Sermon from January 21, 2001
If I were to learn forward and point to an object on the floor without saying anything, what would be your natural reaction? It would be to look over at that part of the room that I was pointing to. If your Black Lab were standing here by my side when I pointed, what would be his natural reaction? It would be to sniff my finger. The finger calls to us to look beyond itself. The uncomprehending can only sniff. Those with understanding look. They may not know for sure what the finger is pointing to, but they look beyond the pointing finger.

Nature serves as a giant finger, calling to us to look beyond itself, to see God's invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:20). Those with ears to hear look. The uncomprehending can only sniff. They observe nature and never look beyond nature to nature's creator. I hope you get the idea. It informs the biblical understanding of miracles. That understanding plays an important part in the miracles of Jesus that we consider today in Mark 8:1-13.

Mark usually tells us if Jesus has gone from one geographical area to another. The opening of chapter eight reports no such change, so it may be that the next event took place in the same general location as the previous miracle at the end of chapter six. If so, it took place in the Decapolis, a municipality of ten towns south of the Sea of Galilee and east of the Jordan River. Their inhabitants were Gentiles, many of whom had found Jesus very appealing. Verse 1-3 introduce us to another incident involving Gentiles.

During those days, another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance. " Talk about déjà vu all over again: large crowd, nothing to eat, and (thank God!) Jesus' compassion. However, this time, unlike in chapter six, the lack of food could not be easily remedied.

Verses 4-6: His disciples answered, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?"

"How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked.

"Seven," they replied. He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. Here we go again. As He had done in chapter six, Jesus precedes the miracle with prayer. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them.

Mark emphasizes this unexpected bounty just as He did the one in chapter six. A) They ate. He does not say all, but he clearly implies it. B) They were satisfied. Verse 8 says, The people ate and were satisfied. C) There was a lot left over. Verse 8 continues, Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. D) Verse 9 comes like an exclamation point at the end of the story, telling us for the first time the size of the crowd that had eaten, been satisfied and had all those leftovers: About four thousand men were present.

By the way, scholars sometimes express surprise that Jesus did this miracle a second time, and some of them account for it by saying that He really did it only once, but Mark reported it in such a way as to look like a second miracle of loaves. I believe He did it twice. I am surprised that Jesus did it only twice. The restraint with which He exercised His power is by far the more startling feature of the miracles of Jesus.

But what does the miracle mean? It too, like a startling finger, points powerfully away from itself. What does it point to? As in chapter six, it points to Jesus as the one who satisfies other hungers as well. We do have other hungers, none deeper than our hunger for God and meaning and a hope that does not disappoint us as so many hopes do. If this is so, then we have the deepest answer yet to the question. Who is Jesus? He is more than a carpenter, more than a native son of Nazareth. He is more than John the Baptist come back to life. He is more than a prophet.

Jesus did the works of a prophet. He thought of Himself as a prophet, and others called Him a prophet. He spoke prophetic words like Isaiah of old, and like Elijah and Elisha of old He went outside Israel to minister to Gentiles. If this audience was primarily a Gentile audience, it is the third straight miracle done for Gentiles. By doing this particular miracle again Jesus was saying prophetically that the blessings of Israel were intended also for the Gentile world.

But if He is the inexhaustible source of satisfaction of humanity's seemingly insatiable appetite for purpose and wholeness, then He is more than any other prophet ever claimed to be. It is against this background that we are to hear what happens next, beginning at the end of verse nine.

And having sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it." Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

I wonder if this episode reveals some internal conflict among the Pharisees about Jesus. We know from other sources in the New Testament that a minority of Pharisees were sympathetic toward Jesus. We know from Mark 3 that some of them had decided that Jesus did His miracles by the devil's power. Did this disagreement erupt into open debate among Pharisees? Did the majority that opposed Jesus give in and agree to make one more effort to see if Jesus could persuade them that He was legitimate?

If so, they hardly went with an open mind. According to verse 11, their intent was sinister. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. The word test in human relations is a loaded word. It betrays skepticism about Jesus and an unwillingness to consider alternatives. It was as if they were saying, "We really think you are disloyal to Israel's unique calling and are probably empowered by the devil, but why don't you prove us wrong, if you can?" But what was the test?

Now, stop and think about that for a minute. "Jesus, you can prove us wrong by showing us a sign from heaven." But what sign would do the trick? They did not deny that Jeus did miracles. How could they? Jesus did most of them in a public way. They were there for all to see. The Pharisees raised questions about where the miracles came from. They had said He did them by the devil's power. They looked beyond the miracles, but they mistook what they pointed to. So, what sign exactly were they asking for that might change their minds? How would it differ from healing a leper, making the paraplegic walk, raising the child from death? If those events did not persuade them that Jesus spoke the truth, what would? What test did they have in mind?

A pragmatist might say to Jesus, "Why don't you just do something? You have an amazing bag of tricks. Go ahead and show them. After all, if you can get these guys behind you, there is no limit to the impact you can have." There is a lot to be said for being pragmatic, but one objection to pragmatism finds it to be shortsighted.

Jesus came to show Israel to be a new way of being Israel. That involved rethinking time-hallowed ways of doing things. It would have been shortsghted for Jesus to do some dramatic miracle that might make a splash but would not effect any fundamental change in how people thought about their calling as God's chosen people. Looking at it that way makes their request to do a decisive sign seem shallow, and it ignores the difficult question, "What test did they have in mind?" Did they really know what they wanted Jesus to do to change their minds about Him?

An observation about the tendencies of our hearts becomes relevant here. Do you know what a lot of talk about miracles of any kind of extraordinary, divine intervention amounts to? We want God to change our present, unpleasant circumstances so that we can get back to life as it used to be. To put it another way, we want God to change our circumstances, but we don't want Him to change us. That won't do in Christianity that puts repentance, confession and forgiveness at the center of one's relationship with God.

Between the unclear and impossible demand the Pharisees were making on Jesus and the tendency of human nature to resist necessary and fundamental changes, no wonder verse 12 says, He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it." We weary God with our folly. By the way, do you remember where else has Jesus sighed in the Gospel of Mark? It was in Mark 7:34 that we read just last week. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh spoke to the deaf man.

That takes us back to an observation I made last week. Among disciples and detractors alike, you can make a case that thus far in the Gospel of Mark Jesus' words and actions were falling on deaf ears. They did not understand. Their hearts were hard. We have all had that experience. We have said, "I talked myself blue in the face, but that guy just didn't get it." Haven't you even said it about yourself? "What was wrong with me? I heard the message over and over. Why did it take so long for me to get it?"

Mark included the healing of the deaf man at the end of chapter seven as an illustration in the flesh of the miracle needed in the human spirit in order for people to hear and take to heart what was going on in the words and deeds of Jesus. We have seen that difficulty several times with the shaky-faith, nerve-frayed, hard-hearted disciples. The confrontation with the Pharisees shows the same difficulties among people who had high stakes in the spiritual integrity of Israel.

Is there a cure for this deafness of the human spirit to the message of God? Yes, but how do I talk about this cure? I myself need help. I feel like the disciples, when they confronted 4000 hungry people with seven loaves and a few fish. I am not adequate to the human needs that come before me. Maybe the most fundamental lesson of Christian ministry is to bring your pitifully few loaves and fish and trust God to multiply them, or else you fail.

That sense of inadequacy rises like the tide in the face of the spiritual deafness we are all prone to. My help comes from the story of Jesus' healing the deaf Man in Mark 7:31-37. I don't know if Mark intended for us to use his story in this way, but it makes sense to me. Look back at those verses with me.

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. First, those people brought the deaf man to Jesus, because they knew that if anyone could heal him, Jesus could. We have to do with a malady that requires supernatural power for its healing. But did you notice the language in which they asked Jesus to help the man?

They begged him to place his hand on the man. Do we often pray for people with that kind of urgency? The language is strong. I wonder if anyone experiences a cure of spiritual deafness without people pleading with Christ on the deaf person's behalf. The intensity of desperate people in the Gospel of Mark may be embarrassing to us, but have you noticed how consistently it has run therough the story Mark told?

The leper in chapter 1:40 begged him on his knees. The friends of the paralytic in chapter two made an opening in Peter's roof in order to lower him at the feet of Jesus. The disciples were anything but calm when they woke Jesus from sleep during the storm and said, "Teacher, don't you care if we perish?" (Mk. 4:38). The Gadarene demoniac in chapter five ran and fell on his knees in front of Jesus and shouted at the top of his voice. Heartbroken Jairus fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him (Mk. 5:22-23). The Syro-Phoenician woman interrupted Jesus' holiday, burst into His private rooms, fell at His feet, and begged Him to drive a demon from her daughter.

Do we ever pray like that for Christ to remove the spiritual deafness of someone? Maybe God opens deaf ears most often in response to desperate pleas. The question is not how we pray? We may, like Hannah in the Old Testament, only move our lips; or we may pray with loud words. It is what is in our hearts that matters. What do we really care about? What spiritual matters engage us deeply? Do we bring them before God?

Second, and most suggestive, verse 33 says that Jesus took him aside, away from the crowd. Do you think Mark was suggesting that if we want a cure for spiritual deafness, we are likely to find it away from the noisy, bewitching, insistent routine of life and in a solitude in which Jesus Christ has our undivided attention?

During the last set of lectures of my doctoral program in summer, 1996, we studied spirituality and ministry. We did so in the beautiful Passionist Fathers retreat center in Sierra Madre, CA. It backed up to the San Gabriel Mountains and was distant enough from the 210 freeway that you could hardly hear its traffic.

The professor gave us an assignment in the middle of our study. Beginning at 5:00 on Friday afternoon until noon the next day, we were to observe 19 hours of silence. We ate in silence, passed each other in the halls in silence. When the 19 hours ended, I wanted to continue.

Lunch was hardly over on Saturday, when several other pastors rented a car. They did not get the car they asked for. Instead, they got a brand new, 1996, red, Thunderbird convertible. Gonna cruise Santa Monica. Isn't that a parable of life? You want to spend time with God, and a red convertible drives up. Did I want to go? Of course, I wanted to go, but not as much as I wanted solitude.

We need a place, even a small company of people where "all the trivia and fuss have decreased," where we can "harken to that voice deep inside you, which amid the surfeit and vanity used to be stifled by the roar from outside," (Gulag, II, 605). Maybe our spiritual deafness is caused by the incessant din without. There is a voice deep inside you. It is the voice of God, and if ever you hear it, it wil renew your being forever.