Mark 8:1-10
Some scholars argue this passage is just a mistake — a duplicate of the feeding of the five thousand that got copied in by accident. It isn't. Different region, different crowd, different baskets, different leftovers. But there is one similarity that is genuinely hard to explain: the disciples ask the exact same faithless question they asked before.
And that tension is worth sitting with.
In this sermon from Mark 8:1–10, we look at the second time Jesus feeds a massive crowd in the wilderness — and the fact that this time, the crowd is Gentile. People who had none of the promises, none of the centuries of prophecy, none of Israel's salvation history. People who, by every measure, had no reason to camp out in the wilderness for three days just to hear a Jewish teacher preach. And yet there they are, spiritually starving and unwilling to leave.
Jesus looks at them and feels something the Greek describes as splagchnizomai — a word so visceral it literally means to be moved in your bowels. It is a word used only of Christ. And critically, it is the exact same word Mark used when Jesus looked at the Jewish crowd before feeding the five thousand.
The compassion is identical. The miracle is identical. The provision is more than enough — again.
We'll look at what the disciples' repeated failure of faith reveals about how they still understood Jesus, why seven loaves is both enough and not enough, and what it means that Jesus gave thanks before breaking bread in language that echoes all the way to the Last Supper. We'll also sit with what it means that after all of this, Jesus got back in the boat and returned to his own people — the ones who would ultimately hand him over to die.
He crossed into Gentile territory, fed four thousand strangers, and then went home to be killed by those who knew him best.
Main Idea: The compassion of Jesus has no borders and no limits.
East Brainerd Baptist Church
1047 Graysville Road, Chattanooga, TN
Join us Sundays at 11:00 AM — we would love to worship with you.
We are a church working through the Gospel of Mark together, learning week by week that the grace of Jesus reaches further than we expect and costs more than we imagine.