See with the eyes of Jesus

 

Mark’s Gospel has a real tender side which can be appreciated if it’s read slowly.  Just to sit with some of the images Mark uses can be pretty profound (Mark 6:30-34).  Mark says that Jesus “saw the crowd”.  Mark is telling us what Jesus sees.  That alone is quite special.  When Jesus looks at the crowd, he “sees” them with his heart.  He’s not looking at them with His eyes.  He’s not seeing a bunch of people physically wandering around lost.  But he is describing a bigger situation.

Jesus’ image of these people was that they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.  Because of this, Jesus’ heart went out to the people of the crowd.  Sheep without a shepherd means He saw people who were psychically, emotionally and spiritually lost.  Lost sheep tend to scatter all over the place.  Lost sheep can be quick to follow anyone or anything.  Lost sheep, I suspect, feel quite insecure.  And Jesus’ heart went out to them. 

We don’t know whether Jesus entertained the question of what had caused them to be lost.  Perhaps no one had accepted the responsibility to take care of them.  Wouldn’t that be a judgment back onto the religious leaders of the time?  Were those religious leaders taking care of their sheep?  Were they neglecting their sheep?  If they were taking care of them, then they wouldn’t have been so lost.  Jesus saw the need, named and proclaimed it, and then He stepped in and did something about the situation.

I have a feeling that all of us have been in situations of need.  And when something needs to be done, we have several choices.  Sometimes we can ignore it and hope that it goes away.  Other times, we roll up our sleeves, step in and do something about the situation.  And hopefully, we do this because it’s the right thing to do, or it’s a loving act of service.  If we do it for personal gain or monetary value, we certainly have missed the point.  When we look at the history of the Church, many of the men and women who have seen needs of the human family have stepped in and risen to the occasion.  They literally have rolled up their sleeves and sacrificed.  Out of their love of Christ, they choose to lovingly enter into a situation. Many of those saints have stepped into difficult situations in caring ways to bring promise, justice, or hope to lost sheep.  The two biggest examples of this in Church history of course are the vast number of schools and hospitals which were founded for the needs of desperate people.

The letter to Hebrews speaks about leadership.  St. Paul says it’s the responsibility of the leaders to keep watch over the flock (Hebrews 13:15-21).  And this should be done with great joy, not burdening others.  Lent is still a few weeks away, but perhaps it could be a good Lenten practice to allow ourselves to "see" a little bit better with the eyes of Jesus.

Saint Paul also gives us a good place to start.  “Through Jesus, let us continually offer God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have; God is pleased by sacrifices of that kind.”

Everything we are and every gift we have is from God.  We should live our lives knowing that and offering our lives back to God in praise.  Today, we should enter into prayer not as merely saying words, but to enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, to listen to Him and how He speaks to our hearts through His Holy Spirit. Then take that prayer, that relationship into our daily life.

Why do we pray?  At first our response may be “because it’s the right thing to do” or “because I was taught to pray growing up and have continued that habit.”  Looking deeper though, really—why do we pray?  Something draws us in to prayer, something that may not make sense to us, something beyond us, something bigger than each one of us.  No, not some THING, but Some ONE.  That Someone is God the Father through His Son and Spirit.  In Mark’s Gospel the people in the crowd similarly felt drawn to Jesus.  They may not have understood why, but they followed Jesus, they were drawn to Him.  The Gospel says, “They were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus is our Shepherd; He is the more that we are drawn to.  St. Augustine says, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.”  Through Jesus Christ’s presence among each one of us, especially in the Eucharist, we’re drawn to God where we find truth and happiness, just like the apostles and crowds in the Gospels were drawn to follow Jesus.