by Henry Knapp
I don’t listen to a lot of K-Love Radio. I’m grateful for this Christian station and it has ministered to my family over the years; but overall, it’s not my vibe. There are Christian artists and their songs that I enjoy but not all of them. This one, for instance nearly sent me over the edge…
When I’m feeling all alone
There’s so far to go
The signs are nowhere on this road
Guiding me home
When the night is closing in
It’s falling on my skin
Oh God, will you come close?
Light, light, light up the sky
You light up up the sky to show me
That you are with me.
– The Afters, 2010
Sign-seekers. Sky-watchers. Miracle-searchers. These lyrics speak to the emotional: “Show me! Prove to me that you are with me.” Light up the sky! Do something dramatic! Then, and only then, will I truly know!
Oh, how we look in the wrong places and to the wrong things to know of God’s love, presence, reality, goodness, and grace! Sure, some things are “cool” and “neat”; often God does do great things to bless us. But building your faith on these things has very little foundation, little Bible, and is not very Christ-exalting.
We learn in our passage this week that Jesus was asked “for more signs”; sort of an ongoing, “if you really are the Christ, SHOW us!” This is just a guess, but Jesus may have thought, “I’m sick and tired of this!” Mark 8:12 says, “And He sighed deeply in His spirit…” It literally means He groaned deeply. Gill’s commentary says, “In his human soul; and which shows that he had one, and was subject to grief and sorrow, and all passions and infirmities, excepting sin. This deep sigh was on account of the hardness of their hearts, the malignity of their minds, and insincerity of their intentions; who had no view to come at truth by this inquiry, but to ensnare him.”
Sighing deeply in His spirit…Jesus was discouraged, the kind of discouragement that we too often feel.
Negative emotions, while uncomfortable and often unwelcome, can serve as instruments alerting us to what is going on in the inside. They force us to slow down and deal with something gone awry within. As such, discouragement isn’t something to be ignored or squelched. Jesus most likely felt discouraged. I have heard it said before; it’s not a matter of whether or not you have discouragement, it’s if discouragement has you.
Look at Mark 8:11-12 closely; the Pharisees wanted to ask questions (to argue and be annoyingly arrogant). They asked him for “more signs,” and they were trying to test him. It had to be discouraging. He, the Divine One, was in their midst, and they still wanted more. Are there ways you act this way?
My sense is that Jesus left His questioners and “went to the other side of the Lake” (8:13), not to run away but to be with His Father and His followers. His Father could refocus and replenish Him. Prayer and being in the family of faith are essential ingredients to an encouraged life and encouraging others. My encouragement for you is to run to Jesus, to experience solitude and prayer with Him, be with His people and to look to His Word and His Spirit to know that indeed, “You are with me!” Life is hard. The only sign and assurance we need is Jesus. He came for you. He saves. He is enough. He’s everything.
Read Mark 8:11-21.
- The Pharisees ask for a sign (verse 11). How do we act the same way today? We might not actually say, “show us a sign,” but are there similar ways we treat God?
- Jesus seems stunned that “this generation” would seek a sign. How else might you read His wording? What is frustrating Him here? How might He show a similar frustration in your life?
- Having read this text this far, ask yourself the question Jesus asked His disciples: “Do you not yet understand?” Assuming Jesus wants us to understand, what are we to understand here?
- What is “the leaven of the Pharisees/Herod?” Clearly it is not bread, ok, then what? Why should the disciples have known this?
- Jesus asks if the disciples’ hearts have been hardened (verse 17). What might He mean by that? How can one tell if that has happened?