The 12 chosen disciples of Jesus had been with Him for some time now, hearing Him preach and teach and seeing His amazing miracles. As Mark 6:7-12 begins, Jesus chose to send these 12 apostles out to help spread His message and to get some practical experience in sharing the faith with other local people, before they would be sent out to the world in full-time ministry later on. They were sent out in pairs, so that they could help and encourage each other. They were to take very little with them...
The 12 chosen disciples of Jesus had been with Him for some time now, hearing Him preach and teach and seeing His amazing miracles. As Mark 6:7-12 begins, Jesus chose to send these 12 apostles out to help spread His message and to get some practical experience in sharing the faith with other local people, before they would be sent out to the world in full-time ministry later on. They were sent out in pairs, so that they could help and encourage each other. They were to take very little with them in material possessions - to learn to depend upon the Lord and the help they could receive from others who would listen to them. They were to stay where they were welcomed and not look for better situations for themselves. They were also to expect opposition and people who would reject them and their message.
In turn, Jesus promised to give them power over evil spirits and the ability to heal some people; and He gave them the message to speak - calling people to repent and to trust the Good News of God’s coming kingdom, in the promised Savior (Mark 6:7-12). When they returned, they were able to report that they had been able, by God’s power, to share the message and cast out demons and heal some people, along with anointing them with oil, a medicine of the day. (Mark 6:13,20. See also Isaiah 1:6, Luke 10:33-34, and James 5:14, for example.)
Meanwhile, we have a flashback to what King Herod had done with John the Baptist, after he arrested him and put him in prison, in Mark 6:17-29. John had been arrested because Herod’s wife, Herodias, was very angry with him (John) for criticizing their marriage. It had been a very evil time for a very troubled royal family. Herodias had been living in Rome with her husband Philip, who was actually also her uncle. Herod was also married, but made a trip to Rome, leaving his wife behind, and then deciding to elope to with Herodias, stealing her away from Philip. Philip and Herod were actually brothers, so that meant that Herodias was now living with her former husband’s brother. Herod was also a half-uncle to her. This meant that two marriages were broken up in the process and all sorts of Old Testament laws were broken about whom one could marry and how close a relative one could marry. I don’t know if you could follow all that, but it was a terrible mess. John the Baptist had to speak up about this, and Herodias hated him for it and wanted him dead.
Herod was not really a king, but was really a tetrarch of one fourth of an area controlled around Israel by the Romans, and just used that title of king. He had some respect for John the Baptist, though. He knew that John was “a righteous and holy man.” He “feared” and protected John and liked to listen to him, though he was “greatly perplexed” by what John said. Like his father, Herod the Great, (who was leader at the time of the birth of Jesus and was responsible for the killing of all the babies in Bethlehem, as he tried to kill Jesus Himself) this Herod was partially Jewish, but was not a faithful Jew.
This was also evident in a birthday party Herod then threw for himself and invited the influential people around him, who helped keep him in power as ruler. There was a great banquet and probably lots of drinking and then Herod’s latest wife, Herodias, sent in her own daughter to dance before all these men. It was likely a very immoral and lascivious kind of dancing, but Herod allowed his daughter to do this, and he and the others were pleased. Again, likely drunk, Herod began to make all sorts of promises, saying things he could never deliver on, but saying he would give Herodias’s daughter whatever she wanted. She consulted with her mother and quickly came back to Herod, wanting the head of John the Baptist delivered to her on a platter. Herod did not want to do this, but because he had made “vows” to her and the guests had heard them, he gave the order and John was soon dead, with his head on a platter (Mark 6:17-29).
Herod was haunted by this event, and when he heard more and more about Jesus, he thought that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead, who had come back to give him more trouble. Others said that John was the Elijah predicted by Malachi 4:5-6. But we have already heard in Luke 1:17 and from Jesus Himself in Matthew 11:7-10 that John was the one promised but came only “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” He was also more than just another prophet of the Old Testament (Mark 6:14-16).
When His own disciples returned from their mission trips, Jesus took them by boat to a desolate place, so that He and they could get some rest and have time to eat. Others saw Jesus, though, and hurried on foot around the Sea of Galilee to find Jesus. A huge crowd had gathered before Jesus and his disciples arrived. It was no longer a place of rest; but Jesus cared about all these people, probably mostly Jews, “because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus was the Good Shepherd promised in the Old Testament and He spent the whole day teaching these sheep many things (Mark 6:30-34). See also Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34:11-16, as examples of prophecies Jesus fulfilled.
It was getting late in the day, though, and the disciples asked Jesus to dismiss the crowd, so that the people could go find some food for themselves. But Jesus said to His disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Maybe he was hoping that they would just turn to Him for His help, after all the other miraculous things He had done. Instead, they try to think of what they could do, coming up with no good answers. A denarius was about a typical day’s pay for an ordinary person’s work. Even if they had eight month of pay, 200 denarii, that would not be enough. They themselves had only five loaves of bread and two fish for themselves (Mark 6:35-38).
Jesus knew exactly what He would do, though. He had the people sit in an organized way. He took the bread and fish they had and prayed and asked a blessing over the food (as we have also been taught to pray and thank the Lord for our food, before meals). Then He began to break up the loaves and then the fish and had His disciples distribute them to everyone, in a marvelous miracle. There was food for everyone and 12 baskets of leftovers, enough for all the 12 hungry disciples, too. 5,000 amazed men were fed, plus women and children (Mark 6:39-44).
This was a miracle like that of God, when He provided a kind of bread, manna, in the wilderness for His chosen people, along with quail, after they left Egypt. Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, also provided both spiritual food as He taught the people, and physical food, bread and fish for them, to show His fellowship with and concern for them. (Remember how the Pharisees criticized Jesus because He showed friendship and fellowship and ate with “bad” people like tax collectors and sinners. See Mark 2:15-17. (How sad it was, later, that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, Who “ate His bread” and received so much care and fellowship from Jesus. See John 13:18.)
Jesus immediately made His disciples start to go across the Sea of Galilee by boat again. Other Gospels tell us that people were thinking about seizing Jesus and trying to force Him to become their king. How great it would be to have someone who could miraculously provide free food for people every day, this way. Jesus did not want this or his disciples to hear this idea of the people and so He Himself dismissed the crowd and then went off to a mountain to pray and receive strength from His Heavenly Father. He also realized that the disciples were having a difficult time on the se again because the wind was against them.
Somewhere between 3-6 am, Jesus came to them, walking on the water of the sea. They could see Him, but thought He was a “ghost.” They “cried out” and “were terrified.” Right away, He spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And when He got into the boat, the wind ceased. The disciples were “utterly astounded” at all this - His walking on water and control of the wind. But again Mark tells us, “They did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”
His own disciples were still not getting who Jesus really was, even after such a miraculous day. Their hearts were still hard, resisting the truth about Jesus and not trusting Him as they should have. How much we need to keep seeing and hearing from Jesus, through His Word, also, in our own struggles and ups and down in faith! May we keep listening and learning, too.
