Sent Out to Save Where He "Failed"

Pentecost 8

July 19, 2015

Mark 6:7-13

Sent Out to Save Where He "Failed"

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus sent out the Twelve to save souls from sin and death, just after He had failed to do so Himself. He had just been rejected in His own hometown. It must have been humiliating to be pushed away by the people who grew up with Him and should have known Him.

And this is the time He chose to send out the Twelve to save souls?

From our point of view, there would been much better times to send them out:

after feeding the 5,000, for example, just after He had performed a powerful miracle. Or perhaps after He had walked on water.

But Jesus chose a moment when there could be no mistake about what save souls:

not His power, but His Word.

This helps to explain His instructions to those men going out two by two.

Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.

(Mark 6:8-9)

Don't take anything extra for the trip, Jesus said. Learn to depend on Me for everything that you need.

And so the disciples by God's grace listened and they went out with His Word. And when they returned, they had learned to rely simply on His Word. They healed the sick and cast out demons. And by God's Word souls were saved.

Today we have this same promise from Christ. He gives us all that we need for life. Try and think of something you have that He didn't give you.

And of all His gifts, His greatest treasure to you is His Word.

Just like Jesus after His humiliation in Nazareth, we often hear His Word most clearly after we have been brought low with grief or pain. We give thanks for the good days, but often it is the bad times that we are most aware of Christ's promise to forgive us and be near us.

If Jesus had sent out the Twelve right away after feeding the 5,000 or walking on water, what do you think the Twelve would have talked about most? Crosses and suffering? Or glory and food and miracles that defied the laws of nature?

Thanks be to Jesus that He used His own lowliness and humiliation to teach us that even where He seemed to fail, He still gives us His simple Word that breaks and kills our own hardest souls and leaves us with souls filled with joy and gladness.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!