Andrew

Sometimes, I wish people would simply do as he asks and keep their mouths shut!

Time after time we have been crowded out of towns and villages.  We can’t go anywhere without people demanding his attention. And once – can you believe it? – they even tore the roof off a house we were in, just to get their friend to Jesus!   It’s all getting quite out of hand!

We have to sneak around secretly, escape in boats, take to the hills and, lately, we have been off on long trips abroad.  Yet, still they find us!  When word gets out that he is around, they come flocking. Not always in ones and twos, either; sometimes in their thousands!

And when that happens, who, I ask, has to think about all the logistics – health and safety, crowd control and catering?  Well, they don’t, do they?  It’s twice now we have been faced with a hungry crowd, miles away from the markets. Did they think about bringing their own packed-lunches?  Oh no!  And who has to sort it all out?  We do!  Jesus insists on it.  

Last time, with the five thousand, we tried to get him to send them away, but he was having nothing of it.  ‘No – You feed them’, he said.  This time, with the crowd almost as big, he drew us aside again, sharing his heart. ‘I feel sorry for them’ he said ‘I’m not sure many of them will make it home without something to eat. So, what can we do about it, lads?  What have we got to offer?’

Not much, I can tell you! Not the first time back home, and not this time, here across the water, either! And, to ask us to do the impossible one time was enough in itself, but twice?!  He was really pushing it! 

Now, if there is one thing I have learnt in the last day or so, it is that these people here – for all their posh cities and proud Roman culture – are just as bad as God’s chosen people when it comes to looking out for themselves!  We both share the same predicament; we get hungry.  Hungry for food and even hungrier for God.

This explains why the crowds come flocking, I guess.  But I have to admit, I was especially surprised about this particular crowd.  I mean, how had they even heard about Jesus?  What whetted their appetite so much that they carelessly flocked out into the desert to find us here?   I can understand the crowds at home; everyone is talking about him there. But here?  How had word reached them here?  And why were they so interested anyway, them being Gentiles and self-styled Romans at that?

On the other hand, why should they be any different to us?  Who would not be amazed by Jesus?  The man he healed the other day certainly was. So were the people who came with him. 

This man was deaf and couldn’t really speak.  All that came out of his mouth were incoherent noises.  Jesus led him away from the watching crowd and gently put his fingers in the man’s ears and then spat and rubbed saliva on the man’s tongue.  Looking up to heaven with a deep sigh he said to him ‘Ephphatha!’ (That’s a word worth remembering, isn’t it?)  ‘Ephphatha!  Be open!’  And instantly the man could hear and speak, clear as anything!

I don’t blame him for wanting to tell everyone about it, do you?  If you have not been able to speak for so long, and then God gives you a voice, it’s only natural to want to tell everyone about it, isn’t it?  (Even if the first thing your newly opened ears hear is; ‘Don’t say a word to anyone about this!’  Like red rag to a bull, that is!  We are all the same: asked to keep a secret, we just burst to share it. Telling us not to tell anyone might just be the surest way to make sure that we do!)

Mind you, there was a very good reason why we didn’t want our presence announced too loudly in this area.  Last time we were here in the region of the Ten Towns, we found ourselves in quite some bother.  We ended up being deported immediately, which, while embarrassing, was quite a lot better than some of us feared!  Those farmers were mighty angry at the loss of so many pigs. I am sure that the only thing that stopped them from stoning us there and then was the sight of that previously possessed man, sitting calmly and quietly besides us.  He was out of his chains, which made them cautious.  But he was no longer out of his mind, which filled them with awe and curiosity.  Well, it would have done, were it not for the horrific sight and sound of all their squealing pigs drowning in torment.  Stunned by the spectacle, they asked us, politely but firmly, to leave.  Who knows what their reaction would be if they knew we had returned?

Well now we know! 

They came to find us, all right.     And yes, I did feel apprehensive as they gathered. You’ll understand my wondering if any of them still wanted to string us up for what happened last time.  

But, thankfully, that’s not why they came.

They seem to have had a complete change of heart.  Then they had wanted us away as quickly as possible; now they lingered far too long for their own good.  And they were hungry. So hungry!  Not for our blood; but for Jesus.

How and why the change came about, I could not imagine.  Until, that is, I saw him;  the man we met up with last time we were here.  

He was easy to spot in the crowd, still as huge as ever and marked by the tell tail scarring of self-harm.  And yet his demeanour was now so different – no longer frightening in any way – that he might have been a different person.   But it was, undoubtably, him.  And this transformed human-being was obviously loved and accepted by the legion of people he now led out to meet Jesus.

This, I remember now, was the one-man Jesus did not ban from talking about him.  Quite the opposite, in fact.   The man had begged to come with us but Jesus would have none of it.  As we left him on the harbour-side, Jesus had said to him ‘Go back!  Go back home and tell your people how good God is’. 

And that, apparently, is exactly what he did!   He travelled throughout the Ten Towns, telling his story, telling everyone about Jesus, telling of his own experience of God’s goodness.  And now, in result, here he was leading them all out to meet Jesus themselves!

And – do you know? – despite all my complaining, I’m really quite glad! 

Because of his talking, I have seen something really quite remarkable.  When Jesus took the seven loaves we offered (just like he took the five we had to give him a few short weeks ago) he went on to multiply them to feed another four thousand people.  An amazing miracle!  Again!

And look! We collected seven massive baskets full of left-overs!  We’ve got no food worries now.  No-one is going to go hungry around here for quite some time!

Two days later

Erm…. I’m not sure that I want to tell you this next bit of my story.  If I’m honest, I think I have to, but I’d really rather not. 

You see – can you believe it? – when we left by boat the next day, no-one thought to load up the bread!  We left all those baskets of food behind!  Except, that is, for one measly loaf we found tucked under one of the benches.

When we first realised, we were not all that bothered.  We laughed incredulously at our foolishness, but saw no real reason to worry. Our first port of call was just across the water in Dalmanutha.  We could get food there.  

Except …we couldn’t.  We were met at the quayside by a reception party of Pharisees demanding that Jesus gave them a sign, just like he did in the Decapolis.  Jesus just said ‘You’re not getting one’ and had us back in the boat immediately.  So, no food there!

We sailed away, still with only the one loaf between us.  How was that ever going to be enough to feed all of us hungry people?  Our grumbling tummies were guiding our thinking, so when Jesus mentioned something about the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’, all we heard was the word ‘yeast’ as we fixated on the desire to have some to make bread of our own!  We started talking about that, which must have sounded quite incongruous to Jesus.  He was trying to give us an important warning, and all we could do was talk about baking!   He went silent for a while, trying to make sense of our ramblings.  When he cottoned on to what we were saying, he let rip in total exasperation.

‘Don’t you get it?’ he cried ‘Not even now?!  Remember how I broke the five loaves for the five thousand?  How many baskets of left overs did you pick up?’

‘Twelve,’ we answered. 

‘And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand?’

‘Seven’, we replied.  

‘And you, with your one loaf for … just how big a crowd have we managed to squeeze into this little boat?!    You still don’t get it, do you?”

Well, no we didn’t! 

In truth, he was right to say we had hearts of stone.  Our eyes were shut and our ears blocked.  In fact, come to think of it, we were no better off than the deaf man they brought to Jesus just a few days ago.  Except now it was us talking incoherently!   And why?  Because we could not hear and understand anything Jesus was trying to teach us!

I wonder what it will take to heal us, so that we can hear clearly?   

And what will it take to loosen our tongues so that, without hesitation, we go and tell the world just how good God is?