? Where can we find rest for our souls?
In today’s gospel, the apostles have returned from their mission of preaching, teaching and healing, which Jesus had sent them on earlier. Jesus, full of compassion towards His disciples, sees how tired they’ve become. Indeed, Mark tells us that the clamoring crowds are still milling about so much so that “they did not have even a chance to eat.” How could these crowds be so insensitive and lacking in understanding or empathy for Jesus and his disciples? Didn’t they realize how demanding they were? At any rate, Jesus sees the disciples are in need of a rest, a time of peace and quiet. So he invites them to come with him to “a deserted place… and rest a while.”
The crowd followed them. Though they may seem insensitive to the needs of the disciples and Jesus they are not. Rather they are desperate for rest. They want rest from the burden of carrying their sick and dying loved ones around. They seek rest from the sickness and death that plagues them. They want rest from eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear, from bodies that are falling apart. They want the rest of satisfied hunger. Most of all, though they don’t always now it they want rest for their sin plagued souls. For all this they desperately come to the one who is able to have compassion on them all.
Our text says, “When Jesus saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” This incident points up one of the great needs in the world today - the need for compassion. Compassion has been defined as "sorrow for the sufferings of another, with the urge to help." But, we have cheapened the word. When we hear the word "compassion," we really think of pity - and we hear such nauseating phrases as "pity the fool.” Pity is not worth a plug nickel. It was pity that caused one man praying in the temple to say, self-righteously, “I am thankful I’m not like that man over there.”
No, we do not need any more pity. We have had enough of that. What the world longs for is compassion. George Buttrick, in The Interpreter’s Bible, wrote that the word we translate as “compassion” is a much stronger word, meaning "the pain of love.” Compassion is the pain of love.
This is the pain of love that our Lord Jesus felt for His disciples, the crowds, and you. His compassion, His pain of love was and is deeper then merely being with people in their pain and unrest. He does not merely look at us and feel sorry for us or pity us. As the one and only Son of God, as the one and only Savior of the world His pain of love for us compels him to take our pain upon Himself. Does your back hurt. Jesus hurts with you. What burdens you this day, our Lord is burdened too. Do you feel the pain of a sick heart, a sick body, or a sick mind, our Lord really and truly suffers with you in all the pain.
Most of all Christ’s compassion, His pain of Love compelled Him to endure the pain of the cross where He suffered and died for your sin. Sin is our spiritless opposition to God and His will; itis the root and the cause of all that plagues us in body, mind, and soul. Sin is our greatest burden. Most of the time we don’t’ even recognize it. Sin is the rock that we try to bear above us, trying to not let it crush us, but it will. It will unless we have a Savior. And we do! To put an end to your suffering Christ had to put and end to the power of sin. He took on its crushing weight for you. In the end it crushed Him to death on the cross. Are you sick and in pain now? Through faith in Christ you can know the hope of eternal healing. Though you die now, in Him you have the hope of eternal life. Do you need rest for your soul? It is hear, come and believe. Because of Jesus the weight of your sin has been lifted from you. Hear His Word, remember your baptisms and receive His Body and Blood. In these you will find the rest that you need through the forgiveness of your sins. Your sins are forgiven.
When Jesus saw the crowds coming to Him He was moved with compassion. Though He and His disciples needed physical rest, they would get that later. Sometimes it is inconvenient t to be a Christian. We are called to serve 24 hours a day and it isn’t always easy. As part of my vicarage assignment I was required to spend the summer in clinical pastoral education which included spending time at the local Lutheran hospital. I can remember how, often I hated, with a passion, having to carry a beeper and be on call. Normally I would get to the hospital in the early evening, after a day of work or classes. We were allowed and expected to try to get some rest. Inevitably the beeper would go off in the middle of the night and I’d have to get up in the dark of night, completely disoriented, and rush to one or more emergencies where a person had died or was in the process of dying. When the beeper went off it was never good news. Whether it was in the cardiac ward sitting with a family mourning the death of their loved one or meeting family at the emergency room to watch as doctors and nurses failed to save the life of their mother after a horrific car crash. At first, I felt this was such a hostile interruption to my life and my sleep, and I didn’t like it. However, as time went on, after I realized the nature of the calls; I grew to accept them; and indeed, even was enriched from them; for I was able to offer comfort, counsel and compassion to patients who were dying or in very traumatic circumstances. Such people needed my compassion; they need to be reminded of our compassionate God who cared for them, just as the clamoring crowds in today’s gospel needed the compassion of Jesus and his disciples.
Much of our world today is unfeeling, uncaring, unconcerned. As Christians, God has laid his hand on us, He has given us hope and rest through the forgiveness of our sins, and therefore we simply cannot be like the rest of the world. God has called us to care, to have compassion, to feel the pain of love in our hearts. God has called us to share the love we have received. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
This is why inviting people to church is so important. This is why we wake our kids up on Sunday mornings. This is why getting the evangelism program going is so essential. We want people to come and meet our compassionate Savior through whom we have received rest and comfort. We want the people around us to have this rest also. We want them to find rest for their souls. And it is only found here.
Retirement won’t do it. A longer vacation or another day off won’t do it. And a longer nap certainly won’t do it. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…and you will find rest for your souls.” In His Word, here in this church and in the Sacraments our Lord continues to have compassion on us and through us compassion on the rest of the world. Amen.