“WE’RE GOIN’ ON A WABBIT TRAIL!” (Mark 6:1-6)
August 12, 2018
Rev. Jeremy B. Stopford
TODAY’S “SPECIAL”: “Helping a Friend”
Morty and Saul, are out one afternoon on a lake when their boat starts sinking.
Saul, the banker, says to Morty, “So listen, Morty, you know I don’t swim so well.”
Morty remembered how to carry another swimmer from his lifeguard class when he was just a kid. He begins tugging Saul toward shore. After twenty minutes, Morty begins to get tired.
Finally about 50 feet from shore, Morty asks Saul, “So Saul, do you suppose you could float alone?”
Saul replies, “Morty, this is a lousy time to be asking for money!”
INTRODUCTION
In the moments we have together today, we are going to look briefly at two specific themes in the 6th chapter of Mark. First, we are going to go home with Jesus – home to Nazareth where He was raised by Joseph and Mary. What will we learn about His home life that we otherwise did not know? And then we are going to go on what I call a “wabbit trail”. We are going to look at a theme which Mark portrays and see where it leads! Here we go!
PRAYER
1—WHEN THE SERVANT OF SERVANTS WAS NOT WELCOME HOME (vs. 1-6)
Once again, let’s look at our theme verse, Mark 10:45. The first 8 chapters of Mark show the Servant of servants’ training of His first disciples.
Have you ever gone back to your hometown? For some of you, that would be no further than Earlville itself. For me, it is Rye, NY, just outside New York City. My neighbor Bruce and I spent many nights camping on the islands in the pond behind our homes. I spent 8 of my first 13 years of life in Rye – more years than in any other place until Thuvia and I moved back to Norwich after college. I took Thuvia and our daughter Tonya to Rye many years later. It just wasn’t the same. I didn’t even recognize downtown – yet in reality I was looking at it through adult eyes and not through the eyes of a 13 year old.
Part of the Savior’s training included His showing them around His hometown, Nazareth. What would His disciples – and we – learn from that journey back home? At least two things:
FIRST, Questions can reveal many things!
(1) Some have said, “if I were living when Jesus was alive, I would have trusted Him.” His Nazareth neighbors spent the better part of 30 years with Him, yet all they had were questions, not trust. “How does He do what He does?” “How does He know what He knows?”
(2) They knew His family – but they didn’t know Him! Mark gives us at least two insights about His family. First, perhaps by this time Joseph has died. “Isn’t this Mary’s son?”. And the second: Mark lists His step-brothers by name: James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. AND he mentions that the Savior had sisters. Why is this important? Some false religions don’t believe that Mary had any children other than the Lord Jesus – insinuating a kind of purity that must have resulted in her having only the Savior for a Son. However, Mark is challenging us: do we believe what religions say? Or do we believe the Scriptures?
(3) “They took offense at Him” (v. 3). Pastor Harold Duff, now with the Lord, while speaking at the old Camp Lookout meetings shared his evaluation of this statement. He said it means, “they were offended at the way He did things.” They took offense at Him! They didn’t like the way He preached. They didn’t like the way He taught. They didn’t like that His closest followers were the scum of society – mainly fishermen and tax collectors and who knows what other riff-raff! They just didn’t like Him!
The Apostle Paul would later tell us in 1 Corinthians 1:25, when explaining the rejection of the gospel by both the Jewish and Gentile hearers: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” There are many modern day hearers of God’s word who take offense at Jesus. Are any of us some of them?
SECOND, Jesus “was amazed at their lack of faith.” This was an huge lesson for the early disciples, a lesson which would be often repeated and often referring to their own lack of faith. Hebrews would tell us, 11:1,6a, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…For without faith it is impossible to please Him…”. A vibrant, successful servant of the Servant of servants will have a faith which is not looking at the circumstances but at the Lord Himself. Does that describe us?
2—WE’RE GOING ON A WABBIT TRAIL!
These first 8 chapters of the Gospel of Mark are preparation material for the last 8 chapters. As in Mark 10:45, the last 8 chapters are where the Son of man gives His life a ransom for many. The first 8 chapters of Mark are where He, the Servant of servants, trains His disciples – and us – on how to serve.
In my study these past 2 weeks, I noticed how often in Mark that training centers around the lake. People today pay BIG BUCKS to spend a week, or even only a weekend, on lakefront property – perhaps even on a boat. How about you? Is that your ideal vacation?
So I went on a wabbit, er, RABBIT trail – you know, the kind where we look for one word and wonder where else it is.
Let’s go on this trail together! Write next to the passage what lesson the Servant of servants taught His disciples – and is trying to teach us. We’ll do some of these in the morning sermon. The rest are up to you! Here goes:
A. Mark 1:16: “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee…”
They didn’t know Jesus. They were seasoned fishermen, and this was their place of life. Little did they know that Jesus knew more about the water than they did! And He said 3 words of invitation to them: “Come, follow Me.” He took them from a place of familiarity – the sea and their livelihood with fish – and changed everything about their priorities and the way they looked at life. For the rest of their 3 years with Him, He would build them upon this simple foundation, “come, follow Me.” Do you love Jesus as your Savior? Is every day an opportunity to follow Him and an adventure in following Him?
B. Mark 2:13: “Once again Jesus went out beside the lake…”
The disciples did not get ALL they had to learn from Him in one lesson. Once again, He takes them back to their school – the lakeside. And once again, He teaches them. And once again, He makes a simple invitation, this time to Levi the scandalous tax collector, “Come, follow Me.” In both A & B, the simple lesson is this: following Jesus is obeying Him. And that brought great pleasure to Him.
C. Mark 3:7: “Withdrew to the lake…”
From what did Jesus and His disciples withdraw? Look at 3:6: the Pharisees and the Herodians were showing their initial plots to try to kill Jesus. He was showing His early servants that even the Servant of servants knew to withdraw from the challenges and hardships of life. Those hardships would still be there – in fact, they would follow Him to the cross. But He taught His disciples that to “withdraw” meant to retreat to the Father, to be refreshed in the fellowship of the Servant of servants, to be re-charged to face the next mission with a renewed strength and vigor.
Jesus says, “come unto Me all Who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you…REST!”. Have you withdrawn lately?
D. Mark 4:1: “Again Jesus began to teach by the lake…”
What is the key word in this sentence? The word “again”. The early disciples did not get it all in the first lesson! By the second lesson, they forgot some of what they learned the first lesson! Why, they might even need a third lesson! Romans 5:3b-4 say, “we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation produces patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.” Experience comes from life’s lessons, and those lessons produce hope. These servants had lessons to be learned. Are we willing and available to learn life’s lessons?
E. Mark 4:35: “Let’s go over to the other side…”
The Savior did what? He took His servants in training away from the security of the shore. If you’ve ever been out to sea for any length of time, what one thing do you look forward to: putting your feet once again on solid ground! But the Savior knew that His lessons could not be learned this day at the shore. They would have to be learned in the middle of the sea, where the storms of life would be, and where, much to their young experience, He, too, would be. His rebuke? “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? The lessons of faith can only be learned by the experience of the storm.
F. Mark 5:1: “They went across the lake…”
What is the Savior teaching here? That there are lessons to be learned on the other side of the lake! What if they said, “this is a nice spot to stay. Let’s anchor our lives in the security of this side of the lake. Why, there is plenty of wood for nice campfires! There is a little cove in which to rest or sleep.” What would happen? They would never learn the Servant of servants’ lessons from the other side of the lake!
G. Mark 5:21: “When Jesus had again crossed over by boat…”
There’s that word “again” again! The Savior’s lessons are non-stop! Just when we think we’ve “got it all together”, He takes us out of our comfort zone and takes us across the lake again! Jesus invites us to rest in Him. But He never says that that rest won’t involve a little travel!
H. Mark 6:47-49 “the boat was in the middle of the lake…”
Note how this story unfolds. This is one of Mark’s last mentions of a lake lesson. The Savior stays on the shore while HE makes His learning servants to get in the boat and cross the lake. They wouldn’t learn the lessons of life at the shore. They wouldn’t learn the lessons of life on the other shore. They would learn these new lessons of life in the middle of the lake. Is there security there? Nope! It may be hundreds of feet to the bottom of the lake! It may be thousands of yards to the shore! There is absolutely no human security in the middle of the lake! But when the Savior came out to them walking on the water and ultimately getting into the boat with them, what did He say?
“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
There will be many times that we don’t have any of life’s answers. But in the middle of the lake of the most recent of life’s lessons, Jesus says even to us, “Take courage! It is I! Don’t be afraid!”.
That’s quite a wabbit, er, rabbit trail. But this trail is one of the major roads to the disciples turning from raw men to dynamic servants of the Servant of servants!
CONCLUSION
What a great chapter, Mark Chapter 6! The Savior was not welcome home! But in His homegoing, His fellow disciples learned that while the world has no true faith, the foundation of their servanthood would be a faith rooted in the Servant of servants Himself. They were not to be offended in the way He does things!
And the lake – their most favorite and frequent setting in all of their lives before meeting the Savior – would be the scene of innumerable previously unknown lessons in their becoming His servants.
They would ask us today: are we teachable? Begin at the beginning: follow Jesus. Withdraw to Him daily. And trust! He alone is worthy!
Close in prayer
Rev. Jeremy Stopford, with wife Thuvia
Pastor, the First Baptist Church, Earlville, New York.