For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the sake of the Good News will save it. Mark 8:35, TLV
Forget the Bread! Mark has done a great job of recapping just how much the disciples DIDN’T get Yeshua. And us? After nearly two thousand years of molding His followers into icons — sculpting statues, painting paintings, turning glass into the likeness of them — we forget, they were clueless most of the time. They were sheep — bumping each other, stumbling, but following their Shepherd.
That’s not such a bad thing, because that was a prophetic thing for them to do. It’s just, these sheep thought that because they had the “inside track” being Jesus’s followers, they knew what they were doing.
In this chapter, Mark, as with the other writers of the gospels, transparently demonstrate just how much they didn’t get it.
Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they had only one loaf in the boat. Yeshua was warning them, “Watch out! Beware of the hametz [leaven/sin] of the Pharisees and the hametz of Herod.”
They began to discuss with each other that they had no bread. And Yeshua, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss that you have no bread? You still don’t get it? Don’t you understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, don’t you see? And having ears, don’t you hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they say to Him.
“When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”
“Seven,” they say to Him.
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?” (8:14-21, TLV)
Right. And still they didn’t get it. Just read the subsequent chapters.
Then we have today’s verse. After all the miracles, after Peter’s prophetic announcement that Yeshua was the Messiah, no doubt the disciples felt secure in their favor and that this would mean — well, I don’t know what all they thought. I know I might think, “Yeah, we’re all that and a Cadillac.”
So, knowing what His followers are assuming, what they’re thinking, He basically says, “Dudes, you want to follow me? Then you have to think differently about who you are and what is important. You think I’m here to defeat the Romans and give Israel back into your hands now? No, I’m saying if you want to gain your life, you need to be willing to sacrifice it for the Good News that needs to go to the world.”
And to us?
“Dudes, you want to be My Father’s children? Then you have to think differently about who you are and what is important. You think I’m here to defeat all those folks who taunt you and little by little whittle away at our nation’s values? No, I’m saying if you want to gain your life, you need to be willing to sacrifice it for the Good News that needs to go to those very souls who are whittling away at what is good and wholesome.”
This isn’t political, it’s about souls in danger. An even more intimidating endeavor.
We may think we only have one loaf, but our Messiah can multiply that bread. What type of bread we have will be different for each of us. Just remember to not hoard it, but to give it freely. However that may look in our life.
Anyway, that’s what the Holy Spirit convicted me about this morning.
