When Compassion Interrupts Our Plans --Mark 6:30-44

Audio from this sermon, delivered on August 19, is available by right-clicking here, or on the podcast on iTunes.

I am a surfer. Some of you are too. I often have my favorite surfing device nearby and use it on a regular basis. No, I am not a beach-bum, and in fact I have never attempted to stand on a surfboard. I am not a wave surfer, but a channel surfer and my surfing device is the remote control. It has been said that women are interested in what’s on TV, while men are more typically interested in “what else is on.” Hence the invention of the remote control. When we find time for entertainment in front of the television, the remote control enables to say, “Please don’t interrupt my entertainment with advertisements or other things I don’t want to hear right now.”

Human nature is by and large opposed to interruption. Yet, as much as we despise interruptions, and no matter how we try to avoid them, they happen. They happened to Jesus and His disciples and they will continue to happen to us. One of my favorite preachers in the history of the Christian church is G. Campbell Morgan, who died in 1945 at the age of 81 after spending most of his career as the pastor of the great Westminster Chapel in London. Morgan left us with volumes of excellent biblical exposition, the fruit of countless hours of daily study. Yet Morgan knew that interruptions were bound to happen and sometimes necessary and God-ordained. He said once, “I never begin my work in the morning without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own.”

So averse are we to interruptions that it is easy to lose sight of the fact that God may be at work in the interruption to further His plans for us, or to work through us for the benefit of others. We see just that sort of interruption in the passage before us today. The disciples have plans for a little private get-away with the Lord, but a crowd of thousands interrupted those plans. And what happens as a result is a miraculous demonstration of our Lord’s compassion.

Let us look first of all at …

I. The Rest that Was Intended (vv30-32)

Verse 30 picks up where verse 13 left off. You may recall how we have mentioned in several passages prior to this one that Mark often uses a “sandwich” technique in his writing, where he will interrupt one story to tell another one, and then return to the first one. He has done that here by placing the account of the death of John the Baptist in the middle of the account of the sending out of the twelve in teams of two. Verses 12 and 13 tell us that they were preaching and casting out demons and that the sick were being healed. And in verse 30, we read that they have now come back to Jesus to report on their missions. And Jesus welcomes them back by inviting them, in v31, to “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” Why was this necessary?

A. To Reconnect With the Lord

You recall that when Jesus called these twelve, Mark 3:14 stated their twofold function: that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach. They were with Him, then He sent them out, and now they need to be with Him again. We never get to the place in our lives when we no longer need to spend time in the private audience of Jesus. Each of us needs to be in the regular practice of withdrawing from the crowds and demands of public life to spend time in His presence. If it was true for the twelve, then it is true for us as well. Do you have a regular practice of getting off to yourself with your Bible to allow Christ to speak His truth to you and you converse with Him in prayer? If not, then let me challenge you to do that. The most effective workers for Christ are the most faithful worshipers of Christ, and we will never do more for Him publicly than we do with Him privately. The twelve needed to get away to reconnect with the Lord. But also this sojourn into the secluded place was necessary …

B. To Rest from Their Labor

The twelve had been rigorously engaged in traveling, preaching, and ministering to people for some time under less than optimal conditions and comforts. In verses 8 and 9, Jesus prohibited them from taking any possessions with them on their journeys other than their walking staffs, their sandals, and a single tunic. And so this rest would be a welcomed respite.

1. They need rest because of their fatigue.

If rest were not important for us, God would not have commanded the Sabbath. God knows our human limitations and the needs of our bodies, and has commanded us to rest from the fatigues of laboring, even when our labor has been for Him. Expending ourselves in ministry can be draining, as many of you know first hand. And so, we have need of a Sabbath rest. While we are not bound by the letter of the law and the yoke of the Pharisees to take that rest every Saturday, we are still responsible for maintaining the spirit of the Sabbath law to rest from our labors. Now, frankly, there are some who need to rest from their labor, and others who need to labor from their resting. Some need to become active in the service of Christ and His church and afford those who are in need of rest the opportunity to find it! Because laboring for Christ and others will soon exhaust the Christian worker, and without rest, one becomes burned out, running on vapors, and in need of precious time spent resting the body and refreshing the spirit. Vance Havner once said, “If you don’t come apart, you will come apart.” So it was for the twelve, and so it is for us. But also we see …

2. They needed relief because of their famine.

In verse 31, we see that the demands of the people upon the twelve were interfering with their ability to even eat a meal. Here again, there are times when we need to skip a meal here and there when necessity demands it, but our bodies require food for energy. We can do more for Christ when we maintain ourselves rightly, and the twelve had been unable to do that. So this time away from it all would allow them to nourish themselves physically as well as spiritually. And there come such times of life for all of us as well.

So Jesus and the twelve boarded “the boat”—we assume that this was the same boat they regularly traveled in, likely belonging to Peter or one of the other fishermen in the group—and they set out for a secluded place for some much needed and long anticipated R&R. But they would have to wait a while for this rest that was intended because of …

II. The Reality that Interrupted (vv33-44)

I am quite sure we have all experienced these sorts of interruptions. We have plans for a little private time, a little leisure, a holiday by the sea – a break from reality. But reality comes crashing in on those plans and forces us to change our plans. Reality is no respecter of our plans, and often becomes an interrupter of those plans. So it was here.

A. The Reason for the Interruption (v33)

They were trying to slip away privately, but they were spotted – the text tells us that the people saw them and recognized them. And faster than the boat could sail, a crowd of people ran ahead of them to the place where the boat was coming to shore. It was “a large crowd,” Mark tells us. There were 5,000 men, and the word for men in verse 44 is gender specific. Matthew 14:21 tells us that there were women and children in addition to these. Some have estimated soundly that there might have been 20,000 people there on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. There was not a single town in all of Galilee with a population that large. Mark says they had come from “all the cities.” Word had traveled fast, and the people traveled even faster. What were they doing there?

They wanted to see Jesus. They wanted to hear the words everyone was talking about and see the marvels, and experience the wonder of His power!

Now, I would have liked to have been in that boat just to hear what was being whispered among the disciples. Perhaps there would have been some who would have relished in their popularity, saying something like, “Wow! Look at all those people! They are waiting for us! This is so cool!” But, I don’t know, something inside of me thinks that there might have been some who thought differently, like, “Oh no! Quickly, Peter, change course, Jibe Ho! John, grab the rutter. We gotta go somewhere else! We’re trying to get away from this mob. We have plans! We’re ON VACATION!” But Jesus had them to stay the course, bringing the disciples into the midst of this crowd that awaited them.

Why? After all, this vacation was His idea. Why does He delay the disciples’ solitude? One little word in verse 34 tells us – Compassion. The crowds are not to blame for the interruption. After all, who could blame them for wanting to be near Jesus? No, the interruption is brought about because of the compassion of Jesus. Apart from His compassion, that boat veers off in another direction and this scene never unfolds.

This word that is translated “compassion” in our Bibles is a Greek word that is only used in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. Only He shows this kind of compassion. And why does He have such compassion on this crowd? Because they were like “sheep without a shepherd.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains this, saying, “There were questions but no answers, distress but no relief, anguish of conscience but no deliverance, tears but no consolation, sin but no forgiveness.” Here is a whole mass of people, lacking direction and purpose in their lives, like sheep desperately in need of a shepherd. And in the providence of God, a compassionate shepherd is coming ashore to meet their lives’ deepest need.

B. The Response to the Interruption (vv33ff)

Jesus has compassion on this crowd of people, and genuine compassion always produces action. The compassion of Jesus is not that kind of condescending pity that we often think of, as if to say, “Look at those poor folks. What a shame. Now, what was it that we were doing? Oh right, we are on vacation.” No, Jesus’ compassion interrupts the plans as He responds to the crowd. And what does He do for them out of this compassion?

1. He teaches them (v34)

“He began to teach them many things.” As a matter of first importance, Jesus confronts the deepest need of these people – more than anything else, what they need is the revelation of God found in His Word. And Jesus began to teach it to them. There is a popular saying that I am sure many of you have heard – “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” There is some truth to that certainly. We hear best those who have demonstrated concern most deeply for us. But, are there not times when the most compassionate and caring thing we can do for someone is tell them what we know?

Look at it this way. Suppose you are standing on a railroad track. Now suppose someone else is driving down the street and sees just around the bend that a train is coming. As they come near to you, they stop the car and roll down the window and say, “A train is coming! You better get off the track!” Do you say, “Well, I don’t care how much you know. I want to know how much you care.” No. You understand that they are demonstrating their care for you by telling you what they know.

How does Jesus take action to demonstrate His compassion for the people? By teaching them. The culture in which we live has so devalued truth, and the church so devalued the Word of God, that by and large today, preaching and teaching the Bible is seen as a relatively unimportant thing. Friends it is not only important – it is the most important thing. Because the goal of teaching God’s Word is not the transfer of information, but the transformation of lives as God’s word is explained, understood, applied, and obeyed. I labor in the word every week, not because I have nothing better to do, or because I just really like to do it. My labor in preparing to preach is a labor of love. Because I love you, I want you to hear God’s Word, and understand it, and know how to apply it and obey it, so that the Holy Spirit can transform your life. There is compassion in communicating the Word of God. The great expositor Alexander MacLaren said, “Do we habitually try to cultivate as ours Christ’s way of looking at men, and Christ’s emotions towards men? If we do, we shall imitate Christ’s actions for men, and shall recognize that, to reproduce as well as we can the ‘many thing’ which He taught them, is the best contribution which His disciples can make to healing the misery of a Christless world.

Out of His compassion, Jesus taught them many things. But His compassion did not end there, and neither must ours. Out of His compassion …

2. He Feeds Them (vv35-44)

Because the hour was late (apparently He did not give them a short sermon), and the place where they were was so remote, a concern arose that these people better get home to eat or else there could be an uprising. Many a long-winded Baptist preacher has known this same concern. But the disciples’ answer to the brewing dilemma is much different than the Lord’s. In their eyes, the best thing to do is “send them away” (v36). But Jesus answer is “You give them something to eat.”

John tells us in his account of this event that it was Philip who calculated that it would take 200 denarii to feed them all. Two hundred denarii was about 8 months wages for an average working person in those days. In fact, John tells us that this would only provide enough food for everyone to have “a little” food. So Jesus sends them to round up what they can find. It is never the way of Jesus to focus on what you don’t have, but on what you do have. We make so many excuses as to why we can’t do what God has asked us to do, but God will always point us to what we have – what He has already provided for us. It’s true in life, and it’s true in church. True, we don’t have a lot of things that some think we need. But our task is to look at what God has provided for us already and ask how we might use these things to bless the world around us.

Again John gives us insight here, telling us that there was a boy who had five loaves and two fish. Remember, we are talking about somewhere around 20,000 people. What good will five loaves and two fish do for a crowd that large? Nonetheless, Jesus has them gather in groups of 100s and 50s there on the green grass. And Jesus took those 5 loaves and those 2 fish and blessed them, and broke them, and He kept giving them to the disciples. And the wondrous thing about it is not that all had a tiny portion, but that all ate and were satisfied. They ate their fill. And they had 12 baskets of leftovers – enough even for the disciples to have a full meal too.

It is humorous to survey the various ways that the Bible’s critics have tried to explain away the miracle here. But the fact of the matter is that there is no explanation for the miraculous. We have in our New Testaments four eyewitness accounts of the tremendous wonder that Jesus performed here. It is the only miracle that is recorded in all four gospels. And it is significant that this miracle occurs in connection with “teaching.” When God gives new revelation of Himself, He affirms that revelation through signs and wonders. All that Jesus has just taught them about Himself and His Kingdom is validated through His powerful demonstration of His divine authority. Just as this bread satisfies their physical hunger, so Jesus Himself, the bread of life, as they have encountered Him in His teaching will satisfy their deepest need – that of salvation from sin and life transformation.

What can we take away from this passage today? There are several things:

Jesus affirms that there will come times when the faithful laborer in His mission needs to come aside to reconnect with Him and rest from their service. Some of you today perhaps need that. Don’t feel bad about it, just do it. But remember, are talking about rest, and not retirement. And there are others who need to step up to the task and serve God so that the weary ones can take a step back for a season of much needed Sabbath rest.

Secondly, we are challenged about how we view interruptions. Might it be that what we view as an interruption is really a divine appointment where God desires to use us in a mighty way to accomplish His purposes in someone else’s life? May we have the outlook that G. Campbell Morgan had when he said, “I never begin my work in the morning without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own.” And not only in terms of our work, but our rest, and our plans – How open are you to God interrupting your plans so that He might carry out His through you?

Third, do you view people as Christ views them? He sees them as sheep without a shepherd, and has compassion on them. But it is not the pity we often express with empty words – it is a compassion that leads to action – the action of proclaiming God’s truth and meeting the needs of others.

Fourth, do you make excuses about serving Christ based on what you perceive as your lack, or rather, do you look for His provisions already present in your life that may enable you to fulfill His calling on your life?

Finally, have you received the true bread of life that satisfies forever? Have you come to Christ to have your sins forgiven, to receive eternal life, to be transformed by His powerful grace? If not, then we invite you to do so today. Receive Him as Lord and Savior of your life and find the satisfaction of your life’s deepest need that only He can provide.