Friday after the Sixth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 21, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. Mark 8:13-21 (NKJV)
8:13 And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side.
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”
17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? 18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?”
They said to Him, “Twelve.”
20 “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?”
And they said, “Seven.”
21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”
Devotion
Today’s text focuses on Jesus’ dismay at the inability of His disciples to understand His teachings that offer forgiveness and salvation to those who hear and perceive the Holy Word of God. The disciples’ confusion is a common problem experienced by man, for we live and move throughout our lives in a temporal reality that is linear and time based. On the other hand, God and His eternal kingdom exist in a timeless, dimensionless reality of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence that is extremely difficult, at best (sometimes even impossible), for us to comprehend.
It is only by the gracious mercy of our Lord that we are blessed to have the eternal revealed to us through His holy, inerrant Word and the Holy Spirit. All the parables are given to accomplish this revelation, by presenting the heavenly and spiritual eternal realm through images and descriptions of temporal, earthly, transitory human experiences on earth. Only by God’s grace, through faith given and nourished by the Lord’s holy Means of Grace, do any of us have the tiniest hope of understanding what is lovingly revealed of the perfect will of God in the Holy Bible.
Prayer: Lord of all power and might, Who art the Author and Giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of Thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
