Saturday in the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time, February 5, 2022

Mark 6:30-34

The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat. So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place. People saw them leaving and many came to know about it. They hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them. When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

We are not told how long the Evangelists spent on their mission to the cities of the Jews.  We ought probably to think in terms of weeks and months rather than of days.  We are also not told the names of any of the towns and villages they visited.  While they were about the tasks the Lord had set them, the Lord himself seems to have stayed in the area from which he had sent them forth and to have continued preaching there.  This is indicated by the placing of the story of the death of John the Baptist directly after the Apostles departed.  We can gather from the first verse of today’s Gospel reading that they found success in their work: “The Apostles gathered together with Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.”  It is worth noting that the Apostles reported back to their Master.  They had gone out not of their own accord but for his sake, and they did the things he told them to do.  Having done that, they dutifully returned and reported on the results of their work.  They provide a good example for us, that at the end of some work we do for Christ, or even at the end of each day, we ought to “report” to him in prayer.  He knows all that we have done and experienced, but he wants us to tell him about it anyway.  There is intimacy in the telling and the hearing, and we are reminded in the telling that without him we can do nothing.  

Jesus responds to them by telling them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.”  His words must have surprised them, for we find nowhere else in the Gospels that he paused anywhere long enough to rest.  And when he does sleep, it is in the back of a boat that is filling up with storm water.  But now, with an eye to restore his tired envoys, he speaks to them of rest.  As an aside, it would be interesting to know what the Apostles thought on the occasion when the Lord said to the crowd, “Come to me and I will give you rest.”  Certainly, they had gone to him and had worked relentlessly ever since.  

It would seem, though, that speaking to them of rest, he was teaching them a lesson, for he knew that more work lay ahead.  They do go off to a deserted place, but the place is alive with crowds when they arrived there in their boat, for many people “hastened there on foot from all the towns and arrived at the place before them.”  The point Jesus makes in this is that for those who would be his disciples, there is no real rest.  Another man might well have grown bitter at the presence of the crowd when he wanted a well-earned rest, but the Lord saw only the need of the people: “When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd.”  They came to him to learn the truth about God and how they should live in such a way as to please him and attain everlasting life.  The Pharisees were not providing this, and John the Baptist was dead.  Their leaders in Jerusalem despised them, saying, “This multitude, that does not know the Law, are accursed” (John 7, 49).  And so the people, desirous of the word of God, flock to Jesus.  As Peter would later say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6, 69). 

“He began to teach them many things.”  It is not only in the Passion that we see the Lord laying down his life for his sheep, but on every page of the Gospels.  The Prophets of old tended to stay in one place, mostly in and around Jerusalem.  The Lord races around almost frantically, preaching and healing, his mind always directed to the salvation of the world.  We ought to think of his desperation to save us, and respond to him in kind.