Famous Jesus

The Gospel Reading

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56


The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

The Sermon

Mark is telling us a story and I think sometimes when we read pieces of it every week we sometimes lose something of it in the telling. So, let me take us back a couple of weeks to the previous reading of Jesus being rejected in his own home town.

When he was rejected he didn't throw up his hands and say I quit. He gathered his disciples together and sent them out two by two to spread his message of repentance and forgiveness and love. That is where we are today. The disciples are returning from their mission and they have wonderful stories of their success. Jesus tells them to go off and rest but it seemed that wherever they go people follow. They were hungry for this good news and they did not want to leave the light Jesus was shining on their often dark existence. Jesus was healing them in body, mind and spirit. They wanted more.

We are the same. We want to feel whole physically and spiritually. We can do that by listening to the sound of our shepherd. Sheep are better behaved than many of us humans. We tend to rebel. We can be unruly and selfish. We want to fill the hole in our lives with material things that can in no way fill what is really a spiritual need.

If we surrender to Jesus the shepherd and offer ourselves to him we will experience a lifting up of our souls and we will understand that all we really need in our lives is our relationship with our God who gave us our life.

The irony is that if you surrender everything to God you will gain everything.