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Mark 6:34-44: The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men. (ESV) It’s easy to read accounts like this one and be hard on the apostles. They essentially interrupt Jesus’s ministry and tell him to get rid of the people he’s teaching. Then they try to make it about the welfare of the people--it’s late, they need to eat, tell them to go so they can take care of themselves. But it backfires on them! What does Jesus say? “You give them something to eat.” Of course, it doesn’t end there, but the full story doesn’t begin here in verse 34, either, even though we get a hint. Back in verses 7-13, Jesus sends out the twelve, charging them to do mighty works in his name and preach the gospel. In our passage today, this is what they have returned from doing. As verses 12 and 13 tell us, they spent their time proclaiming “that people should repent,” and “cast[ing] out demons and annoint[ing] with oil many who were sick and heal[ing] them.” In short, they’ve been doing the work of ministry that Jesus called them to and they’re tired. And we know that they’re tired, because the first thing Jesus instructs them to do when they return is to withdraw and rest (31). Maybe it isn’t so easy to come down hard on the apostles at this point, because it’s getting easier to see ourselves reflected back from the story. We are often worn out from the work of ministry. Whether we are serving our churches in some capacity, or fixing homes, or any combination of different things in different spheres, serving the Lord can be physically and spiritually draining. When we’ve finished with a work, we may feel entitled to pass on the next thing that the Lord puts before us—as though he is ignorant of our situation, and as though it is for us to assess whether it is in our capacity to answer his call.  But our Lord is not ignorant! The same Jesus who calls them to feed these five thousand people called them to withdraw and rest at the beginning of the passage. But the same Jesus who called them to withdraw and rest also has compassion on this great crowd with no shepherd. Jesus knows that the need is great, and though he knows his servants are physically and spiritually spent, he calls them out of their rest to minister to these people. But here’s the thing you shouldn’t miss: the Jesus who calls them out of their rest empowers them to do the work he has for them. Just as he, in verse 7, gave the apostles authority over unclean spirits so that they could cast them out, Jesus now provides the means to pull off this miraculous feeding of five thousand men.
The Lord graciously gives his people rest. He made us, he knows us, and he understands that we, as finite creatures, need time to withdraw and restore our strength. But the Lord also calls us, in his time, to minister to a lost world. Often, that call interrupts our plans for a much-needed rest. Often, that call comes right after we’ve finished serving him in other ways. But brothers and sisters, in these moments, be encouraged: the same Lord who calls us out of our weakness to serve him gives us the strength and power we need to answer his call. This past July, students from our area converged on Avondale Presbyterian Church for our annual Youth Camp. With their help, we were able to work on five homes, including the camp’s first projects in Delaware.  A group made up of students from Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Newark and Hockessin United Methodist Church spent the week at this New Castle home. The owner lives on her own and works, but her wages were insufficient to cover the cost of some necessary repairs.  Thanks to the work of the students, we were able to replace her roof in just a few days, and then move on to some other projects. The EP team had experience with windows, so they were able to do a few of those. We also put in some new drywall in a portion of the indoor ceiling, installed a new handle on a storm door, and even found time to put another new roof on—this time on the shed in the back yard.  What a blessing it was to be able to help this homeowner. Please pray that the Lord would provide for her needs, and that the students who worked on her home would give glory to God for what he used them to do.
Mark 5:24-34: And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (ESV) “Your faith has made you well.” Just as in Mark 2, we have an account of someone going through great difficulty to get to Jesus, but the difficulty here is less obvious. What’s so hard about walking through a crowd and touching a robe? We find the answer in Leviticus 15:19 and 15:25: When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening...and if a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. (ESV) This poor woman is like a leper: her condition makes her ceremonially unclean, unable to draw near to the Lord in temple worship (25); and with that, nobody would want to be near her, because to touch her would be to become unclean (19). She is effectively cut off from her people, and she has been for twelve years.
Why would she come to Jesus? She has spent all that she has and still the disease persists, and has in fact gotten worse. Why would she believe another promise of healing? And even if she would believe, what could she hope to get in exchange for her unclean, empty hands? Do you see yourself in the story yet? In Isaiah 64:6, the prophet laments: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” (NIV). Paul tells us in Galatians that “by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16, ESV), so how can we hope to draw near? With one touch to Jesus's garment, this woman is healed. Instead of Jesus being made unclean by her touch, his power heals her and her twelve years of suffering are over. But it’s not because he has on a magic robe. It isn’t because his physical body has some talismanic element to it. She is healed because “[her] faith has made [her] well.” Why would she come to Jesus? Why would she believe that he could heal her? Why would she come with unclean, empty hands? Because she recognizes what the Pharisees missed back in Mark 2: that the power to heal chronic diseases with a word or a touch is not some common thing. In fact, the power to heal belongs exclusively to a much greater power—the greatest power—the power of God alone. She recognizes that in Jesus all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell. She believes what he can do, because she knows who he is. Her faith has made her well, and the text implies spiritual, as well as physical wellness—that she understands that her need runs deeper than the disease, to her very heart. As we read the gospel accounts, we see Jesus healing many, feeding many, loving many. But every act of mercy testifies to a deeper spiritual reality, and points to Jesus himself as our only hope in this life and the next. At Good Neighbors, we fix homes in his name. We shower mercy on our neighbors in need, in the hope that they will see their deeper need. We want Jesus to fix not only their earthly homes, but to be their savior. We want them to trust in him alone and his work on the cross to pay the penalty for their sins, for them to bring nothing but their unclean, empty hands, and hold them out to Jesus. We want their faith to make them well.  A few weeks ago, we shared about volunteers from RUF at UD working on a roof for a single father in Wilmington. Well, this past Saturday, some volunteers from Emmanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church were on site to help bring that roof closer to completion.  The homeowner is a single father of two sons, but one of those sons was tragically killed in an accident. Dad himself is a disabled truck driver unable to afford the cost of a new roof (which, as many of you know, does not come cheap). Will you join us in praying that the Lord would draw near to this man, whose life has been filled with adversity? Pray that he would meet him with the comfort of Christ, and that the rest afforded by this new roof would point him toward lasting rest in the Lord.  We are filled with gratitude for these dear saints from Emmanuel helping us share the love of Christ with this family. Their hearts and hands have helped finish a project that this homeowner desperately needed done, to the glory of God.
 A few weeks ago, we were on-site with a mother of four in Kennett. Her house needed a lot of work, so we were back again recently to replace a window. This is the latest of fourteen that we’ve replaced here! The frame still needs to be painted, but it’s already doing a better job than the old one.  The homeowner is a widow, and one of her four children—an adult daughter with lots of medical problems—still lives at home. Surely, these are emotional and financial strains. We’re so glad that this dear woman contacted us and is allowing us to help. Her house is a lot warmer and safer now, and that’s one less thing to worry about—praise God!
Mark 4:35-41: On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (ESV) At Good Neighbors, we seek to restore hope by repairing homes. But what does that mean? Hope in what? Hope for what? In the short term, fixing homes for our needy neighbors restores hope in a stable present. If your roof is falling apart, it’s hard to feel secure. It might even be impossible to remain healthy. If we fix your roof, you have one less thing to worry about—one less thing convincing you that your life is, well, hopeless. It might even create a spark of hope for improvement in other areas, like your job or your relationships.
These are good things, but at the root, we seek to restore abiding hope—hope for this life and the next—by pointing homeowners (and the watching world) to Jesus Christ. The hope that is in Jesus is not a guarantee against present hardship, but a promise that he will walk with us in our troubled times. It is a promise that our present afflictions are light and momentary compared to the eternal weight of glory that awaits us. But hope in Jesus requires knowing who Jesus is. And so now we come to Mark 4. I remember the first time I read today’s passage, I thought that Jesus was being kind of harsh with his disciples. Why shouldn’t they be afraid? How were they to know that he would wake up and stop the storm? If I was in a small boat in a raging storm, I would be afraid, too, wouldn’t I? It’s easy for us to miss what the disciples miss; it’s easy for us to forget who Jesus is. If you revisit the preceding chapters, you’ll see Jesus constantly demonstrating his authority—authority in doctrine, authority over natural forces, and authority over spiritual forces. And if all of the teaching, healing, and demon eviction don’t make things plain enough, in Mark 2, Jesus declares sins forgiven, and proves his authority through another healing miracle. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”, the scribes ask themselves in Mark 2. Who can heal paralytics but God alone? Who can command demons to leave tortured souls but God alone? The answer is no one. If no one but God can do these things, and Jesus does these things, then Jesus is God. So why did Jesus tie the disciples’ fear to a lack of faith? Because they have already seen his authority over all things. Calming the storm is yet another amazing proof of his identity, but he has shown himself to them constantly in the time leading up to this point, and they have every reason to believe that where God the Son leads them, God the Son is with them. This is the hope that we ultimately desire to see restored to our homeowners. When we trust in Jesus’s work on the cross, and we follow him, we may follow him into toil and struggle and uncertainty. But it is no mere mantra or mere man that we follow, but Jesus, the God-Man, fully man, yes, but also fully God. The storm is never in control in Mark 4, and neither is the toil nor the struggle in our lives. The one who has called us to take up our cross and follow him has promised to be with us always, to the end of the age. He has promised an eternal weight of glory. This is true, lasting hope for today, for tomorrow, and forever.  The roof is one of the most crucial parts of a home. Without a good one, water (and other things!) can get into the rest of the structure and lead to all sorts of other problems.  This past Saturday, Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at UD came out and helped remove and replace a roof for a single dad and his kids. The father is trying hard to keep things going after seeing his income reduced by disability, and it turns out that their roof had been installed improperly. There was no way that he could afford to have it replaced on his own.  Nine volunteers from RUF—including campus minister Rev. Nick Owens—came out, had a great time, and managed to get half the roof stripped, dried, and ready for shingles, so the next volunteer group would be able to set about applying them. Praise God that we were able to help this dear family make their house a safer place to live, and please join us in praying that the Lord would continue to meet their needs.
Mark 3:1-6: Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (ESV) There are lots of reasons not to do something—some good, others less so. Jesus’s experience here in Mark 3 warns us against one particularly bad one. As in most cases, the Pharisees thought that they were doing the will of God. In an effort to avoid transgressing the Law (in this case the fourth commandment), they built a hedge around it—an “outer wall” so that they would not risk coming close to the “inner wall”. So where the Law says “on [the Sabbath Day] you shall not do any work” (Deuteronomy 5:14), the Pharisees determined that they—and all Israel—should avoid anything remotely resembling the form of work. As our passage shows us, this would have included acts of mercy.
What motivation lay at the heart of the Pharisees’ hedge around the Law? If you could go back and ask one of them, I’m sure they could have recited the Ten Commandments verbatim. God had given Israel these “ten words” flowing directly out of his provision for them: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deuteronomy 5:6). The Pharisees would no doubt tell you that they built hedges to ensure that they—and all Israel—paid proper honor to the Holy One of Israel, who had rescued them from bondage and made them a great nation. But here in Mark 3, we get a look at the real motivation underlying the Pharisees’ practice: power. Look at verse 2—Jesus has cut in on their authority, both through his teaching and his miraculous works, so they lie in wait for him to slip up—presumably that they might publicly humiliate him for his failure to meet their man-made standards about the Law. Their motive springs not from a desire to honor God, whose power is evident in Jesus’ ministry, but rather from a desire to destroy that ministry. Jesus next asks them a simple question, forcing the underlying issue: is it lawful to do good or harm on the Sabbath? Their refusal to answer—to acknowledge that a failure to help this man was actually to do him harm—reveals a deeper motive: hardness of heart. They had built a hedge around the Law to exert power over God (look how diligently I keep your commands) and man, and have so hardened their hearts that they only grip their self-deception tighter the more it is exposed. So what’s the lesson for us? Self-deception is easy. It was easy for the Pharisees, and it’s easy for God’s people today. It’s easy for us to cling tightly to what blessings the Lord has provided out of our own desire for personal security, and call it responsible stewardship—all while our neighbor withers in our midst. It’s easy for us to consider ourselves a Christ-minded people in doctrine while failing to imitate Christ in our communities. May we be honest with ourselves, praying to our Father that his Spirit would work through his Word and expose the idols in our hearts, laying bare our self-deception. And may we never grieve our Lord Jesus with hard hearts that blasphemously pit love for him against love for neighbor. I received a call from Good Neighbors Senior Project Manager Tom Hilferty yesterday. He wanted to relay a great story of the Lord's gracious provision for one of our homeowners. But it actually starts with a couple that's doing just fine.
This couple—who attend church with Tom—had come to a point where they needed to replace their oil-powered hot water heater. They decided to go with a natural gas model for the replacement, but the particular one that they wanted had to be special-ordered, and it would take some period of time to come in. In the meantime, they needed hot water! The couple decided to purchase an electric model to hold them off until the new one came in. Flash forward, and Tom gets a call from a homeowner. She had recently found herself in a tough spot. She'd moved to Chadds Ford with her boyfriend, and the two started a business together. After a time, he left, and with all of the business assets in his name, she was left with a mortgage and very little else. She's lost so much, but by God's grace, she still had a roof over her head; one of the things that she didn't have, however, was a working hot water heater. You can guess how the story ends. The Lord saw this woman made in his image—saw her suffering from a broken relationship in a broken world, with a broken water heater to boot. And out of his abundant mercy, at precisely the right time, he provided what she needed. Why did the couple need a water heater now? Why did they want to switch from oil to gas? Why were they unable to get the model that they wanted right away? There are secondary causes for all of these things, but at the root, the answer to each question is the same: because our sovereign God had purposed to bless this homeowner with something she sorely needed. Please pray for this dear woman as we continue ministering to her. Pray that she would see our work for what it really is—a sign pointing her eyes to the only hope for the poor and rich alike, our Lord Jesus Christ. On Tuesday, a group of twelve volunteers from Chatham Financial’s Analytics team took time out of their day to come and bless a local widow with some roof work and vine/shrub trimming. The homeowner has lived here for a long time, having moved here in the sixties not long after she and her husband were wed. Sadly, her husband passed away three years ago after over sixty years of marriage. Thankfully, the Lord has blessed her with a lower-case good neighbor—a fellow who lives nearby and looks in on our homeowner to make sure she’s alright. He’s actually the one that heard about Good Neighbors and pointed her in our direction. A good bit of the roof was still sound, but there was a portion on one side of the house that had started to leak, so after a prayer from Good Neighbors Executive Director Harold Naylor, the Chatham crew quickly got to work stripping old shingles. Several had already worked with Good Neighbors before, so they had the benefit of prior experience—that helps a lot!
The homeowner was very grateful for the help, and had iced tea and several containers of cookies ready to serve the people who came to serve her. What a blessing it was to be able to minister to this dear woman. |
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224 E. STREET ROAD, STE. 2 KENNETT SQUARE, PA 19348 610-444-1860 OFFICE@GOODNEIGHBORSHR.ORG |
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