Gospel of Mark Study #23

“Run That Play Until You Get It Right!”

Mark 8:1-21

Study #23 in Mark Series

INTRODUCTION:

I am not an athlete and never have been. Growing up, my only claim to athletic fame was as a swimmer, although not in competitive swimming. I enjoyed skin diving, body surfing, spear fishing, shell collecting, and other ocean water related activities. But oddly, even though I am not a big sports fan, several sports movies are among my all-time favorite films:

·         “Hoosiers” with Gene Hackman, a great basketball film

·         “Rocky” films starring Sylvester Stallone, about a boxer

·         “Remember the Titans” with Denzel Washington,

·         “Rudy” 1993 film starring Sean Astin, about Daniel Ruettiger who dreamed of playing for Notre Dame

·         “Radio” with Cuba Gooding Jr., and Ed Harris,

·         “Facing the Giants” 2006 Christian film about a local high school football team

·         “The Blind Side” 2009 film, true story of Michael Oher of the Baltimore Ravens

·         “Invictus” 2009 film with Matt Damon about the S. African Springboks in the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Why do I like these pictures? For two reasons: First, it is because of the thrill of seeing an underdog turn things around and come out on top. It gives us hope that hard work and dedication might pay off. Second, it is inspiring to see a coach or trainer fill his athletes with the belief that they can be winners after all, no matter what odds are against them.

A good coach is a thing of beauty! To take a ragtag bunch of yahoos and turn them into a game-winning force is a wonderful thing to watch. It is inspiring! But their success comes through hard work. In “Remember the Titans” the new head coach, Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, ran the legs off his boys in back-breaking practices and drills at all hours of the day and night. At the same time, he worked hard to integrate his black and white players, and to teach them to ignore the color of people’s skin and to look at their character instead. He was relentless. If his players messed up, he would say, “You guys are going to run that play until you get it right!” He made them do it over, and over, and again until it was second nature to them. He forced them to do it until they figured it out and got it right every time. That is what a good coach does for his players.

TRANSITION: But good coaching provides some lessons in other areas of life, too. Jesus was a great life-coach. But He had a bunch of lunkheaded rookies on His hands, and it took a lot of teaching, training, and practice to get them ready for the big game. He worked with them every day for 3½ years. He took them everywhere He went. He taught them. He let them ask questions. He used them as helpers when He performed His miracles. And He sent them out to the field to gain experience.

Like a great coach, He ran them through the plays repeatedly. But they kept screwing up. They did not get it. They messed up time after time. So, He would make them run the play again, and again, and again. So much was riding on them getting things right. He knew that one day He would go to the cross and would rise on the third day and ascend to the Father, and then the ball would be in their hands for the rest of the game. They had to get it right! So, after every failure Coach Jesus would say, “You are going to run that play again, until you get it right!” That is basically what is going on in our text for today’s study, Mark 8:1-21.

NOTES on the Text:

Verses 1-3: During those days, another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, ² “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat. ³ If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”

·         “During those days...” What days? In the section preceding Jesus and His disciples left Tyre and Sidon and returned to Israel, traveling down through Galilee into the region known as the “Decapolis,” where Jesus met and healed a man who was deaf and mute. Apparently, this next story happened around the same time.

·         “During those days, another large crowd gathered.” Matthew is the only other Gospel writer to include this account. He gives us a little bit more background in Matthew 15:29ff, “Jesus...went along the Sea of Galilee. Then He went up on a mountainside and sat down. ³⁰ Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at His feet; and He healed them. ³¹ The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.”

·         At this stage of Jesus’ ministry, he could not go anywhere without attracting multitudes of people. This was a problem because it drew a lot of attention both from the civilian authorities as well as from the religious bigwigs.

·         We do not know exactly where the feeding of the 4,000 took place but once again they were out in the hills, away from their homes or anyplace to buy food. Jesus had been teaching them and preaching to them. They were fascinated by Him and were hanging on to His every word. But this had been going on for three days. Some of them may have had a little food with them when they left home, but all of that was gone by now.

·         “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat.” Notice who initiated this conversation. It sure was not the disciples. Jesus looked at the people and He saw their needs. I look at people and usually see their problems. Jesus looked at people and saw their value and potential. I look at people and see their faults and failures. Jesus looked out at the crowd and saw people that needed Him and needed His help. I look at people and hope they will go somewhere else looking for help. Moreover, I think that the disciples were like me. They were not very compassionate toward the crowd, but Jesus was. 

Verses 4-5: His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?” ⁵ “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied.

·         The disciples, ever practical, immediately started figuring out the angles, how they could come up with enough bread to feed the crowd. It apparently never crossed their minds to ask Jesus to make up a batch of fresh bread. Had they suggested that I think Jesus would have turned handsprings out of sheer joy. He would have loved to honor their faith in Him by whipping up a batch, but all they could think about was how many miles it was to the nearest “Grocery Outlet.” They were still clueless, even after witnessing the feeding of the 5,000! 

Verse 6: He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When He had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before the people, and they did so.

·         This must have been like déjà vu all over again for the disciples. This is almost exactly what happened not long before when Jesus fed the 5,000 in the same way (cf. Mark 6:33-44).

Verses 7-9a: They had a few small fish as well; He gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. ⁸ The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ⁹ About four thousand men were present.

·         Are we seeing a pattern here? So why were the disciples so blind? (cf. 6:52)

Verses 9b-10: And having sent them away, ¹⁰ He got into the boat with His disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

·         Dalmanutha was a place on the west side of the Sea of Galilee and is mentioned only here in Mark 8:10. In the parallel passage in Matthew 15:39 Matthew records, “After Jesus had sent the crowd away, He got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.” Some have suggested that Dalmanutha was close to the village of Magdala, but no one knows for sure, and it does not really matter. Many of those little villages have long since passed from history and from memory.

Verses 11-13: The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test Him, they asked Him for a sign from Heaven. ¹² He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.” ¹³ Then He left them, got back into the boat, and crossed to the other side.

·         You could run, but you could not hide from these self-righteous religious nuts. They found Jesus no matter where He went. They must have had their spies out reporting back constantly.

·         Here they asked Jesus for a sign from Heaven. Why? Because He claimed to have come from Heaven to do the will of the Father, but they knew that was a lie! So, in their hatred and unbelief they devised a request trying to trip Him up and prove once and for all that He was a fraud. Their request was driven by their agnosticism, not by faith. Matthew fleshes out the story a little more in 16:1ff: The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested Him by asking Him to show them a sign from Heaven. ² He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ ³ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. ⁴ A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” Jesus then left them and went away.

·         So, what was the “sign of Jonah” that Jesus mentioned? He stated it clearly in Matthew 12:39-41 when He said: “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”

Verses 14-16: The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. ¹⁵ “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” ¹⁶ They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”

·         “The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat.” Given their recent experiences this should not have been a problem for them. However, they were apparently whispering among themselves, trying to figure out what to do about this lack of bread. He could undoubtedly hear them talking for crying out loud! More than that, He could even read their minds. He knew exactly what they were worried about.

·         So, He made this somewhat cryptic statement: “Be careful! Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” What did that mean? The disciples were bright enough to guess that it had something to do with them forgetting to bring bread, but they could not connect the dots to make heads or tails of it.

·         Let’s break it down. What does yeast usually illustrate in the Bible? - Answer = SIN. What was the major sin of the Pharisees and of Herod with respect to Jesus? Answer = the sin of unbelief, of lack of faith in Him. Unbelief and rejection of Jesus will send you straight to Hell! So, let’s extrapolate. What was Jesus warning the disciples about? – Answer: The sin of unbelief and of not seeing Jesus for who He was. The Pharisees called Him a sinner and said His powers came from Satan. Herod saw Him as nothing but a political wannabe and wrote Him off as a crank who would try to steal his throne.

·         So, what was the sin that the disciples were being warned away from? Answer: The sin of not believing that Jesus was God in the flesh who had come to save the world; missing the point that Jesus was the Promised Redeemer, the Lamb of God who had come to die for the sins of men, the Bread of Life, the source of Light and Truth and Love, the Righteous Judge before whom every knee would one day bow.

Verses 17-19: Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? ¹⁸ Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? ¹⁹ When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” “Twelve,” they replied.

·         Jesus begins to bore in with pointed questions. He starts by quizzing them about the recent feeding of the 5,000, asking how many baskets of food were left over. They remembered that there were 12 baskets full of leftovers.

·         If we break Jesus’ statement down into its component parts, we see that Jesus is saying that the disciples are...

1.       Lacking in understanding (“Do you still not see or understand?”)

2.      Revealing their hardened hearts (“Are your hearts hardened?”)

3.      Spiritually blind (“Do you have eyes but fail to see?”)

4.      Spiritually deaf (“Do you have ears but fail to hear?”)

5.      Exhibiting memory loss (“And don’t you remember?”) 

Verse 20: “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?” They answered, “Seven.”

·         They remembered the incident clearly but did not grasp its significance.

Verse 21: He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

·         The answer to that question is, “NO!” They were starting to get a little glimpse of the truth, but it still had not hit them yet.

·         Jesus Himself was the Bread. He was the source of grace, mercy, and truth. He was the Living Bread that came from Heaven to feed all who were hungering after righteousness. Bread was a metaphor. The Syrophoenician woman got it. She understood that with Jesus there was plenty of Bread to go around—for the Jews and for the Gentiles. She was confident to ask, even for crumbs, knowing that there was no shortage of Living Bread. The bread miracles were done not just to feed hungry audiences, but to illustrate the fact that there was no shortage of Bread when Jesus was around because He himself was the Bread of Life. He could have turned stones into bread and field mice into dried fish. He could have made bread appear out of thin air. He could have made bread come out of the disciples’ ears, for crying out loud! This was not about physical bread!

·         But how ironic! Even after witnessing the two miracles of the multiplication of the loaves the disciples were still obsessing over the fact that they had forgotten to bring bread with them for their journey. WHAT? Yes, they were still worrying about what would happen to them, if they would go hungry, if they could find someplace close by to stock up on groceries, etc., never stopping to realize that the God of the Universe, the One who could make anything out of anything, was sitting beside them there in the boat.

·         Their worries about bread revealed the fact that they still did not get it! They still did not really know who they were dealing with. No wonder Jesus was put out with them, and more than a little frustrated, and perhaps even a bit disheartened.

CONCLUSION:

Do you think that the Lord ever gets frustrated with us? Does He ever get to the point of saying to Himself, “How long will it take them to understand, to comprehend who I really am? How many times will I have to run them through the plays before it all finally sinks in?”

Some of you may remember Gene Maclellan’s popular song composed and recorded in 1970, “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man Who Stilled the Water.” One of the verses says:

Every time I look into the Holy Book I want to tremble,

When I read the part where the Carpenter cleared the temple.

For the buyers and the sellers were no different fella’s than what I profess to be,

And it causes me shame to know I’m not the man that I should be.

Jesus warned His disciples not to fall into the sin of the Pharisees, the sin of unbelief. But how could that ever happen to us. We are believers and, by definition, we believe in Him. Do we not? Yes, but we can choose every day whether we are going to trust Him, or if we are going to walk by sight, by the things we can figure out on our own. We can trust in ourselves, or we can trust in Him. We can live by our wits, intelligence, and ingenuity or we can walk with Him by faith. We can scramble to come up with bread, or we can turn immediately to Him, who is the Bread.

The Lord put His disciples through a lot of experiences to teach them to put their complete trust and confidence in Him, to walk by faith and not by sight. They eventually caught on, but it took quite a while, and they got a lot of knots on their heads in the process. To the degree that we learn to live every day by faith, our life will be less stressful and more joyful. But if we do not learn this lesson, the Lord will keep putting us through our paces with one painful experience after another, all the time saying, “You are just going to have to keep running that play until you get it right!” The apostle Paul said it very well in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”