Psalm 66, 67; Jer. 14:1-9,17-22; Gal. 4:21-5:1; Mark 8:11-21
It is difficult to understand the problems of drought in a place and time where such things rarely affect us and we don’t have rainy and dry seasons. We have the ability to store up water in reservoirs, our technology allows us to mostly overcome droughts. In places where seasons are marked not by temperature change so much as rain, the desperation of the people is more understandable. Having been in Africa during a drought I have seen the effects on everyday life of a lack of water and known the joy of rainy season bringing new life to the ground and the people. A little water can go a long way towards changing everything on the landscape. Baal worship was a fertility cult and much of the ritual of the worship was centered around getting Baal to cause rain. Here, the people are desperate enough to begin to realize that no other gods can bring that rain, only Yahweh, but are they saying this because they want rain or because they have truly turned to Him?
Having seen Jesus on two occasions provide miraculously how could they now question whether they had enough food? How do we do the same in our lives? In some ways the Pharisees and the disciples here exhibit the same condition, doubt. The Pharisees ask Jesus for a sign after just having been given a sign. The prior chapter of Mark closes with two signs, the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter and the restoration of hearing to a deaf man and this chapter begins with a feeding miracle. What sign would have been sufficient for them to believe? They wanted control and Jesus wouldn’t allow them to set the agenda. The disciples have seen signs as well so their doubt is unimaginable to us except that we have the same reaction when times are tough, we lose faith. They are worrying about the next meal and measuring their resources to see if they are sufficient when Jesus says not to worry about this and has proven to be able to provide. The life of faith is different from the life of the world.
What Paul writes here would have been deeply offensive to Jewish sensibilities and shows how far Paul has come in his own life. He compares the present day Jerusalem, which stands for the Judaism in which Paul was raised and which he taught for many years, to the child of the slave woman Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, those who were rejected. Can you imagine today comparing the Jewish people to the Muslims? The Muslim religion didn’t exist at the time of Paul but this issue of identity was important to all in the region. Paul says we have been set free in Christ and should be more like the children of the free woman, living in grace rather than the law. Paul has made a decisive break with Judaism in spirit and here encourages the Galatians to understand the choice that has been put to them to walk free of the law and the demands it makes in order to walk by faith in Jesus who has given the ultimate sign of the resurrection.
I love you, Lord, and I lift my voice
To worship you, Oh my soul rejoice!
Take joy, my King, in what you hear
May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear
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