Category: Christ Stream

Posted on

May 5

 

Mark 6:45-8:26

We are in the Christ Stream reading more about the miracles of Jesus. We are reading from The Living Bible this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Jesus – you certainly show your wonderful deeds for us.  You feed and heal and instruct and love and welcome all who will come.  Thank you for being so marvelous and so loving. We wholeheartedly thank you. Amen.

 

Jesus is now into his second full year of ministry.  From the feeding of the 5,000 (last story we read last week), to the final story today, (the healing of the blind man) this is an 8-month period. It is spent much in Galilee, Herod’s jurisdiction, and the wonders of Jesus are making an eternal impression on many Greeks and Greek-speaking people as well. 

 
6:45ff The theme of Mark is “Jesus the Wonderful” and we certainly read of this today.  His walking on water is universal proof that this is God’s message bearer to us even to those who can’t bring themselves to surrender to Him as of yet. Walking on water is deity in action. He enters the boat and the storm calms immediately. Remember, that Jesus sent them on ahead and they are caught in contrary winds that have them basically rowing in place through most of the night.  Jesus comes, all is calm and they proceed. Perhaps this is a good place to make a devotional point –> in evaluation of this story, “if we try to go on ahead without Jesus, we will likely find ourselves in a storm that we cannot deal with, and wasting our energy.” We don’t want to parse that illustration in a myriad of ways but it seems to be a helpful dab of wisdom.  They soon land on shore and Jesus is healing EVERYONE he touches. Imagine the joy that was raging through the countryside like a wind of happiness!
Perhaps the day ended and the disciples -part elated, part in shock- and by nightfall they’re thinking, “uh, let’s stay with Jesus, avoid the storms, and watch all the wonders, eh?”
 
7 –  The Pharisees confront Jesus about how his disciples weren’t washing their hands properly before eating. The full explanation of this tradition could easily be a half day lecture /discussion so we’ll just ask this: “if you ran into Jesus personally do you ask Him to touch your life too or do you ask him about the sanitary status of His disciples hands?” Really! Jesus lets ’em have it over this one. He points out the real issue – the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and he details the matter. It’s a lesson that angered them to the point of no return.  Jesus does two more prominent healings in this chapter. [Remember there were thousands of other healings that we are not told of.] He heals a young girl of demon possession out west near the coast. The area was Phoenician. The area was cultic – thus the encounter, the mother’s reasoning and persistence, Jesus agreement and the blessing is all quite a story.  We can take away from this that we are to encourage people of any background that if they can’t get through to Jesus, keep pressing until you do – because you will.         Next he heals a deaf/mute man. Last story the request for healing came from the mother. This time it comes from everyone who knew him. What a great way to have the witness of Jesus’ power explode.  And everyone marveled.
 

8 – Jesus does another huge and miraculous feeding. The numbers are slightly different than the last time, but the lessons again are manifold and are to be taken to heart.  The disciples are worried about food when they should be ingesting the deeper lessons that were unfolding in front of them. The power that Jesus has is because of His deity. Notice that seven loaves becomes enough for everyone. The bread was broken in Jesus hands but it multiplied in the disciples’ hands. Seven = The Holy Spirit at work, and it happened in the hands of the disciples.  Memo to the Disciples is a memo to us today: “let the Holy Spirit use YOUR hands to do His work. Get in the Holy Spirit and stop worrying so to take part in the wonders of God.”

Next the Pharisees arrive and demand a sign and Jesus just walks away from them. I mean who’s got time for these jokers who have no intention of following Him?  He then heals a blind man from Bethsaida. This is a town that Jesus cursed for their unbelief. [Mt. 11:21 -It’s now a deserted archaeological dig with a sun god carving that’s visible even today, btw!] So Jesus takes him outside Bethsaida to heal him. Jesus heals him in his second “attempt” [2nd demonstration, actually]. The first gesture to heal has a comical result. Memo to the disciples and to us: “when you endeavor to minister healing and the immediate result is not the desired result – persist. Pray again. Reach out again. Be like the Syro-Phoenician woman and plead. With the deaf man, the whole town showed up to ask.  Get more people involved in healing ministry. Don’t go it alone. P.U.S.H. [Pray UntilSomething Happens] I mean, do you like to pray with quitters? Why would God ever want us to be quitters?
Posted on

April 28

 

Mark 5:1-6:44

We are in the Christ Stream learning more about Jesus’ earthly ministry as we read from the International Standard Version this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Jesus, you expel what is wicked, you raise up deceased children, you feed hungry, YOU are everything that is needed. Thank you for being everything that we need too. And help us to share the great news about you.  Amen.
 
My Heavens! There’s so much to learn from Jesus – so many ways to be like Jesus – so many reasons to do like Jesus.
 

5 – The reading today begins with the most eerie and grotesque of settings. This is demon possession at its worst that can be witnessed in the Bible.  The ultimate point is to demonstrate for us that Christ in us enables even us to remedy these horrid problems. Jesus does this openly because he wants us to exercise this gift globally. He cleanses this man of countless demons and does so in front of the disciples. THIS is teaching, and Jesus does so perfectly.  His style is very straightforward, remedial (it seeks a solution, not a fancy show), and transformational.  The man was a wild-wolf and worse. And when Jesus is finished the man is following Jesus, grateful to him, and he is an evangelist.  What a marvel.

 
Jesus next does a double deed of healing a 12-year old girl and a woman who was ill with internal bleeding for 12 years. Mathew, Mark and Luke all tell the sequencing of this story identically. He’s called to heal the young girl, he is intercepted by the older girl (heals her), then he proceeds to go and heal/raise up the young girl to life again. The most endearing thing that anyone can give as a gift and a blessing is to give a family their young child back. The deepest pain a heart can pilgrimage through is the death of their child. How do YOU think this family felt about Jesus come sunset on this day – the day that they got their daughter back.  The whole world would feel exactly the same way about Jesus provided they could just meet Him.
 
6 – His visit to Nazareth had several reasons.  The Bible records him passing through here about a year prior. One thing that can be noted is that prophets do not exactly receive a hero’s welcome in their hometowns.  (Shepherding types do, but not prophetic types). If they people do this to Jesus, they’ll do this to anyone. Do not be surprised. A prophet is supposed to have an itinerant/mobile life anyway.  Also the protracted list of Jesus’ family of origin is listed. It’s an intriguing thought that Jesus was the eldest son of a family of at least nine.  He had five brothers, at least two sisters, more likely about four sisters. Some branches of Christendom like to tell themselves that Mary was the “Virgin Mary” forever.  That Song/Solomon 4:12 is about Mary – a “fountain sealed”. Well, read Mark 6:3 and realize that Joseph and Mary parented a fruitful family.
~When he sent out the 12 disciples, he told them to go empty-handed basically. With no back-up (meaning no backpack too!) this would make them determined to connect with people. The gospel requires connection or it is not spread.
~John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin and Herod had him killed.  Herod set it up so that it looked like he was trapped and needed to kill John do that he could continue feigning that he was a man of is word. Yea right. Herod worked it like a politician. How does this sit with Jesus? Now we do not find Jesus suspending his ministry and starting a “prophets’ rights” coalition. No. Nothing distracts Him from His ministry. But notice how Jesus later treats Herod one or two dozen months later in Jerusalem: Luke 23:9.  Jesus won’t say a word to him. Yer’pretty bad off when God won’t even talk to you!
~The reading ends today with a display of Jesus’ mastery over the matter of food; specifically the quantity of food. Jesus effortless feeds 5,000 men.  There were wives. There were children. He probably fed 25,000 total that day. Only the men are numbered in the process because a ready count of able-bodied men was always noted for these are biblical times and an enemy could arrive at any time and a census of the men needed to be known. The others were significant too but that is just the reality of the day: number the men.
Posted on

April 21

 

Mark 2:23-4:41

We are in the Christ Stream reading from the Good News Translation this week.

 

Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Lord Jesus, you are Lord over the Sabbath, over nature, over diseases and Lord over the Law.  May you be The Lord in our lives too.  Amen.

The Sabbath Laws were so detailed and extreme that they were stifling for people. The trend went to these ends after the Babylon Captivity.  The leadership in Israel had been so wretched from ca. 920 – 722 A.D. that they figured that swinging to the other extreme of feigned obedience would be proper.  On the Sabbath no one could walk more than a few minutes. Food had to be prepared the day before and eaten cold. Even today there are some of this same brand of faith who will not flush their toilets on the Sabbath because pushing the handle down that painful one inch constitutes work (this is true!). Yes, Jesus used the occasion to highlight the sillyness of manmade rules.  He was also addressing the leaderships penchant for majoring on the minor and minoring on the major.  And for what it’s worth, it was Jesus’ teaching and His life lessons about the Sabbath that put the Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Scribes over the edge and their reaction steeled their resolve to eventually crucify him.

 
3 – Imagine these jokers being so cold that a man getting his hand healed [on THEIR wrong day!] angers them. What a sorry bunch.  He is healing and cleansing people of evil spirits and a stampede to Galilee had erupted from even neighboring lands. It be difficult to film such a scene for it requires tens of thousands of people to film it accurately so we’ve not really seen this scene duplicated for what it really was.  The crowds could have easily exceeded 100,000.  The biggest of sporting or music events worldwide rarely reach this size. Jesus is creating a rage of this size in a country outpost!  He tells the demons that he is expelling to keep quiet for he was trying to delay the people rising up to make him King/Messiah of Israel.  He was able to delay it until Palm Sunday a couple years later.
Next Jesus is calling the 12 Disciples. This is also in Mt. 10:2ff, Lk 6:12ff, and Acts 1:13. The order of these vary per list but it’s the same men – that’s a discussion for another day.
Jesus is being accused of having an evil spirit by the teachers of the Law. They were angry that there was so much attention shifting away from them and going to Jesus. It was jeopardizing their income. Jesus warned that calling his work to be of the Devil was a dangerous deed that would not be forgiven. We need to hear this today. Too much of this happens now anytime someone has a ministry style that seems “out there” to us. I’ve heard people call a minister a demon or some such label. Take it easy, that puts US in dangerous territory. We don’t know and need to watch our words here.
Jesus responding that whoever obeys him is His family; his mother and brothers. Some branches of Christendom bristle at Jesus saying this for Jesus’ mother is so revered in some churches. But Jesus said what He said.  We need to make sure WE are in Jesus family through obeying Him and leave complex theologizing alone.
 
4 – The Parable of he Sower is a clear memo to us.  We are to be fruitful soil. We are not to be paper thin characters, or distracted by thorny concerns, or lacking substance like rocky soil. We are called to be rich in Him – like nutrients; growing and helping others grow. And we are to be productive. We are to draw others to God like a lamp in the dark. Too many hide their faith. Today people all over the world are being told to put their Crosses away. NEVER. Broadcast the Faith in Our Jesus that saves. Our faith is a growing enterprise. It engulfs more of humanity than any creed or business or movement ever has. It was small once – 12 guys; rather ruffian in nature, and billions have joined since. We can learn from the mustard seed, can we not?  We’ve been living it for near 2000 years.  And one last lesson about nature – when he orders a storm to be calmed: He has control over nature.