They still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in. Mark 6:52 NLT
I’ve been listening to sermons – very good ones – my whole life. I’ve studied at Bible college and seminary. I’ve read superb commentaries and had many discussions about hard hearts. The consensus in all of these seemed to be that hardhearted people were bad people. I thought they were all Pharaohs and Pharisees, just dressed in modern clothes. You know – rejecting clear truth, rebellious, someone I would never be.
Concentration on the life and message of Jesus in the gospels for quite a few years showed me that some hardhearted people were Jesus’ best friends, His closest companions. They were people He loved, and they loved Him. Mark tells in chapter 6, two examples with His own disciples. Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 men and their families with five small loaves of bread and two fish. He even had the disciples help Him and pass out the food. They gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers. But there didn’t seem to be any overwhelming growth reaction by the disciples. After this great miracle, Jesus sent His disciples on across the lake, and He went away to pray. Later they were in the boat and a storm blew in. They were really struggling. Jesus came walking on the water and they were terrified. They thought He was a ghost. He told them not to be afraid and then stepped onto the boat. When He did, the wind and waves immediately stopped. They were totally amazed. That’s when Mark says they were amazed because “they still didn’t understand the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in.”
Soon after, in Mark 8, Jesus fed a crowd of 4,000 people in the same manner as the 5,000 previously. There were seven baskets left over. Yet just hours later they were again in the boat with Jesus, and no one had remembered to bring bread. They were arguing about whose fault it was. Jesus said in disbelief, “Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? ‘You have eyes – can’t you see? You have ears – can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all?’” (Mark 8:17-18 NLT).
The disciples were not bad, rebellious people. Jesus had called and chosen them. But they were just people so much more in tune with the natural that they didn’t get the supernatural working of God. They were more comfortable with figuring out human explanations and their own ways of controlling life than trusting Jesus. The inability to see His hand in all things is also a sign of a hard heart. A good person can have a hard heart. When he or she can’t see or hear spiritual truth, when they just can’t seem to remember and learn from what Jesus has done and apply it to their lives, that’s a hard heart according to Jesus. What do you think? Does that ever describe you?
- Do I depend more on working things out myself than trusting Jesus? Do I frequently have a difficult time seeing or hearing spiritual truth? Do I easily forget what God has done? Perhaps Jesus is diagnosing a hard heart.