On Line Bible Study - For the Week September 6-12, 2010

Lesson 456
Luke 9:9 Who, then, is this I hear such things about?
Luke 9:13 You give them something to eat.

You can read Luke 9 in its entirety here. For our purposes I want us to focus on these two lines - the first spoken by Herod as Jesus' reputation spreads up the chain of command to the halls of the palace; the second spoken by Jesus to his disciples when faced with a hungry crowd. Let's take verse 9 first.

Jesus disciples have returned from a successful mission trip. Jesus' reputation seems to be intimately connected to what his disciples had done. They had preached the gospel and healed many people. Clearly they had done this in the name of Jesus. Herod is left wondering.

I am always uncomfortable when people attribute to God what is clearly the result of their own faith and labor. I am just as uncomfortable when people claim for themselves all the credit, forgetting that talent comes from a Source beyond ourselves. Herod is getting information about this new movement, and he wants more.

How is Jesus living out the good news in your life? What is Jesus' reputation based on your faith and service?

But then we hit verse 13. How is it that this group of disciples who have just returned from their fruitful trip in which people were healed and came to faith - how is it they can't see their way to suspect that, in the presence of Jesus, anything is possible? Surrounded by a hungry crowd, they wonder what they should do.

They instruct Jesus to send the crowd away. Isn't that often the case - us instructing Jesus what to do. How many of our prayers are instructions designed to let God in on what needs to be done and how to do it? Something has happened between their fruitful mission trip and this moment of being stymied by human need.

Where is the faith that enabled healing to come through them? Where is the faith that inspired them to proclaim the name of Jesus and watch people turn to him? How is it that now, faced with the hungry crowd, they are ready with the non-solution, which is: "Send them away."

Faith can be fleeting, can't it! And so can faithfulness. We can get it so right one moment, and completely miss the point the next. Jesus is looking for consistency here. When the disciples tell him to send the crowds away to fend for themselves, Jesus says 'nothing doing'. "You feed them."

Is it possible to fulfill this command? Or is this one of those spiritual "pie-in-the-sky" situations where we all agree with the intent, but also agree the implementation is simply impossible! Is this more impossible an expectation than what the disciples had just returned from?

It makes me wonder if they were more dependent upon Jesus when he wasn't present than when he was standing right next to them. It makes me wonder if sometimes greater faith (and faithfulness) might be found among the "unbelievers" than professed followers.

To Herod's question - Who is this? This is the One who makes it possible for us to experience the impossible. This is the Source of our faith. This is Bread for our souls. This is Jesus, the Christ ... but that takes us to the next lesson.