Daily Devotions

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. Mark 6:53-56

And now we come to the end of the roller coaster that is the 6th chapter of Mark.  It ends, fittingly, with crowds of needy people showing up eager for help.

But that isn’t exactly what it says.

It doesn’t say the sick began showing up, it says that people went rushing about seeking the sick and bringing them to wherever Jesus showed up.

We come to this text on a Friday morning.  In this past chapter we have seen Jesus teaching in the synagogue, sending his disciples out in teams of two to do good, feeding a huge crowd of people, stilling a storm at sea, praying…and now he is back at work healing.

He is healing the sick that the people are bringing to him.

As a pastor, I can tell you that Friday means Sunday is just two days away.  Somewhere in the back corner of my mind, “next Sunday” always lurks.  The text that I will be talking about, the activities that will be happening, the people that will be coming, never is this far from me.

So I hear this text on Friday and I imagine all of the people who will be bringing others to church on Sunday who need help.  Because of our Faith House ministry, I know that we will be in worship with people right in the midst of a hard struggle for healing.  Because of the many recovery groups that meet at Faith, I’m always hopeful that someone might venture into Sunday morning worship, to give thanks and to seek another kind of connection to their Higher Power.

Yes, I hear this text and I wish that we had Christian people actively seeking anyone who is hurting within traveling distance of a Christian sanctuary to bring them on a Sunday morning so that a revival of healing could break out across the world.

I know that probably won’t happen. 

But I count on, I expect, I look forward to, that person over there who brought her friend who is going through a divorce, or that person over there who brought a friend who is struggling with their children, who is unemployed, who is grieving the death of a friend or family member. Because I know that happens every week.

And then I notice the text again and I see that the sick weren’t being brought to the synagogue but to the marketplace…and I’m convicted anew that we spend too much time inside of our church buildings and not enough time out in the world in the name of Jesus.  And yet again I do the math and I realize that isn’t quite right.  In fact we do spend a couple of hours on Sunday morning in the church building but then our people are sent right back out into the marketplace where they spend the majority of their time.

And I pray that some of that time might be spent actively seeking the hurting, the lost, the lonely, the broken, and the sick.  For that, it seems, is what happens when Jesus shows up.

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, thank you for the healing touch of your love, for the hope that you pour into our lives, and for the purpose that we share as your people.  As you brought healing into the crowds who were brought to you, we pray that you would rekindle in us a holy imagination of the good that you seek to do through us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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