Mark 6:7-13
“Notice what you notice.” Today is Mark’s account of Jesus sending out the twelve apostles – much shorter than Mathew’s!! Matthew has a long teaching session by Jesus as He sends out the twelve; Mark and Luke have only a few verses each. But Mark (and Luke) has closure that Matthew does not include: So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. (Mark 6:12-13) Why Matthew does not include these results is a mystery. In Mark the twelve are following Jesus “to a T” – preaching repentance, casting out demons, and healing the sick.
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be sent out by Jesus as one of the twelve. Watching Him in His ministry is one thing, but doing the same things themselves is another matter completely! So if I had been one of the twelve, I presume that I could have done the preaching (albeit, much less powerfully than Jesus), but trusting in my faith to cast out demons and heal the sick – that would have been a stretch for me! Yet Mark reports that these twelve did just that. And still I wonder – six pairs of people… Were all six pairs successful in their ministries? And if so, presumably their faith would have been so strengthened that they could never have backslid, as would be reported later in the Gospels. But they did.
A weird tidbit from this numbers guy… Jesus sends the twelve out two-by-two. Today is #128 in our readings; 128 is equal to 2 to the 7th power. Bottom line: There’s power in Christian “pairs”.
Slava Bohu!