Mark 6:53-55 “When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. 54 As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. 55 They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.”
“As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus!” What happens when you get out of the boat? What is the impression that your presence leaves upon people!? Is there an attractive quality about you that causes Jesus to stand out? This passage though simple in nature is thought provoking in the abstract sense of its potential.
All of the disciples were there. They were traveling as a team. But it was not any one of them that drew the attention of the people. It was Jesus. The ones who served Him were not the focus and the draw of the crowds that gathered to this place by the Sea of Galilee. Many ministers draw a crowd by the power of the personality. Others make an impact through the strength of their intellect. However, neither of these carries the potential and hope that is present when it is the person of Jesus that is at the center of attention.
When the human heart is attracted to the person of Jesus there is a supernatural reaction that takes place! In Mark 6 as people recognized that it was really Jesus there amongst them they gathered the sick and the needy from far and wide to be placed before Jesus wherever they heard that He was.
The central message in this simple little passage is the reality that the presence of Jesus brings hope in a way that no other thing can. When the woman pressed through the crowds to touch Jesus, knowing that if she could touch Him she would be healed it was after she had already spent all that she had in years of being treated by doctors. She had suffered intensely and lost all that she possessed yet when Jesus came, with Him came hope! In the same way when Jesus comes to us today it is in the context of hope. When we have His presence people come. When His presence is exalted, not the gifts of a man or a ministry, lives are changed.
Our goal as servants of the Lord is not to do great things for God! Our mission is to be the habitation of God’s presence, the presence of Christ, so that He can draw people to Himself through us. Our task is to make sure that we are in the same boat that Jesus is in and that when the crowds begin to gather that it is Jesus that people see, not us.
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