Human beings are highly resistant to change. Change often involves embracing an unknown future and often, we fear what we don’t know and therefore, we fear change. When we fear change it becomes hard to move on from a miserable job or end an unhealthy relationship. We refuse to loosen our control over our children as they grow.

God appears to Moses in the burning bush as change itself. A fire—the scientific embodiment of matter changing forms. God is inviting Moses to change, to leave the comforts of his home and embrace what God has sent before him to save his people from the rule of Pharaoh. But he doesn’t have to do it alone. God promises to be with him just as Jesus promises to be with us.

Change is one of the constants of our world and it’s always been part of Christ’s invitation: to leave our nets, to leave our comforts, to leave what we know and to change so that we become more like Jesus.

One of the things that gets lost in the coming of Jesus is the fact that the people of God had been waiting a long time for a Messiah. We’re not talking about waiting for Christmas morning to come again… we’re talking about waiting hundreds of years.

How much longer could the people of God cling to the dim light of promises written hundreds, probably a thousand years prior?  How long until they believed tomorrow would just be a repeat of today? 

Whatever it is that you fear, whatever feels inevitable, isn’t.  One day it will break beneath the weight of God’s mercy.  But until then, we take heart because it is in the dark of night, it is in the shadow of death, it is in the pit of despair that God meets us and offers to us a peace that does not discount the reality of what is, but in the face of it, dares to promise something that we didn’t think was possible, dares to sing a song, dares to believe that tomorrow will not be the same as today.

Variations of “do not fear”, “do not be afraid”, and “fear not” appear more than 100 times in the pages of scripture—it’s clearly something that God wants to address, and it’s clearly one of the things we’ll struggle with most in life.  

We live in a world that pours fuel on our anxieties so that we stay in a state of perpetual fear. What should be healthy, helpful fears can grow into a gigantic specters of terror that paralyze us and dictate the ways we interact with others and ourselves.

But when we put fear into the context of something or someone “bigger”, then fear doesn’t have to be the loudest voice or the driver of our lives.  We can rest assured that united with him, we, too, can fear not fear, because he came to this earth to be with us. To meet us in our fears as a human being… and to meet our fears with the promise that he is almighty, powerful, good, and just.

Mark structured the first half of his gospel so that we would arrive at this moment of truth. The disciples have seen and heard enough. They should be able to answer the question that Jesus posed to them. “Who do people say that I am?”

Peter had been taught that the Messiah would be a royal figure, the offspring of King David, whom God would empower to deliver Israel from her enemies. The Messiah was, by definition, a winner. Peter acknowledges that Jesus is the Messiah, but Jesus goes on to say that he must “suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead.” 

A Messiah was good news for sure, it was the news Peter and the rest of the Jewish nation had been longing for over 400 years. But a Messiah who turned himself over to the Romans? A Messiah who suffered and would be killed? A Messiah who got killed? And yet, Jesus insisted that it was good news; that he had come to save them all, not just from Rome, but also from themselves—to conquer sin, to defeat death, to restore and reconcile all things to God.

When you think about your life and the ways you move through the world, would you say that you see yourself as the main character? If so, what does that mean for how you view those around you? Are you so focused on your own chances to stand in the spotlight that you forget to shine a light on the needs of others?

Or do you relegate yourself to the role of background character in everyone else’s life? Do you worry that you don’t have the right background or resume or track record? Or maybe you’re afraid you’re too broken and therefore, not worthy of the spotlight?

In her encounter with Jesus, the Syrophoenician woman chooses neither to position herself as the main character of the story nor to shrink back from being seen and known. She humbly takes the illustration Jesus used and rightfully places herself inside the story. She says she’s willing to take whatever Jesus is willing to give her, because even the crumbs of God’s promises are enough to work wonders and are worth showing up for.

It’s easier to claim to be virtuous, than be virtuous. It’s easier to talk the talk than walk the walk. And that's what Jesus was talking about in this passage—the discrepancy between what we project on the outside and what’s actually going on in our hearts.

Jesus was highlighting one of the big problems with rules that govern external behavior. It gives you, and everyone around you, the feeling that you are doing all the right things but your heart can still be far from God.

Jesus was constantly drawing people back to the heart of the law. He wasn’t diminishing God’s requirements, but sharpening them so that people’s hearts were aligned with their actions. He doesn’t want us to settle for superficial compliance, he wants our hearts to be healed and whole.

We don’t have to be perfect, and we don’t have to pretend that we’re perfect either—pretending to be what we’re not makes our mistakes even worse. We can choose a better way.

Wealthy people, poor people, kids, adults, progressives, conservatives… we all get hungry. Using their stomachs as a common denominator, Jesus was teaching them that their needs united them in solidarity with every other person.

And if we can see that what another person needs is the same thing that we need, it has the power to awaken our compassion for that person. Recognizing our common humanity can break down the walls that divide us so that when we see someone else in need, we want to help them just as we’d want them to help us. 

By feeding thousands of people, Jesus is showing us in this story that his kingdom is not a place of scarcity, but a place of abundance. Not a place of fear, but a place of generosity. A place where there is sufficient food and drink and where the needs of the whole person are satisfied. 

Meeting the needs of our neighbors is one of the most important characteristics of being a follower of Jesus. He doesn’t just give us what we need, he gives us more, so that we can give it to others. Not only are all needs met, it also reminds us that we are recipients of grace. Everything we have from God is a gift rather than something we’re entitled to or that we’ve earned.

We like to suppose we control of our lives, but if you’ve ever found yourself outdoors in a storm, you realize just how small and helpless we really are—completely at the mercy of a storm so much bigger and more powerful than anything we can handle. This story is also about a storm, but it’s a storm raging inside of a person.

This man in Mark 5 lived among the tombs, possessed by demons. We don’t know how and why he became possessed, but it was clear he was not himself, not in control. Jesus walked toward the man and casts out the demons.

The bad news is that we too suffer from the storms within—storms that are much bigger than we can handle on our own. The good news, is that Jesus moved towards this man and set him free. He also moves toward us. We will pass through storms, but God promises to be with us even in the storm. And because God is with us, we will not drown, not be consumed, and not be overwhelmed.

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves can get in the way of what is actually possible. We sometimes assume our problems are not big enough compared to what else is happening in the world.  Or, we may believe we're not worthy or deserving of God's love and care.  Maybe you think if you're honest about what you've been struggling with others will judge you or think you're weak.

These kinds of stories keep us at arm's length from the help and care we need.  They can become barriers that keep us from experiencing a good and loving God and the care and compassion of those who love and care for us.  

The stories we see in Mark 5 paint illustrate that Jairus and the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment did not let their circumstances keep them from God. They chose to believe the stories they had heard about Jesus—that he could bring them good news.

What is a parable? Parables are stories thrown alongside real life to illustrate or explain something. It’s a story with a lesson, a creative way to make a point, a mirror to help us see ourselves more clearly. 

At the end of chapter 4 Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. The seeds work within the earth automatically, without assistance from the farmer.

It’s a good reminder that God’s kingdom is going to grow, not because of anything that I do, but because of the power inherent in the kingdom itself.  It’s tempting to look around at the world we live in and think nothing good can grow given these circumstances. Yet woven into the fabric of the universe is the promise that God’s good news will grow in us, around us, before us, and beside us.