Mark 6:32-34 “So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”

Sometimes it seems like a vacation isn’t complete until something spoils it. Twenty-five years ago our family took a 17 day trek across the southwestern United States. We went through three rented trailers, scorching heat, lost children, fevers and parasites along the way. We saw a lot of things. We did a lot of things. We did not get a lot of rest.

Jesus did not announce his getaway with the disciples as a “working vacation.” But when he saw the large crowds, he wasted little time letting it turn into one. His reasons for doing so were clear: “…he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” It wasn’t so much their physical injuries and diseases. It was their spiritually lost condition that motivated his sense of urgency.

I have never shepherded literal sheep. But I have worked on a farm with livestock. When cows or pigs broke through a fence and got out, we dropped everything else we were doing. Getting them back in suddenly became the only project anyone was working on. Every hand was needed to get them corralled and safely back inside their pens.

Several times each week neighbors on our subdivision’s social media page report dogs or cats that have gotten loose and are wandering the neighborhood. This becomes that family’s focus of attention until Fido or Fluffy are safely home. There is an urgency when our four-legged friends are in sudden need of attention from their caretakers.

So Jesus was moved by the plight of these people who were wandering spiritually. They had no leaders to confront their sin-sickness. They weren’t being fed a regular diet of God’s forgiving love. They got nothing but do-it-yourself religion, endless lists of advice about how to live your life. That drove them further and further away from the safety of God’s arms and into the wilderness of confusion and despair. Jesus wasted no time turning his vacation with the disciples into a working vacation, because souls were at stake, and the work of caring for them is important no matter how much rest you need.

His compassion for us is no less. His desire for us to know our sins and their all-sufficient solution at the cross is no less urgent to him. His method for addressing our need remains the same as it was for the crowds that met him as he got out of the boat: “So he began teaching them many things.” In his word he teaches us the grace and love that calls our souls home and keeps them safe in his care.

Doesn’t he also teach us something about loving and caring for souls ourselves? Doing God’s work doesn’t wait until it is convenient. Often it will be inconvenient. It will intrude on our time. It will upset our priorities. It will spoil our plans. But the people for whom Christ bled and died are worth it. These are matters of heaven or hell for the people we serve. The work is important, no matter how much we may also need some rest.

We may feel a tension between our need for spiritual rest and our need to do God’s work. Perhaps we wonder how to resolve the temptation. Don’t do it. Both things are true. Both are God’s word. Both of them need to stand. Don’t find the balance. Just live the life. Trust Jesus to give you all the work you can handle and all the rest that you need.

Mark 6:31 “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

We might think, “People, give these men a break! Let them get a bite and catch their breath.” But if it was your child dying of some dread disease, if it was your friend being driven mad by the devils inside of him, you might not be so patient. You might not be inclined to say, “Oh, it’s supper time? Go ahead and get something to eat, then. We will just sit here and wait while my child writhes in agony and his pulse slowly fades to zero. We will just try to keep our possessed friend from hurting someone until you are done with dessert.” The task was huge, and urgent, and never ending.

So Jesus proposed getting away to get some rest. Some rest? You have got to be kidding, Jesus! Why, we need to work double shifts and bring in another twelve disciples to work through the backlog. But that was not the Savior’s response. He knew the work would never be done. He wanted his disciples fresh and strong for the task. He invited them to come away and get some rest.

There is a subtle lesson he was teaching them about the way things work in his kingdom. We tend to think that Jesus saved us. After that it is up to us to carry out our mission, to build the church, and make it work. Jesus did that and we do this. If our mission doesn’t seem to be working so well, then we need to work harder, and smarter, and figure out the problem, and get it right. It all depends on us.

To be sure, Jesus favors hard work and dedication. But we are not the co-saviors. We are the weak, the bedraggled, fellow patients in his hospital, fellow strugglers with our world. We are the people he had to save. We need to repent of believing, like that vintage WWII poster of the female factory worker suggests, “We can do it.” At least the idea that we can do it by ourselves. That thought may stroke our egos, but it serves neither God’s kingdom, nor our souls. We need a power outside of us, a strength from someone else, for the work.

So Jesus proposes rest, because rest is important no matter how much work you have. This wasn’t a sight-seeing tour in some foreign country. It wasn’t time to fulfill bucket list experiences like zip-lining through the forest, white-water rafting, or climbing some peak. “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place.” This was time with the Savior. This was time to renew their relationship with Jesus. Real rest is more than the absence of activity. It comes when souls can put down the heavy burden of guilt and sin. Confidence that we are forgiven gives us peace.

Jeff and Lori told me with tears in their eyes about the peace they had found when they first grasped that Jesus had really done it all. By his death and resurrection, he had accomplished everything to save them. This was because for twenty weeks they had been with Jesus–not directly like the twelve disciples, but in word and spirit at a Bible basics class. After class they would go home at night and discuss what they had heard. Was it really true? Was it really possible that Jesus did everything, that forgiveness and eternal life were all by grace, that there was nothing more for them to do? They didn’t have to travel to a spa or some secluded cabin. They found it in a cluttered classroom in the middle of the city. There they could come away with Jesus and get their souls some rest.

Don’t forget your own need for rest. Jesus still invites us to come away with him in his word.

Ezekiel 2:6-7 “And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.”

            Few things scare people as much as public speaking. That gets even harder when you know people don’t like what you have to say. “Don’t shoot the messenger,” people say. Don’t blame the person speaking when he is simply delivering a message from someone else. But there is a reason for the saying. There is a tendency for people to want to shoot the messenger. When the message makes them mad, they don’t care where it comes from. They just want to attack the person who had the gall to bring it.

            God knew that Ezekiel would face people who didn’t like what he had to say. Well over a thousand years of previous history pretty much guaranteed it. Their reaction was going to cut, and poke, and sting. Many of them would simply reject the truth. They would plug their ears and refuse to listen. Ezekiel’s work was often lonely. At times it even became dangerous.

            It is not as though people love God’s laws more today. They don’t even like his grace very much. Being forgiven means having to admit you did something bad. A faith built around forgiveness means having to admit that people are in general bad. They don’t want to hear it.

            But the prophet’s task is still to deliver God’s message of sin and grace without fear. The people who hear the word may be frowning. But the God who sends his word stands behind us smiling when we speak his words to them faithfully. His word will always be the final word. His side will always be the right side. We don’t have to be afraid when the words we speak are his.

            If the time comes that your pastor has to have a little heart to heart with you, understand the prophet’s task. He hasn’t been sent to make you happy. He has been sent to save your soul. God doesn’t send him to be popular or well-liked. He sends him to be honest and love you enough to tell you what you need to hear. In every case, remember that his task is to seek the people the Lord has redeemed for himself.

Ezekiel 2:3-5 “I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day. The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’ And whether they listen or fail to listen–for they are a rebellious house– they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

Did you get what God was trying to say about the nation of Israel, the people to whom he was sending the prophet Ezekiel? A rebellious nation, in revolt, obstinate, stubborn, a rebellious house–the terms are even stronger and more colorful in the Hebrew. From the day Israel left Egypt 850 years before Ezekiel, from the time of the forefathers of this nation five hundred years before that, they were a people that defied God at every turn. The story of their lives reads like a soap opera, or a tragedy. Greed, lust, betrayal, murder, and ultimately, abandonment of their faith had brought even God to his wits end. These were key to his decision to send the prophet Ezekiel on this task to call them to repentance.

Thank God we aren’t like that, right? Maybe 20 years ago Danny was sitting in the 7^th and 8^th grade Sunday school class studying the history of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. After all God had done to help them, after all the power he had shown, Danny was simply incredulous that these people could be so thick, and complain so much, and rebel so often. They accused God of trying to starve them to death, worshiped the golden calf, refused to go into the promised land, rebelled against Moses’ leadership, and on and on. What was wrong with those people? “Now Danny,” his teacher would remind him. “Maybe they aren’t so different than us.” I don’t know what examples he gave, or what might have happened in Danny’s life to confirm the observation. But after about six weeks of these stories, Danny was the one who offered, “Maybe they aren’t so different than us.”

Maybe. If we were so good, and had our lives all together, and our faith was so secure, why would God have to send us a prophet to preach his word? Understand that the prophet’s task is to deliver God’s message to rebels. We need to own that about ourselves. We need to be corrected. We should expect Christianity to confront us. We need it to make us feel uncomfortable. We don’t need to go looking for a message that never challenges us and fits our current thinking in every way. Otherwise, how can any change for the better ever happen?

Isn’t it a matter of grace that God sends his prophets to rebels such as you and me? He doesn’t reject us and annihilate us for turning against him. He seeks us to turn us and make us his children. He offers forgiveness for the sins we commit. He sacrificed his own Son on a cross to redeem us and free us and make us his own. Don’t misunderstand. He is not content to leave us rebels. He will not be finished with us until he has transformed us entirely into obedient sons and daughters. But the prophet’s task is to deliver his message to rebels until we are changed into allies by his love.