Nielsen’s Nook

Have you searched hard for something and it seemed as if even the tenacity of your efforts mocked you? Have you ever gone out for a simple thing and at once the world unraveled upon your brow?

I am fascinated that Christ, throughout much of Mark 6, seeks hard for solitude and rest and yet that one thing seems to escape him. No matter where his little fishing boat should moor, throngs of the needy waited for him, pressing in like a great boa to squeeze from Him all that He might give. Some surely came out of great need for healing while others came out a mosaic of other reasons. None seemed to have come because they were convinced that Jesus was Messiah.

Though the crowd did not seem to grasp his royal personage, his priestly significance, or his prophetic office, Jesus does not appear to be terribly bothered. He had stayed up praying until sometime after 3 AM the night before, gets off the boat and wham! the tides of neediness come rushing in as if a nearby dam had burst. Mark does not record that the people were required to sit and listen to a sermon or message, to fill out information or commitment cards, or any such thing prior to receiving healing from Christ. “As many as touched [His garments] were being saved (Gk. σῴζω).” Surely this word is not being used in a salvific sense; but the idea certainly parallels and affects the recipients. It proclaimed something profound to them.

Could it be that Christ’s sermon was being proclaimed by being in their midst and healing their ailments? Did this mercy in the midst of a selfish desire to be rid of their pain and suffering so transform some of them that they realized that Messiah had healed them, the King of Kings, the Priest greater than Moses (Deut 18:15ff), the Final Prophet of God, the Word that says all in His coming? Freely you have received all that you have and all that you are. Freely give it away.