Can you have Hope without Faith? I think it is impossible because, as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, Faith is the underlying reality of that which we Hope for, the evidence of the accomplished things that we have not yet seen. I think the connection between Faith and Hope is an if and only of connection. Hope cannot exist without Faith. Faith is barren unless it has given birth to Hope.

Without Faith, Hope is nothing but wishful thinking.

 Without Hope, Faith is just plain old stubbornness.

But when Faith in the Son of God has taken a hold of my heart so that I know that I know that He gave His life for me because He Loved me, then I also know that I know that His triumph over sin and death and every power of evil was, and ever will be, complete. My future is in His hands. Neither the uncertainties of this fallen world nor the schemes of the enemy have any power to derail the plan that He has for my life.

That means I can live with abandon… in His service.

Last time, we left off at the beginning of chapter 6 of Mark. The next section of that chapter begins with Jesus’ commissioning of His 12 disciples as His ambassadors. They are about to find out what it means to be “sent out”; to be His apostles.

 Mark 6:7-12 And he calls the twelve to [him]; and he began to send them out two [and] two, and gave to them power over the unclean spirits; and he commanded them that they should take nothing for the way, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their belt; but be shod with sandals, and put not on two body-coats.

And he said to them, Wheresoever ye shall enter into a house, there remain till ye shall go thence. And whatsoever place shall not receive you nor hear you, departing thence, shake off the dust which is under your feet for a testimony to them.

And they went forth and preached that they should repent; and they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many infirm, and healed them.

Jesus has decided to continue their training with practical experience. The first thing they learn is that this is no job for a “lone wolf”. Yes, we can be surmise that sending them out two by two is a logical way to give each one the confidence that comes from having someone else to rely on. And that that reliance is a picture of the reliance we both must have on our Father: trusting that He will take care of us in this Mission. (That’s one of the points of taking nothing but the bare minimum). As Solomon said:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and who hath not another to lift him up!

But I think there is a second reason to go two by two. Jesus is endowing them with the same supernatural power that He has been displaying in His ministry; thus giving them the ability to be accurate and faithful representatives of His person in every place they go… but there is an inherent danger in that… because they are still only human; imperfect in their faith (as we will soon see).

Think about it. If I went out, alone, maybe scared of what could happen, but I still did it anyway. And then I find I can do these miracles, that not even demons can withstand this power, what is going to happen? You can bet that people are going to be amazed, start gathering around me, running to me for help… praising me. How long before it all that goes to my head?

Working together with other believers is a straightforward protection against stumbling before that temptation to my ego.

Acknowledging that you and I are working together on this mission, as equals, as co-laborers, helps us remember that this power that we wield has nothing to do with me, or my merits, or my righteousness… it all comes from the Lord.

The next thing I think is important to learn from this first commissioning is that even though our Mission, just like Jesus’ Mission, is supernatural and comes with supernatural power, it only exists because there is still a fallen world all around us. And the people of that world were created by God – just like He created us – and therefore they have free will.

Just like we lived our lives for years, maybe even decades, resisting the tug of the Father’s voice, these people have the power, and the right, to do the same thing. We cannot force them to listen; we cannot force them to repent… Just like our Father did not force us. Our job is to tell them the Good News.  But if they do not want to listen, all we can do is tell them that that is what they have done: they have willingly rejected the message. (This is the point of shaking the dust off our sandals in their presence.)

But if they listen, they get more than accepting the Word, they get to experience what it is to participate in this Mission. That is the point of the instruction of staying in the house that welcomes us (regardless of whether they are rich or poor) because if they welcome us, by definition they are supporting us while we are in that city.

This is how Hope triumphs:

The Word proclaimed by the Son of God spreads farther and farther, indeed, even to the whole world, through the lives and work of us His willing servants.

Hope triumphs even when the world thinks it has won

The Mission is supernatural, the prize is eternal, and therefore, the Mission succeeds whenever a lost heart hears the Word and turns to it for help, whenever a lost child cries out for help to the Father. That is victory.

We should never get deluded into thinking that the triumph of Hope is going to look anything like the victories this world praises. Because those victories are invariably about the power of the strong winning over the weak, about the rich getting their way because they are rich and can get richer, about the mighty being praised and flattered. (Think about it: Who are the famous people in this world.? To whom does everybody kowtow in adullation or in fear of reprisal?)

But just one look at the cross, at the Son of the Almighty, Infinite, Universe-creating God, beaten to a pulp and tortured for hours… for the crime of having dared proclaim the unrelenting Love of His Father for all His children… for the crime of speaking the Truth, that without the Father we are condemning ourselves to death… just one look at that should make it plain that the Triumph of Heaven has nothing to do with victory in this world.

That’s what this next section of chapter 6 teaches us:

Mark 6:14-29 And Herod the king heard [of him] (Jesus) (for his name had become public), and said, John the baptist is risen from among [the] dead, and on this account works of power are wrought by him. And others said, It is Elias; and others said, It is a prophet, as one of the prophets. But Herod when he heard [it] said, John whom *I* beheaded, he it is; *he* is risen [from among the dead].

For the same Herod had sent and seized John, and had bound him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have the wife of thy brother.

But Herodias kept it [in her mind] against him, and wished to kill him, and could not: for Herod feared John knowing that he was a just and holy man, and kept him safe; and having heard him, did many things, and heard him gladly.

And a holiday being come, when Herod, on his birthday, made a supper to his grandees, and to the chiliarchs, and the chief [men] of Galilee; and the daughter of the same Herodias having come in, and danced, pleased Herod and those that were with [him] at table; and the king said to the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt and I will give it thee. And he swore to her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask me I will give thee, to half of my kingdom.

And she went out, and said to her mother, What should I ask? And she said, The head of John the baptist. And immediately going in with haste to the king, she asked saying, I desire that thou give me directly upon a dish the head of John the baptist.

And the king, [while] made very sorry, on account of the oaths and those lying at table with [him] would not break his word with her. And immediately the king, having sent one of the guard, ordered his head to be brought. And he went out and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head upon a dish, and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother.

And his disciples having heard [it], came and took up his body, and laid it in a tomb.

John the baptizer was called to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, to announce the arrival of the Son of God. And he did that: out in the wilderness and also in the halls of power. Think about it: Herod wouldn’t have bothered him, Herodias would not have hated him, if he had stayed out there in the fields and deserts and the shores of the Jordan proclaiming repentance to the common people.

But he dared to tread on the luxurious marble of Herod’s palace and tell him, to his face, that he knew better; that it was not lawful for him to take away and marry his brother’s wife.

And, please, let’s not cast this in today’s language that he was “speaking truth to power”. For that makes it sound like Herod’s power was anything special to draw John’s attention. No. John came to speak Truth to everybody.

All of us, from the most humble to the richest and most powerful, grow up by nature as sinners and rebels against the Law of God. Born in this fallen world, all of us quickly learn what it takes to get what we want:

You see, this is a finite world… therefore every transaction, every relationship can be reduced to a zero-sum game. That is the easiest and fastest way to get what “I deserve”. Lie, steal, cheat… whatever it takes, even if it is at your expense; if it gives me the pleasure and power that I want, then that is what matters. Why should I worry about what it does to you?

But John knew that this finite world is not all that there is. And in the light of the eternal reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, any life wasted in the pursuit of the perishable rewards of this world is a life lost to eternity, a child of God lost, truly, forever. John could not abide that. So, he preached to everybody, including Herod the king.

He carried out His Mission and it resulted in his death. Yet, Hope triumphed because the Word of God was heard in that palace.

Hope triumphs when the Mission of the Messiah is carried out

It may not necessarily cost us the ultimate price, as it did John, but we must understand that it will cost us something.

It bears to remember again the contrast: This world prizes victory over the adversities of this world: The successful are not hard to recognize: They attain positions of respect; they reap comfort as the reward for their work; others serve them rather than the other way around. But the apostles are going to find themselves hard pressed to just “get a break.”

The apostles came back to Jesus understanding that His power completely prevailed over the power of the world and the devil…

Mark 6:30-32 And the apostles are gathered together to Jesus. And they related to him all things, [both] what they had done and what they had taught. And he said to them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a little. For those coming and those going were many, and they had not leisure even to eat. And they went away apart into a desert place by ship.

Jesus suggests well-deserved rest, a chance to eat… but we are not in charge of the Mission. God is:

Mark 6:33 And many saw them going, and recognised them, and ran together there on foot, out of all the cities, and got [there] before them.

Jesus immediately recognized what that situation required. (Note that the disciples were not the only ones in need of rest. From the other gospels we know that while they were traveling town to town preaching, Jesus was doing the same thing in their towns, the towns where most of the miraculous ministry of Jesus had been taking place, in front of a people that knew them all already, that had no reason to mistrust them. Jesus preached to them a hard message: rebuking them for their unbelief.) So, humanly and emotionally tired from the hard work, Jesus sets His needs aside and does what He knows the Father has called him to do.

Mark 6:34 And on leaving [the ship] [Jesus] saw a great crowd, and he was moved with compassion for them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

And once Jesus has taught the crowd, He turns again to teaching His disciples. Remember: They have just come back from a tour where the supernatural power of God never once failed them:

Mark 6:35-44 And when it was already late in the day, his disciples coming to him say, The place is desert, and it is already late in the day; send them away that they may go into the country and villages around, and buy themselves bread, for they have not anything they can eat.

And he answering said to them, Give *ye* them to eat. And they say to him, Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them to eat?

And he says to them, How many loaves have ye? Go [and] see. And when they knew they say, Five, and two fishes. And he ordered them to make them all sit down by companies on the green grass.  And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties.

And having taken the five loaves and the two fishes, looking up to heaven, he blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave [them] to his disciples that they might set [them] before them. And the two fishes he divided among all. And they all ate and were satisfied.

And they took up of fragments the fillings of twelve hand-baskets, and of the fishes. And those that ate of the loaves were five thousand men.

The key moment in this story (that appears in all the gospels) is that point when Jesus tells them, point blank, “You feed them.”

Can you imagine being there, being one of them, and hearing Jesus say that? He is hoping that we can respond as if we were standing in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is expecting I will respond the way I responded when that demon started screaming at us and threatening us and then we cast it out by the power of the Messiah. He is hoping that I will respond the way I responded when those people brought us their sick and dying loved ones, and we went ahead and laid our hands on them and proclaimed healing in the name of Jesus, and they stood up, alive and well.

Why didn’t I respond that way? Why didn’t we?

How quickly we forget…

So, Jesus goes on with the lesson: He has us serve the 5000 (plus women and children) so that we can see, first hand, that there is no limit to the power of God; that the  miracles of food multiplication performed by the prophets Elijah and Elisha are as possible today as they were then… because the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal and, therefore, timeless.

I like the fact that the gospel has stories like this one in it: Stories that remind us that those disciples were ordinary people just like us, fallible like us; slow to learn, hard-headed even… Because if they were just like us, then we surely can become just like them; once we learn how to trust in Him.

And now, after the feeding of the people, Jesus sends His disciples away.

Mark 6:45-46 And immediately he compelled his disciples to go on board ship, and to go on before to the other side to Bethsaida, while *he* sends the crowd away. And, having dismissed them, he departed into the mountain to pray.

Again, by reading the story in the other gospels, we can get additional detail. Here the detail that matters is a comment made by John that the reason Jesus sent the disciples away while He dismissed the people is that that crowd was ready to proclaim Him King.

Jesus did not want His disciples in the middle of that temptation because they were liable to agree with that crowd.

Becoming Israel’s worldly King was not the reason that the Son of God became one of us. He came for one reason, the Mission of the Messiah: to save the world. But at this point, even though the disciples had spent a season of time immersed in the power of the Kingdom of Heaven, carrying out its work, they still did not understand that.

So, He sends them away and then:

Mark 6:47-52 And when evening was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and *he* alone upon the land. And seeing them labouring in rowing, for the wind was contrary to them, about the fourth watch of the night he comes to them walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.

But they, seeing him walking on the sea, thought that it was an apparition, and cried out. For all saw him and were troubled. And immediately he spoke with them, and says to them, Be of good courage: it is *I*; be not afraid. And he went up to them into the ship, and the wind fell.

And they were exceedingly beyond measure astonished in themselves and wondered; for they understood not through the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

There, that last verse confirms what I just said, even after partaking of Jesus’ supernatural power, even after witnessing up close a few loaves and fish multiply in Jesus’ hands to feed thousands, their hearts were still hardened.

It will take till those hearts are broken before they finally understand. Until then Jesus will continue teaching them, by word and deed, what the work of the Kingdom is all about.

Hope triumphs because it is contagious

Chapter 6 closes the way that story about the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 began, in verse 33: “And many saw them going, and recognised them, and ran together there on foot, out of all the cities, and got [there] before them.” The same happens here… as soon as they land, look at the reaction of the people:

Mark 6:53-56 And having passed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and made the shore. And on their coming out of the ship, immediately recognising him, they ran through that whole country around, and began to carry about those that were ill on couches, where they heard that he was.  And wherever he entered into villages, or cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the market-places, and besought him that they might touch if it were only the hem of his garment; and as many as touched him were healed.

The people responded immediately, en masse.

Sure, we can say that that was expected. If you knew there was someone able to cure any sickness, and He arrived at the edge of town, wouldn’t everybody start running to get every sick relative there to be healed?

I guess it sounds logical… except we don’t read anywhere in the gospels that among that thronging mass of people came some Pharisees or Sadducees. Surely, some of them must have been sick, or had sick relatives. Yet, they only show up to have intellectual discussions with Jesus or to argue with Him.

Am I reading too much into what has not been said?

I don’t know… I mean if at this point, the disciples’ level of understanding can be described as hardened hearts, how would you describe the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ hearts? Petrified?

Those crowds came because they believed Jesus could do this. In other words, they had a measure of Faith. And that Faith gave them Hope. They dared to hope that Jesus would indeed heal them… and so they had to get to Him, meet Him, whatever it took; no matter the cost, no matter how humbling.

Can you imagine being laid down there on the edge of the road, in the market-place, in front of all those people, exposed in your helplessness, to wait for Jesus to walk by, just so you could touch the hem of his garment? It almost sounds demeaning, until we realize that they must have heard from the woman with the haemorrhagic sickness that that was how she was healed. And if it was good enough for her, it is good enough for me!

If it is good enough for all those other people laying here in the dirt with me, then it is good enough for me.

Hope is contagious.

So, let me close by asking you, what are you hoping for today?

If you have never given your heart to Jesus, if you have never asked Him to take away your sins, if you have never asked Him to bring you into His Kingdom, I have to ask you, Why?

It cannot be for lack of a crowd… because I know there have been dozens, even hundreds of us, from that hopeful crowd that have come into your life.

Sure, it can seem daunting, humbling, even humiliating: to think about laying there out in the open, in the marketplace of life and admitting to anyone and everyone that happens to look my way that I am sick to my heart, dying in my soul, desperate for Love and true Hope.

But what is there to lose?