Sermon Notes: Mark 6:14-44
Mark 6:14-44
Mark’s Big Idea: Jesus is the divine Son of God and the suffering servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
The Big Idea of Mark 6:14-44:
Author: John Mark
Audience: Gentiles who are being told the good news of the kingdom of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus who are growing up into maturity in Christ and learning how to live under the rule of his increasing kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Occasion: Mark, as Peter’s missionary helper, is writing a gospel “tract” for use on the field as they preach the good news to Gentiles.
Genre: Overall, historical biography.
Key words/phrases:
Herod / Jesus’ name had become known / JTB raised from the dead / Elijah / Prophet / Beheaded and raised / Birthday / Banquet
Returned to Jesus / Told him / By themselves / Desolate place /
Compassion / Sheep without a shepherd / Teach
Send them away...buy themselves something to eat /
You give them something to eat / How many do you have
Groups of 100’s and 50’s / Blessing / Broke / Divided / Set before the people / All ate and were satisfied / 12 baskets of broken bread and fish leftover
5k men
Lists:
Supplies – 5 loaves and 2 fish
Contrasts/comparisons:
Contrast: Herod’s banquet contrasted with Jesus’ feeding the crowd. This is, perhaps, the main point of the back to back texts.
Contrast: JTB with Herod / Jesus with Herod
Contrast: Jesus and JTB – JTB won’t be spared, and he won’t be raised until Jesus raises him up on the last day. Jesus will be raised up on the third day so that he can raise JTB on resurrection day. JTB was a prophet sent by Father, Son, Spirit to testify to Jesus. Jesus is THE prophet, and the One who JTB was preaching about in the first place, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire and takes away the sin of the world.
Compare: Jesus and JTB – Both will be executed by the power of Rome. Both are prophets.
Expressions of time:
V. 16, 20, 21, 22, 29, 34, 38 “When”
V. 39 “Then”
These communicate the relationship of one event to another, showing cause and effect.
V. 27 “Immediately” (one of our themes) – Here it shows that Herod did not dodge JTB’s execution anymore. His reputation is on the line, so he gets after seeing that JTB is executed. His urgency to get something done is revolving around himself not JTB’s well-being.
Terms of conclusion/purpose clauses:
V. 14 “For”
V. 17 “For”
V. 18 “For”
V. 20 “For”
V. 22 “For” – the result of the opportunity Herodias took advantage of to get JTB.
V. 31 “For”
V. 40 “So”
There is a whole lot of purpose throughout our text.
What does the text say?
Mark intends to show us Jesus is the divine Son of God. The suffering Servant Messiah.
And Mark does this with two purpose rich events that display a huge contrast between two events, and more importantly, the hosts of the two events.
Herod’s banquet.
Jesus’ banquet. Jesus’ feeding 5,000 men.
The occasion of Herod’s banquet is his birthday, and his invitees are the self-serving crowd of his officials.
Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great (see appendix for a fuller treatment) who is Idumean (Edomite), has taken his brother Philip’s wife whose name is Herodias, in an immoral marriage. John the Baptist (JTB) rightly criticizes this sin.
Herod has put JTB in prison to quiet the criticism of JTB’s preaching in order to satisfy his immoral wife’s complaining about JTB’s preaching.
At this banquet, Herodias’ daughter dances for the guests, and she does such a “good job” that Herod promises to grant her a request. Like Xerxes promise to Esther, he promises up to half his kingdom (Esther 5:3). Of course, this is a reckless offer. Of course he would give her half his kingdom. That’s a hyperbolic way to tell her she can ask for a big payment for her “good job”. She asks her mother’s evil opinion, and the Jezebel wants JTB’s head. Herod, to save face and placate his evil wife’s desires, capitulates like Adam in the garden, and gives his wife what she wants. JTB’s head.
It is this background that introduces our text. Jesus’ apostles have been sent in his name, to do his work in his name. This work of preaching, casting out demons, and healing is so miraculous that Herod hears about it. Herod already knew about Jesus, and now he has heard about Jesus followers doing miraculous works in Jesus’ name. Herod is amazed.
So, Herod reasons that the source of these miraculous powers must be JTB at work through them because he has been raised from the dead. Why would Herod think such a thing?
Mark 6:20 tells us. Herod feared JTB and was fascinated by him and would send for him and hear him because he was a righteous and holy man. He would be perplexed by JTB and yet be glad to hear him.
So, Herod believing JTB had been raised from the dead shows us he fears that his unrighteous murder of JTB for his evil wife is now haunting him.
The apostle’s work is powerful. Others in Herod’s circle see it too, and tell Herod that Jesus was perhaps Elijah who had returned rather than a resurrected JTB. Something wild is happening, they just don’t understand it.
Herod’s banquet for himself with his self-serving attendees feasting on the riches provided off the backs of the people included an entertaining dance, a murder, and the gruesome evidence of that murder at the hands of the powerful for their own justification and entertainment.
Then there is Jesus’ banquet.
Jesus’s apostles return from the short-term mission by sharing about what they did and what they taught the people about Jesus.
It was so successful that folks kept coming to them after they returned to Jesus and seeking them out. The stream of people was so many and so often they could not even take a moment to eat and rest.
So, Jesus tells them to come away with him on a retreat to rest and be with him. So, they get on a board go away to a desolate place to be alone with Jesus.
The crowds see them go, and somehow know where they are headed, and the crowd mobilizes and gets there before Jesus and the apostles arrive.
Jesus is compassionate, so Jesus welcomes the crowd and teaches them.
It’s getting late, and the disciples are worried about how to host this huge crowd, so they suggest Jesus send them away to take care of themselves.
NOTE: Mark begins V. 30 mentioning the apostles, and V. 35 says it was his “disciples” who mentioned to him about sending the crowds away. Did this retreat include the apostles and the outer circle of disciples or is Mark just simply making note that the apostles are not more special than the rest of Jesus’ disciples who have believed? Not sure. Something to hold on to and think on.
Jesus rejects the plan of sending the people away. Why? He has compassion on them because he sees them like sheep without a shepherd. Mark’s language here reminds us of Israel as the sheep of the Lord and Moses as his appointed man who is their shepherd. Mark intends us to see that Jesus is the Greater Moses. Of course, Jesus would see those coming to him as his sheep. He, the LORD, is their Shepherd, so why would he send them away?
Jesus tells his disciples to feed the crowd they have welcomed, and thus Jesus sets the table for a banquet of his own.
Like Moses arranged the people, Jesus arranges the people into groups, he blesses the food, breaks the bread like in the Passover meal. Probably the prayer still prayed in Hebrew during the Passover meal like we have done: Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Hebrew: Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, hamotzi lechem min haaretz.
Jesus also breaks the fish and hands it to his disciples to hand out to the groups, and they hand the bread and fish out without running out.
Does your imagination let you see that?
With their meager rations of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, Jesus feeds 5 thousand men plus women and children. Perhaps 10-15 thousand people.
And the disciples pick up 12 baskets full of leftovers.
This miracle is significant. It will come back up again soon in Mark. The disciples will get challenged, and they will totally forget what Jesus did here, and he will forcefully and gently remind them of the miracle.
What does the text mean?
1. Jesus is the Creator Son of God who loves, shows compassion, creates, and gives to those who come to him.
Let’s look at some contrasts between Creator Jesus who loves and shows compassion, creates and gives, his banquet and Herod’s banquet.
Jesus invites his disciples away to be with him so that they can be renewed in him.
Herod invites his subjects to him, and he ends up terrorizing them by taking life to appease sin and their sense of his honor.
Jesus welcomes the seeking crowd.
Herod banishes the one seeking the kingdom of God to prison and death.
Jesus teaches the crowd “many things”. We can believe he’s teaching many things from his word and teaching them how to rightly understand his word.
Herod, Herodias, and the daughter teach darkness in their actions. Herod teaches through a life of lies as a dark Jephthah, married to a Jezebel, and placating a dark Esther. Jephthah kept his vow to the Lord at the cost of his daughter. Herod kills the innocent to keep a vow to evil. Herodias, like Jezabel in 1 Kings 21, orders the killing of a good and innocent man so she and her sinful lover can have his property and continue in their sin. The dancing daughter, like a dark Esther, pleads with Herod not for justice but for the sinful desire of her mother.
Jesus multiplies the meager offering into abundance.
Herod takes other’s abundance and good and uses it for himself.
Jesus blesses and, in that blessing, gives life through breaking the bread and fish and giving it to all who come to him and will receive it.
Herod curses through shedding innocent blood.
Mark’s point?
Gospel Connection: Jesus is the Son of God. The suffering Servant Messiah. Jesus has come and he is the bread of life. He is the Lamb of God. By his being broken, his blood shed, all who will receive him, come under his blood, get the abundance of his gift to them of life, life, eternal life.
Come to him and receive his gift of life.
Jesus is not like the evil taskmaster that Herod served in the Serpent Dragon who takes, curses, and terrorizes.
Jesus blesses, gives, and cares for.
DA Carson at the Pastor’s Conference in Minneapolis in 2016:
“Picture two Jews, by the name of Smith and Brown. Remarkably Jewish names.
The day before the first Passover they’re having a little discussion in the land of Goshen, and Smith says to Brown, “Boy, are you a little nervous about what’s going to happen tonight?”
Brown says, “Well, God told us what to do through his servant Moses. You don’t have to be nervous. Haven’t you slaughtered the lamb and dobbed the two door posts with blood—put blood on the lintel? Haven’t you done that? You’re all ready and packed to go? You’re going to eat your whole Passover meal with your family?”
“Of course I’ve done that. I’m not stupid. But, it’s still pretty scary when you think of all the things that have happened around here recently. You know, flies and river turning to blood. It’s pretty awful. And now there’s a threat of the first-born being killed, you know. It’s all right for you. You’ve got three sons. I’ve only got one. And I love my Charlie, and the Angel of Death is passing through tonight. I know what God says; I put the blood there. But it’s pretty scary, I’ll be glad when this night is over.”
And the other one responds, “Bring it on. I trust the promises of God.”
That night, the angel of death swept through the land. Which one lost his son?
And the answer of course is neither.
Because death doesn’t pass over them on the ground of the intensity or the clarity of the faith exercised. But on the ground of the blood of the lamb.”
Application:
1. If you have not received Jesus by faith, do so today.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. If you believe in your heart that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. You will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified. With the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10)
Believe. Say so.
2. If you have believed don’t forget that you didn’t earn the feeding of the Lord. You were given the Bread of Life through faith. Remember that good news today and let the peace of the Lord rest on you.
Appendix:
Note on “King Herod”
The account begins with “king” Herod’s paranoia that John, whom he had imprisoned (1:14) and killed (v. 16), has returned in Jesus to haunt him. The story of John’s death contains the names of several members of the Herodian family, and it will be helpful to identify them. The Herodian family tree was as twisted as the trunk of an olive tree. No fewer than four rulers bear the name “Herod” in the NT. The Herod of our story, Herod Antipas, was the second of the four, who ruled from the death of his father Herod (the Great) in 4 b.c. until a.d. 39. His official title was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (Matt 14:1; Luke 9:7; Josephus, Ant. 18.109), although he popularly enjoyed the title “king” (Justin Martyr, Dial. Trypho 49.4–5; Gospel of Peter 1; Acts of Pilate, Prologue). “Tetrarch” (lit. “ruler of a fourth part” [of Palestine]) was the title given to Herod’s sons who ruled over the four divisions of his kingdom after his death. Herod the Great (Matthew 2) had ten wives, Antipas being son of the fourth wife, Malthace. Herodias was the daughter of Aristobulus, Antipas’s half-brother who was murdered by his father Herod. Herodias was thus a granddaughter of Herod the Great through his second wife, Mariamne I, and hence a niece of Herod Antipas.
Antipas is less infamous than Herod the Great largely because he was less able rather than less ruthless. It was not without reason that the early church mentioned Antipas’s name before Pilate’s when recalling the crucifixion of Jesus (Acts 4:27). Like his father, Antipas was shrewd, pitiless, and a lover of luxury, particularly of magnificent architecture. He built two cities in Galilee, Tiberias and Sepphoris. Jesus’ reference to Antipas as “that fox” (Luke 13:32) bears eloquent testimony to the latter’s cunning and malice. Antipas revealed his avarice when he persuaded Herodias, wife of his half-brother Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great’s third wife Mariamne II (not the tetrarch Philip of Luke 3:1), to divorce her husband and marry him.17 In order to marry Herodias, however, Antipas had to jilt his own wife, the daughter of Aretas, king of Nabatea east of the Dead Sea. In reprisal, Aretas inflicted a crushing defeat on Antipas in a.d. 36. Three years later Antipas and Herodias were banished to Gaul by the emperor Caligula.18, [1]
Ant. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews
Dial. Trypho Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
17 Herodian family relations are explained in Josephus, Ant. 18.136–37.
18 For greater elaboration of these events, see Josephus, Ant. 18.109–19.
[1] James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 183–184.