Begin with 2 minutes of silence and stillness before God.

The beginning of today’s chapter highlights a different aspect of Jesus than what Mark has been focusing on in the previous few chapters: His humanity. In verses 1-6, Jesus returns to His hometown where people were familiar with Him, His family, His work, etc. A couple of verses that really stick out to me here in this section are verses 5-6a, which state:

“And He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.”

Wow. If you’ve been following along with this week’s readings, you may remember various stories of people who Jesus healed—casting out demons, healing withered hands, healing chronic health issues, and raising a girl from the dead—and yet here in His own hometown, due to their lack of belief in Him, Jesus didn’t perform many miracles.

Now, I don’t believe Mark is implying here that Jesus is powerless to perform miracles without the faith of others. Jesus is still fully God (and fully human) while He’s here in His hometown and fully able to perform any miracle simply because of who He is. However, I think the main difference here in this setting is that the community overall was unwelcoming and unreceptive to the idea of Jesus being more than “Mary’s son,” who, if you remember back to the Christmas story, people may have thought Jesus to be an illegitimate child. They weren’t open to the idea of Jesus being more than they could comprehend.

I think this shows us that Jesus didn’t force His miracles on anyone, but rather He acted in response to others’ faith. We don’t see Jesus get upset that they don’t believe in Him here and start forcing miracles in an effort to win them over and make them believe. Instead, Mark tells us that He healed only a few sick people and then went about among villages teaching.

If this is true about Jesus—and we can trust the Scripture that it is—then I think that gives us an important question to ask ourselves: what is the attitude/overall posture of our heart toward Jesus? Do we truly believe that He is Who He says He is? Or do we reduce Jesus in our minds to just being another name on a page or a cultural church experience? If this passage is teaching us that Jesus longs to respond to people who seek after Him and are hungry to know more of who He is, then let’s take some time to ask ourselves if that’s who we are. And if not, confess that to Him and ask for His help to believe and seek Him.

Reflection:

• Spend time praying, asking God to reveal what the posture of your heart towards Him really is.
• Bring your reality before Jesus. Tell Him whatever is on your mind and on your heart, and ask Him to move in your life.
• Listen to the song “Make Room” sometime today and sing the lyrics as a prayer to God.

Take 2 minutes to reflect in silence.

Family Application: Mark 6

Author: Nichole McCardle

Mark 6 teaches us more stories about how amazing Jesus is! He continued teaching people about God, healed the sick, and even walked on water! People were amazed everywhere he went, and so many wanted to hear what he had to say. One night, as Jesus was teaching a large crowd of 5,000 people, he instructed the disciples to feed the crowd. The disciples were confused because the only food that they had was five loaves of bread and two fish. The disciples did not think that small amount of food would be enough to feed a crowd of 5,000. Jesus thanked God for the food and split up the bread and the fish, giving them to the disciples to pass out to the people. Guess what? There was enough food for all of the people to eat and become satisfied, and there were even leftovers! There was more than enough. Just like the bread and the fish, Jesus is more than enough for us. Just like the crowd, we can be fed by God. He knows what we need, when we need it, and how much we need.
How do you think the disciples were feeling when they realized the small amount of food that they had? How do you think you would have reacted in that situation?

• In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Think about that verse and the story from today. Jesus is our Ultimate Provider, and He wants us to come to Him. Pray and thank Jesus for being your Provider of all things.
• Prayer: God, I love You! Thank You for knowing exactly what I need! Help me to share Your love with everyone around me. Amen.