Day 16: The Miracle of the ordinary

Today's reading is in Mark 6

The flow of this chapter keeps your mind turning over and over. The thing that strikes me is how almost all events are ordinary...and how Jesus' presence takes that ordinariness and turns it upside down.

The ministry in his own area where he grew up highlights the lack of faith among those who saw Jesus as nothing more than what he had been up until age 30 when he began his ministry - a carpenter. They could not see beyond the ordinary of what they've always seen...and so they missed who he really was even when miracles were being performed.

"Then Jesus told them, 'A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.'”

What they had was God among them and they couldn't see it. When Jesus then sends out the disciples a short time later, he keeps them simple in their going - this sense of your work is done in the ordinary.

John the Baptist's martyrdom stands as a contrast between the power, and cowardice, of Herod - with all of his grandiosity, he is unable to do the right thing and succumbs to the will of evil instead of choosing what is right. He lived outside of the ordinary and missed the miracle of life.

The chapter ends with the countryside alive with Jesus' presence even though their is constant demands, difficult conditions, and overwhelming needs...in the midst of these things, something simple occurs, and because Jesus is in the midst of the ordinary, miracles abound.

Let's never lose sight of the ordinary around us, nor be tempted to think that somehow God is not breathing life into the midst of us through it.

Peace

If you're reading along in the Bible through a year with me, read 1st Samuel 1, 2, 3. It's the story of the beginning of Samuel's life and ministry. If ever a passage spoke of God in the ordinary occurrences of life, this does.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad