So, on this Wednesday, we come once again to a very well-known passage of scripture here in the Gospel of Mark. We see what is happening. Jesus is teaching and little children are being brought to him. Now, notice here, they're bringing the children. These are not kids walking up to Jesus. The idea here is that these are small children who are not able to come on their own. And so, the disciples rebuked the people that are bringing these children.

As we step into Chapter 10 of Mark, we come to Jesus teaching about divorce. Now, this is an interesting passage because we have these questions too, right? Well, the Pharisees come to Jesus and ask a very vague question, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Now, there's no situations attached to this here. It seems as though the Pharisees are trying to do what the Pharisees often do. They're trying to trap Jesus.

This is one of those passages where Jesus puts it all out there. He is really intense here. And it's important that we understand and remember the context that comes before this. We've looked at it in the last few passages. The disciples aren't getting it. They don't understand what Jesus says that when he is going to suffer and rise again, they're asking questions like, which one of us will be the greatest when we enter his kingdom? Truly, they do not understand. They're more concerned with their own prospering here than really what the ministry of Jesus is and what it will be. The disciples just don't get it.

As we arrive in this passage today, I think it is important that we understand that the first part, which seems to be detached, is what informs the second part. There's a reason these two stories are by each other. Jesus is once again foretelling his death and his resurrection. In fact, He says in verse 31, The Son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he was killed, after three days, he will rise. Now, to you and I, that is very clear, very cut and dry here.

Well, this passage is a little bit longer than some of the other passages that we have been looking at, and it is very unique. But we see some themes repeating themselves. That's what we're going to really see as we look into this passage a little bit today. Well, the story is pretty straightforward. This man brings his son, who is having issues with a demon, to the disciples, and they are unable to cast this demon out.

I believe that one of the more difficult things to understand in the life of Jesus is what we have read today, the Mount of transfiguration. What is this all about? What's going on? Well, I think the way that we have been going through Mark really helps us to understand what's happening here. What have we been seeing throughout the entire Book of Mark so far? This Messianic Secret, this idea that Jesus is veiling the truth, even from his disciples, not just from the people that are out seeing him, but even his disciples don't fully understand who he is.

In order to understand this passage, we have to think about the context of what we read just two days ago, when we were looking at Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ. Peter has just been the man who has just said who Jesus is. He is right. He is on point. He knows this to be true. And it seems as though Peter here is no longer the guy who messes things up, right? Instead, he's the guy who gets it. But now we have Peter not truly getting it. We're seeing the full story here because Jesus is going on about all the things that are going to happen that he isn't going to be liked by the Pharisees and the elders and all these chief priests, etc. And in fact, they're going to kill him. And then he also tells them that he is going to rise again after three days.

As I said, this is a very familiar passage. I'm sure many of you, when I started reading it, you said, Oh, it's this one. This one occurs in other Gospels too. This is an important moment. What is happening here. They're once again traveling. They're moving away from people, more than likely. Jesus decides to ask people something. The crowds are talking about Jesus. Everyone has, I'm sure, a very strong opinion about Jesus and who he is and whether or not they believe what he's doing and whether or not he is actually the one that they've been hoping for, the Messiah.

As we've been journeying through Mark, how many times have I said, Well, this passage that we're looking at today connects to the passage before it. I know I've said it many times, and I don't expect you to go back and count, but it is something I have said frequently, and I am saying it again today. We can't understand this passage without understanding the one before it. Remember, the disciples couldn't see, they couldn't understand. Jesus said that they were blind to what he was saying, and they were deaf, and they could not understand and truly hear His words. And so after this, they come upon this blind man at best Sada. Well, people bring him to Jesus, just as we see all throughout the Gospel of Mark, people are bringing people to Jesus to be healed.

Alright, so the story here as we land in Mark, chapter eight, verses 14 through 21, is a continuation of the story we looked at on Monday. Now, it's also a continuation of the feeding of the 5000. And you see that here. But the idea here is, is that Jesus is using this idea of the bread to teach his disciples something. And so, they get into the boat.

We see them getting into the boats quite often here in Mark, don't we? They get into the boat and he says to them, watch out. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Now. What is Jesus saying?

So, as we land in Mark 8, we're seeing a very similar story. We've seen the feeding of the 5000, but now we have the feeding of the 4000. A thousand less people, probably an easier feed, but that's not the point. The point is that Jesus is able to have power over this. He's able to create this food. He's able to multiply it. It is a gift that comes from Him to His people. He cares about them. He wants them to eat. He wants them to be fed. But what do we see the disciples doing here? They're following Jesus. They seem to understand who He is, to have a good idea that he's the Messiah. But really, they don't really know what's going on. They're confused. They don't really, truly believe yet. But the good news is that they continue to follow him. They continue to trust. It seems as though perhaps they're learning something here, even though they have all throughout the Gospel of Mark, as we will see. We know that after the resurrection, after Jesus has ascended, suddenly the apostles are the ones who are spreading the faith. They understand the message of Jesus.

What another great story of the healing of Jesus that we have here for us today. When we think about this story, we need to think about why did this make it into Holy Scripture? Yes, it's an amazing miracle. And I think I've mentioned this before, but yes, these miracles are amazing. But what are they telling us about what Jesus is doing and what Jesus will do for us? Because Jesus did tons of miracles. We read that there were more miracles than they could ever tell us. Many people were healed. So, why this one? What was it about this type of a healing that was so important? Well, let's look at what it is. There was a man who was brought to Jesus who was deaf. He also had a speech impediment.

Well, this is quite a story that we arrive at here in Mark Chapter 7, starting with verse 24, because we see a conversation between Jesus and a Gentile woman. Now, we saw some of this idea of Jesus doing the outreach or being willing to go to the Gentiles earlier on in Mark. But here what we have is a pretty clear dialogue between Jesus and a Gentile woman. So, we see that this woman, this Gentile woman, her daughter had a demon. And so she comes to Jesus asking for help. Again, part of the idea that we're seeing here is that the fame of Jesus is spreading. His ability to do miracles and to cast out demons is that knowledge is going out even to Gentile people.

Well, this is a rather well-known teaching of Jesus. You have likely heard it before, and it's such an important part of what we know about the Christian faith. What is Jesus referring to here? He's looking back on the religious system that they would have known at the time. The idea was that they were to be ritually clean, and they were to do these different things, the things they ate, the things they did or did not touch could make them clean or unclean.

Alright, as we start off in chapter seven today, it's very important we don't forget where we've been, what the context we had on Wednesday is. Remember, we had people there who were coming to Jesus, and they were being healed simply by touching Jesus' garment. Now, we're going to see a contrast here. We're going to see a contrast with those people who had simple faith and the Pharisees who were after Jesus. And we see this interesting story here, and it's a harsh statement, because when we read it and we hear the words of Jesus talking about honoring God with our lips, but not with our hearts, we can be convicted because we've all been guilty of that. Well, what was going on here is that the disciples weren't washing their hands as the tradition said they should. What had happened was there was a written word of God, but then there was also a belief by the Pharisees that there was an oral tradition that was passed down on how to interpret these things. And then there were new rules that were added to these. And one of these was all this washing that Mark tells us that the disciples were not doing in the Pharisees thought they should be doing.