O Lord, it takes more than bread to keep us alive. We need the words that come from your mouth. So feed us from your word in order that by the activity of your Holy Spirit we might experience spiritual life and grow in our knowledge of Jesus. Open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in your law. Amen. Mark 6 verse 30, the apostles gathered round Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. 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. 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. By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. This is a remote place, they said, and it's already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered, you give them something to eat. They said to him, that would take eight months of a man's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? How many loaves do you have? he asked. Go and see. When they found out they said five and two fish. Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties, taking the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven. He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve baskets full of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of men who had eaten was five thousand. Amen. Now I have a question for you. It's a sort of question you might get asked on a trivia quiz but when I do ask it, it will confirm to you your suspicions about me that I really do need to get out a little bit more. But here's the question anyway. Do you know what is written on coins? Do you know the letters that are written on coins? There's puzzled looks from people and you're saying to yourself, Roger, catch yourself on, man. Coins disappear from my purse and wallet so fast, especially at this time of the year, that I've hardly time to see them, never mind to look at what's written on them. And that's probably true. Go home and look at a pound coin. Look at the side that the Queen's head is on and between the date of issue and the Queen's name you'll see these letters. Here they are. I don't think I have them on the board here. D G R E G F D D.G., R.E.G., F.D. Now those letters are abbreviations for Latin phrases and they tell us about the titles that Elizabeth II has. The letters D.G.R.E.G. tell us that by God's grace she is Queen. D.O.G.R.A.C.I.A. R.E.G.I.N.A. That's what it is. By God's grace she is Queen. And that's her main title, we know her as Queen Elizabeth II. But she also has a subsidiary title and it's Defender of the Faith. That's what the FD stands for. Here's how British Monarchs got it. Henry VIII published a book called The Defence of the Seven Sacraments in which he opposed the ideas of Martin Luther. In recognition of his defence of Roman Catholicism, Pope Leo X conferred on him the title Defender of the Faith in October 1521. and ever since then English and British monarchs have taken this subsidiary title of Defender of the Faith. However, since Henry split with the Roman Catholic Church to form the Church of England, they have been with the exception of Mary Tudor, Defenders of the Anglican Faith. and not Roman Catholicism. Although I hear that Prince Charles, when he becomes King, wants to be Defender of Faiths. Sorry, this is a historic rule. Charles, you do what it says on the tin. It's Defender of the Faith, Fides Defensor. It's abbreviated to F.D. and it's appeared on British coins ever since 1715. That's in the reign of George I. All these letters, D, G, R, E, G, F, D, remind us of Elizabeth II's main title, Queen, and her subsidiary title, Defender of the Faith. Now where is this all going you ask? Stay with me, I think I know what I'm doing. Like our Queen, Israel's monarchs also had a subsidiary title to their main title of King and that was the title of Shepherd. And the title shepherd goes back to David, Israel's best human king. It goes back to Psalm 78 verses 70 and 71 where God says that he chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens, from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people, Jacob of Israel his inheritance. And then later on, after these verses, the next verse, in verse 72 of Psalm 78, God praises David for the way he carried out his task as shepherd king. He says, and David shepherded them with integrity of heart, with skillful hands he led them. Now, unfortunately, this could not have been said of the majority of David's successors. while a few of them were good, most of them were bad, and some of them were downright ugly. Things had moved so far away from the standards set by David, Israel's best shepherd king, that in Ezekiel 34, the passage we read earlier on in the service, God turns on Israel's king and bluntly slams them. He says, woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves. I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock. But then in the middle, if you read the rest of the chapter, Ezekiel 34, in the middle of this uncompromising condemnation, God makes this staggering promise. Ezekiel 34, verses 15 and 16, he says, I myself will tend my sheep. I will shepherd the flock. God is saying that He is going to come and shepherd His people. What's this got to do with Mark 6, 30 to 44 we're going to look at this morning? Well, in that passage, Mark tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise, that in Jesus, God himself has come to be his people's shepherd king. Now, the idea of Jesus as a shepherd king dominates this passage. If you want to have a wee look at it, let me point out, places it comes. In terms of what he actually says in this passage, Mark 6 verse 34, he states that the huge crowd that followed Jesus were like sheep without a shepherd. And then he goes on to tell us how Jesus shepherded them. And in Ezekiel 34 that comes out again and again. God's people are like sheep without a shepherd, they're scattered, they're vulnerable. And Jesus sees this crowd and he sees them as sheep without a shepherd, scattered, vulnerable. You see it in terms of where he places the passage in the story of Jesus' life. It comes immediately after the story of how Herod killed John the Baptist. And if you can think back when we looked at Herod, Herod is not only an example of a negative response to Jesus, he's also an example of a bad shepherd king. Mark alone calls Herod King Herod. Matthew and Luke give him his official title of Tetrarch, but Mark calls him King Herod. And with the role of king comes the role of being a shepherd. But when it came to being a shepherd king, Herod failed miserably. He's like those shepherds that God slams in Ezekiel 34, uncaring, selfish, ruthless, hard-hearted. And in contrast to Herod, Jesus is the good shepherd, caring, kind, generous, and giving. And the third way in which Mark highlights Jesus as God's promised shepherd king is in terms of the Old Testament roots of this passage. Look at verse 39. And we're told that Jesus got the people to sit down on the green grass. Now because we live in Scotland we are saying to ourselves, big deal, grass is green isn't it? Yeah it might be in Scotland most of the time but in Israel it isn't. It's only green at certain times of the year when the rain comes. Most times it's brown. But when Jesus performed this miracle of feeding the 5,000 the grass was green. Most commentators think that with this reference to green grass Mark is giving us a time reference for the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. And that's probably true. But Mark I think is saying a great deal more than that. Where have you heard that phrase green grass before? Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd he makes me lie down in green pastures. And there is a direct line between Psalm 23 verse 5 and Mark 6 30 to 44. And it's reinforced by the fact that in Psalm 23, we think it's the whole picture of Jesus as the shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd, but David mixes his metaphors in Psalm 23 because he talks about God being a host who prepares a superb banquet for his people. You prepare a table before me, my cup overflows. So, The shepherd, the Lord in Psalm 23 is the shepherd and he's also the host. And what's Jesus doing here in Mark 6? He's shepherding the people and he's providing them with food. He's the host. There's no doubt in our minds that Mark is presenting Jesus in this passage as God's promised shepherd king. But what sort of a shepherd king will he be like? That's a very, very long introduction. Thank you for sticking with me, but you've got to know this. What will he be like? Will he be like Herod and his sort, or will he be different? Well, Mark doesn't leave us to guess because he tells us that Jesus is a different type of shepherd king. He's the ideal shepherd king and here's what he's like. First of all, he's a teaching shepherd. You see the sequence there in verse 34. As a consequence of seeing the crowd like sheep without a shepherd, Jesus did something. What did he do? He taught them. He taught them. Mark simply tells us he taught the crowd many things but he doesn't spell out exactly what these many things are. Luke however informs us in Luke 9 verse 11 that Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God. And this is the greatest need that this crowd had. It wasn't to have their tummies filled. Their greatest need was to hear Jesus teaching them the gospel. And the Bible says that people, we're like sheep. We don't know the right way to go. We need instruction, we need guidance, we need direction because we can so easily head off in the wrong direction. But Jesus comes to us and he teaches us. He teaches us in his word, he teaches us as we read the Bible, but particularly he teaches us as we listen to the Bible being explained and preached. And he shows us how we are to live, how we can enter into a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus. And he maps out for us the right path for our lives so that our lifestyles please God. We need this guidance and instruction and direction. We need a shepherd to come along and teach us God's word. And that's what Jesus does through his word and the ministry of the spirit. He's a teaching shepherd. I don't know if they still do it in school, but some of my friends used to be Primary 1 teachers and to get the children talking, especially in the first few weeks of school when they were shy and quiet, they used a technique called show and tell. Is that still on the go? It's probably ancient for it. But the children were to bring something into school and show it to the rest of the class and then they were to talk about the speak about the object that they had brought into school. And Jesus employs the same technique of show and tell here in Mark 6 30 to 44. He begins by telling us as he talks about the kingdom of God And then he moves on to show us what the kingdom of God is like. And by the way he does it, Jesus shows us that he is a compassionate shepherd. Compassionate shepherd. When Jesus saw the large crowd like sheep without a shepherd, verse 34, he had compassion on them. Now, why did he have compassion on them? Well, even like me, if you're dyed in the wool, a card-carrying townie, you know that sheep without a shepherd are very vulnerable. And it was the people's helplessness that moved Jesus deeply. His whole being was stirred when he saw how at risk these people were. It was the people's vulnerability that moved Jesus to such deep feelings of compassion and pity towards them. But there's more to Jesus' compassion than deep feelings. His compassion towards the large crowd moved him to action. The people were hungry after listening to him teach, and they needed food, so he fed the crowd. by miraculously turning five loaves and two fish into enough food to satisfy the appetite of a crowd that numbered 5,000 men, let alone women and children. Now that Jesus is a compassionate shepherd shouldn't surprise us at all because he was sent by the Father who loved the world and Jesus shares in his father's reaction to the world's need. But I think that the idea of Jesus being a compassionate shepherd does surprise us because we have bought into the lie that Jesus is only interested in people who have got their acts together. People who have got everything sorted. People who are confident and well balanced. And that's convinced us that Jesus is actually not interested in people like us. Because we're vulnerable. At times we're helpless and powerless. We think Jesus is only interested in the strong and those who've got it all together. He's not interested in me and my weakness and my vulnerability. But Jesus is a compassionate shepherd. It's our at-riskness that stirs Jesus' compassion towards us. And what makes us most vulnerable of all is our sin. It puts us in risk of experiencing God's judgment instead of experiencing God's friendship. It puts us at risk from being banished from God's presence into hell for all eternity instead of enjoying being with him in heaven. It puts us at risk of knowing God's displeasure instead of a smile. So Jesus takes action on our behalf. He's compassionate on us. He not only feels for us and takes pity in our sin, but he does something. He doesn't just feed us. He dies for us. so that our sins could be dealt with. He's the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. We're vulnerable, we're at risk, but God has provided for us someone who is full of compassion, compassionate feelings and action towards us. He's provided us that someone in Jesus, the ideal shepherd. By what he does, Jesus also shows that the ideal shepherd king is in the third place. A self-denying shepherd. The opening verses of this section are throwback to verses 7 to 13 of this passage where Jesus sent out the twelve on a mission to the different villages around the area and they've come back from their mission. And Jesus makes plans to head off somewhere quiet with the twelve in order to debrief and that they might have some, if you like, downtime to recharge their batteries after all their hard work. But the crowds follow him and interrupt Jesus' plans. But when Jesus saw their spiritual condition like sheep without a shepherd, he isn't put out, he isn't annoyed. Instead he, if you like, he abandons his plans in order to care for the crowd. The needs of these vulnerable, at-risk people took priority over his own concerns to get a bit of rest. And isn't self-denial one of the great characteristics of Jesus' life? Here is Jesus ready to set to one side his own personal interests in order to do good to others. And it was this characteristic of self-denial that caused Jesus to lay aside his status as the eternal Son of God in order to come to earth to seek and to save the lost. In the events of Mark 6, 30 to 34 that lead up to the feeding of the 5,000, we see something of Jesus' self-denying love that would take him to the cross, whereas the good shepherd, he would lay down his life for the sheep as he became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Here is a self-denying shepherd. the one who puts our concerns above his own personal concerns. Isn't that amazing? But Paul says in Philippians 2, that's the example, that's the mindset we should have. So we should put the interests of others before our own interests. What's his ideal shepherd like? Well, he's a teaching shepherd, he's a compassionate shepherd, he's a self-denying shepherd. Fourthly, he's a powerful shepherd. I don't know if you ever watch MasterChef, but one of the tasks given to the aspiring chefs is to cook for a large gathering of people. But the challenge that John Turode and Greg Wallace give to MasterChef contestants is nothing compared to the humongous catering challenge that Jesus gave his disciples in verse 37 where he said to them, you give them something to eat and they went, you what? It would take more than eight months of a man's wages. Are we going to spend that much of bread and give it to the people to eat? They didn't know where to begin to face this challenge. But we know from other passages, because the feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle that's mentioned in all four Gospels, that Jesus was actually testing them because he knew exactly what he was going to do. So he asked them what food they had. only to be told that their resources were pretty meagre. They had a wee boy's lunch, five loaves and two fish. And let me remind you that when you hear five loaves, you're to think five small scones and not five sliced pans. And when you hear two fish, you're not to think a double fish supper from the chip shop, you're to think of two small sardines. They were pretty meagre resources but when these scant rations were passed through the crowd everyone had enough to eat. Now you know how this is a plays itself out in RME classes and sadly in many Sunday schools. I remember a Sunday school teacher I had telling me this is what happened, why all the people were fed. Here was his reason. He said that when the rest of the crowd saw the little boy sharing his lunch, they felt ashamed and they got out their own lunches and shared their food with all those around them. And he said to us, I think it was about nine or 10 at the time, you're to be kind to people like that share with them. Now I didn't know it at the time but you know now what I would have loved? Well if I had heard something like that I would have just gone around the corner and been sick. That's awful. It's rubbish. But that's what's churned out. This incident they tell us is an act of human kindness. What? My favourite word, guff. This is a display of Jesus' power. Here is the creator, the one who spoke his word and created the universe out of nothing. And if he had the power to do that, surely turning a little boy's packed lunch into enough food to feed a large crowd was going to be a piece of cake for him. But notice how his power was accessed. It was done through prayer. Before he distributed it, Jesus looked up and gave thanks. Prayer was the means by which Jesus accessed the power to miraculously feed the crowd. And when we look around at the needs in our church, in our community, in our world, even in our own lives. But especially in our community. It's so easy to lose heart, isn't it, when we do that? Our resources to meet these needs are meagre. They're the equivalent of five loaves and two fish. There's not many of us. Most of us are on the wrong side of 50. But you know, in the hands of Jesus, our Shepherd King, whose power is accessed through prayer, even these meagre resources have the potential to bring great blessing to many in our community. You see, with our powerful shepherd king, all things are possible. Nothing is too hard for him. And there's one more thing about Jesus, the shepherd king. He's a generous shepherd. Verse 42, they all ate and were satisfied. When everyone had finished eating, they were absolutely stuffed. They turned to each other and said, I couldn't eat another bite. And such was Jesus generosity that the leftovers filled 12 baskets. You see folks, when Jesus gives, he's not stingy in his giving. He gives generously. Again the devil has put about the lie which we have swallowed hook, line and sinker that if we follow Jesus and if we give control of our lives over to Jesus and if we do what Jesus wants us to do we will end up as losers. We will be deprived of But that's just a lie because the devil is a liar. Because nothing could be further from the truth. When Jesus controls our lives, they overflow with his generosity. You know the line from the hymn Isaac Watts, hymns, hymn Jesus shall reign wherever the sun, you know the line, blessings abound where Jesus reigns. Abounds very old fashioned isn't it, but it's got a great lift to it, it abounds. Because Jesus is a generous shepherd, we don't end up losing, we gain. We gain eternal life. We gain God as our father, and Jesus as our elder brother, and the Spirit as our guide. We gain a family. Who is Jesus? That's the question Mark's trying to answer in this opening part of his gospel. And in this section he tells us that Jesus is God himself coming as the promised shepherd king. Jesus is the shepherd king who, because of his great compassion towards us, has laid down his life and death for his sheep. Jesus is the shepherd king who guides, directs and instructs us through his word so that we know how to live in a way that pleases God. Jesus is the Shepherd King who sticks with us always and in every situation so that even when it comes our time to walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil but be filled with hope. Jesus is the Shepherd King who will bring us safely and with glorious joy to heaven. We will not get into heaven by the skin of our teeth but with glorious joy into heaven where in that place of no sin and no pain and no death and no tears, the lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd. Is Jesus your shepherd king? For many of us he is. And you've discovered that in him you have everything you need for this life and in the life to come. But for some of you, Jesus isn't your shepherd king. You need to trust him today and you'll discover that in him you have everything that you need. Let's pray for a moment. Lord Jesus, you are not only the powerful shepherd who laid down your life and death to save us, but you're also the generous shepherd who carries us on your heart and lovingly leads us through life. You're full of compassion for your weak, vulnerable sheep. and we thank you for stooping to care tenderly for us. Lord Jesus, we are so prone to wander from you, refusing to be guided by your teaching. We thank you for your love that protects us from our own wayward hearts and for your spirit who helps us to follow you. Lord Jesus enable us each day to trust in you alone until that day in heaven when you the lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd and lead us to springs of living water. Amen.