Worship

Seminarian Mark Schleusner

Mark 6:30-34

Theme: Christ looks with unchanging love on His people

30Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. 31 And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. 33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

It’s late, later than usual, and dad is tired. His back is sore, his mind is foggy, and all he’d like now is to get a meal and to get off to bed. It’s been a long day at work. The kids, however, don’t know and don’t care. They heard dad’s voice, and now they’re all excited, crowding around him, asking for piggyback rides, telling him what they’ve been up to. In short, they’re being a bunch of very adorable nuisances. So how does dad react? He might get a little annoyed, maybe he’ll sigh a little, but more likely than not, he’ll give in to their demands, play with them, hear their stories, and just enjoy their company. Because, at the end of the day, he’s their dad. He’s not looking for them to be perfect little angels before he cares about them, though he’d certainly like them to get there. It’s that dad’s relationship to his children, which he and their mother established, his duty to them and love for them, that causes him to be with them. That’s what makes a father’s presence with and care for his children stable, because it’s not based on them but on him. The same is true of Christ. His compassion for his people and his presence with them, past, present, and future, is not dependent on our behavior, but on his character. And so, because he is unchanging, Christ looks in unchanging love on his people.

Now, at first glance, this text might not seem to say much about the character of God as revealed in Christ. There’s a lot striking about both the disciples and the crowds to draw our attention to other matters. The disciples have been running about from town to town teaching as Christ taught them, healing the sick and casting out demons, and now they’ve just gotten done recounting everything they did and said to Jesus. They’ve done their debrief, they’re tired, and Jesus says it’s time for a rest, but that rest has to be taken off in the desert somewhere. Because, unlike the disciples, the crowd is very high energy. They’re described as “coming and going” sorta running around. Whether that means they’re asking questions or just trying to get close, or get some healing or whatever they’re after, it’s gotten to the point that Jesus and the disciples can’t even find the time to eat. So, Jesus and the disciples go off to a wilderness place. However, the crowds notice, and they’re so excited that they run together from all the towns and cities to gather before him in the wilderness.

It’s a pretty ideal ministry situation, you’ve got the apostles giving it their all, and crowds who are so receptive that they’ll chase after them even on their day-off. But when this ideal situation culminates, and the crowds gather before Christ, it’s neither of these things that draw His attention or prompt his action. The text says, when the crowds gathered to him, “he was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” The surface level here, the metaphor in play, is striking enough. Christ sees these people gathered before him, the people of Israel, like helpless animals scattered across the desert, in need of guidance, and nourishment. Their need stirs him and so in love, he gives them the teaching the leaders of Israel have failed to give.

That’s the surface, but there’s more going on here. That phrase “like sheep without a shepherd,” the reason for Christ’s compassion, is not just a cleverly chosen metaphor. It’s been said before, way back in the book of Numbers, back when God chose to be the God of the people of Israel, when he freed them from Egypt and led them through the desert to the land He’d promised to give them, all by working through a man, a prophet by the name of Moses. At that time, about 1400 years before the time of our text, when the Israelites were passing through the desert on their way to Canaan, Moses sinned against God by disobeying him and encouraging the people in continual rebellion against God. Because of that, though you’ll see Moses in heaven, God told him he would die before he reached the promised land. And when this happened, Moses asked God to provide another prophet in his place to lead the people into the promised land, He said, “Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, 17 who may go out before them and go in before them, who may lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be like sheep which have no shepherd.” To this God responds, “take Joshua, son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.”

All of that to say, when Jesus sees the people of Israel scattered in the desert like sheep without a shepherd, he’s sees them as their God, the very same one who freed them from slavery, who put up with their sin and rebellion, who promised to send them teachers and leaders, all because of his love for them, only now, he does so not only with his omniscience, but with a pair of human eyes. And the same love that prompted him 1400 years ago, the love God has for his people, finds new expression in the person of Christ. He promised to send Joshua after Moses, and his own name, Jesus, is drawn from the same Hebrew words. “The Lord is salvation” or “The Lord saves.” So, motivated by His unchanging love, Christ fulfills his promise in a new and greater way, as the true Joshua, a man in whom the spirit dwells without limit or measure, who does not just speak for God but is God, who has come to lead them out of corruption and sin and death to the true promised land, to eternal life. He speaks to them, he teaches them, for the sake of his promise and his love.

It’s been a little over 2000 since then, and though God and His for His people remain unchanging, the same isn’t true for everything. Generally speaking, since the time of our text, things have cooled down a bit. You don’t generally get folks, even Christians, running from all the towns in the area to hear the Word or to have the Lord’s Supper. Now, in all fairness, there’s some good reasons for that. We’re blessed in the United States to have Christian churches of one kind or another just about everywhere. We don’t need to run out to the twin cities to hear God’s Word. On top of that, part of the reason for the crowd’s excitement is that they don’t exactly know what’s going on. They know Jesus teaches like nobody else, they know he heals the sick and casts out demons, and they think he seems like a prophet, maybe even the Messiah, but they’re generally not aware of the full implications of who Jesus is and what he’s come to do. That mystery adds some intrigue to the situation, intrigue we’re not as likely to feel, since pretty much every week we confess who Christ is, that he’s the Son of God, and that he came to live perfectly and die innocently in our place to win us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. So it’s fine, good even, if our faith is calmer than the crowds, if it’s less like a geyser and more like a steady flowing stream of living water.

But still, what we believe and confess is marvelous, even when deeply rooted in us. Although we’re blessed not to need to run miles by foot to hear the word about Christ, it would be worth it to do so. Unfortunately though, when we do get the chance to express the value of the gift given to us in God’s word, we rarely do so with the zeal shown by the folks in today’s text. Speaking for myself, there are jokes about pastors taking a vow of poverty, but what we undergo is really kind of cushy compared to what the apostles took on themselves at Christ’s command. They’ve gotten back from going town to town without money or food, or a change of clothes, they’re working incessantly for the sake of God’s kingdom. The same goes for Christ himself, even tired and pestered, he looks on the crowd with compassion. Likewise, even granting the different circumstances between us and the crowd, they still put us to shame. They get a glimmer, a glimpse of what’s going on with Christ, and they’re off following him by foot into a desert. He’s top of their priority list, no questions asked. More often than not, I find that while we’re blessed to have Christ as a sort of background assumption of our life, a foundation on which we build, when it comes to our choices, He remains in the background. When moving or going to college, finding a high paying job, good connections, a place close to family, even just good entertainment and food come higher on the priority list than finding the best church we can. On a day to day level, what we want to do, who we want to talk to, what’s convenient or inconvenient, comfortable or uncomfortable to us likely has more to do with our actions than the advance of God’s kingdom in our own lives or the lives of others.

If the crowds in today’s text seem kind of like a bunch of kids bouncing up and down at the sound of their father’s voice, we, in comparison, often come across more like children who, when dad comes home, are engrossed in something else. A book, a show, some music, whatever it is, it’s more important at the moment than dad. He’s kind of a background component of life, he does his thing and I do mine. It’s almost two separate spheres, two separate lives. But a good father’s love isn’t based on the attention of his children. He knows how they are, for good and ill, and he’s not surprised by it. At the end of the day, he’s their dad. He’s gonna be there to teach his kids to provide for them, to discipline them, all of it, because that’s who he is to them, and not because they are or are not a certain way.

Likewise, the love of Christ is not based on us. Whether we’re excited about him, bouncing up and down like a bunch of kids, or not, doesn’t change how he looks on us. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The love that prompted him to lead the people of Israel in particular is the same love that prompted him to come down to earth as a man. Even as he fulfilled his promise to Moses, he was in the midst of fulfilling an older and greater promise, to be a blessing to all nations, to crush the serpent’s head, to take the sins of all the world in himself and destroy them by his death so that he could lead all people to the true promised land, to eternal life and joy with Father.

That unchanging love with which God has always looked on his people is what leads him to make and keep his promises to us. And he has given us great promises. He says, “Wherever two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” Brothers and sisters, we came together this morning “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” and we are gathered around His Word, so Christ is with us now. Even as you go about your day and the rest of your lives, He has promised “I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.” If it ever escapes you how wonderful that is, remember this text. Remember that the omniscient God looked on his people with a set of human eyes, and His divine love was felt in a human heart, stirred by the memory of a promise thousands of years old.

Because of that, the church of God, past, present, and future, is never like sheep without a shepherd, Christ is with us, to lead us and guide us through this life even to the end of time, until we reach new heavens and the new earth he has promised to us. It might be another several thousand years or it might be today, but God’s promises will not wear out in the meantime. They are as new, as moving, as much an expression of the heart of God’s love as they were when he made them. He will be our God and we will be his people. He will lead us, teach us, be with us, through all the changes of human life, until the day comes when he leads us fully to himself, when the call of Christ’s voice brings not crowds from cities but all people from their graves to stand before him. On that day he will teach us to know God, not in part and in our sin as he does now, but fully and perfectly. He will teach us to know the unchanging love of God perfectly when we behold it on his face.

As for when, it’s late, later than many thought it would be, but it’s not late by His standard. Even now the Word of our Father draws near the door. I can’t tell you exactly when the door will open, but the time of His coming is always soon. When He comes, we will not be irritated by our sins. He has already borne our sins and taken our pains. His work is done, and though He rests, He does not grow tired. We are His brothers and sisters, bought by His blood, beloved children of the Father because of Him, whom He has chosen to be His own. So wait for that day with joyful expectation. Nothing else remains but to wait for His voice, to welcome Him, to crowd around Him in joy, and to just be with Christ and our Father forever.