Mark 6:30-44 (NIV)
Have you ever found yourself really tired and in need of rest? Have you ever been at the end of your rope—I mean, just about to fall on your face emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally? The chance to get a break from the noise and the strain and the pain can become all you think about. And then, your phone rings… you get a message... a child screams in the other room… or you see reports of the trauma that just hit your city. What do you do in that moment?
A lot of times, we tend to swing to either extreme. On one hand we can buy into the "you do you" narrative, where we turn away from pain and act to secure our own rest while we allow those around us to go without it. On the other hand, some of us go into a hyperactive frenzy. We get to the point where we cannot stop ourselves from “helping” and end up ignoring our impulses to stop and rest. And in the name of sacrifice we never allow the space necessary to recoup what we pour out, leaving us with nothing to give others or ourselves.
In today’s passage, Jesus obliterates our over-individualized notions of self-care as he includes the communities around him in his rest. But ironically he does not go into "savior mode," fixing all the problems himself. He invites his grieving community to make something whole., which is a very different way to think about rest.
----------REFLECT----------
1. What moment in this passage do you find most intriguing?
2. Why did Jesus say to the disciples, “You give them something to eat.”? Is there anything that you might think isn’t enough that you could offer to Jesus to multiply today?
3. This crowd was probably over ten thousand people in size, based on the way that the ancient world counted by number of men. This multitude experienced a communal miracle. How does this challenge your thinking of how Jesus moves? Are there prayers that you pray for yourself that you could make more communal?
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