Tuesday 11th April - Mark 6

Today’s chapter is Mark 6

Tom writes:

Again we see the curious intermingling of compassion and authority played out across the Judean landscape. Jesus gives the disciples authority to cast out evil spirits but also tells them to build dependent friendships with those who will receive them. Powerful enough to cast out spirits. But too weak to be self-sufficient. Jesus asks for an almost impossible way of life; like learning to walk on water and silence storms while also allowing others to push you out of town and to murder your cousin. Curiouser and curiouser. Authority and Compassion, arm in arm, expressed in words and deeds. This is a strange, servant-hearted way of life that Jesus calls us to lead. Just when you think you get it; that a time of triumphant victory is coming, you find a face-full of rejection. Meekness and miracles are married in the Messiah. I must admit I find this hard. If the call was just to meekly serve others, to allow them to mistreat you and to reject you… I think I would struggle with that emotionally, but I could commit myself to its logic. And if the call was to swagger around with authority, smiling smugly while others struggle with problems before I saunter in, swing my Spirit-empowered hand and solve it in one foul swoop… well I could also see that logic too. But to try to do both at the same time… that requires quite a bit of faith.

It requires quite a bit of resilience. In this section of Mark’s gospel we are jittering in and out of what we would think of as authority, in and out of what we would think of as compassion. And in doing this Jesus is schooling us in the way of his Kingdom. His Kingdom rends the heavens, rushes in with dazzling authority and stupefying power. And yet that power is used to offer food to the hungry, peace to a dread-filled dozen and even permission to have their own will done to those too proud or too blind to really see. Perhaps this is the long and short of it; Jesus’ authority is not at this point in history imposed from above, enforcing his will. Instead his authority is used to seek and save the lost, to drop hints, to point towards something so much greater, so those who have eyes to see them can be swept up into his Kingdom. Jesus’ authority to crush all evil is wedded to his compassion to save all those who are currently evil… and so a bewildering and grubby form of discipleship is required, where we are willing to climb on a cross while releasing resurrection power into the rumbling world.

Question for reflection

Which of these stories about Jesus captures your attention the most? Why?

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