What Does Jesus Say is "So Little Faith"? - Episode #209

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast. Today we’ll be looking at a passage from the New Testament, in the book of Matthew chapter 14. Let’s jump right in. Need Prayer? Share Your Prayer Requests with Jan Here You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, playing now on the Edifi app and on iHeart radio. This is episode # 209. Matthew chapter 14 opens with the death of John the Baptist, which is a really messed up event. You read it and it is really disturbing, the way his death came about. It just is. It can’t be prettied up because it’s too raw and too ugly for that. It is what it is. And that’s how this chapter begins. In the NLT, verse 13 reads: As soon as Jesus heard the news, He left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. Jesus, the Son of Man, deity, being fully God and fully man, reacted this way upon hearing the news of John the Baptist’s death. He felt the pain and the grief of it, the weight of it. And He wanted to go somewhere remote in order to be alone. Does this comfort you in any way? This understanding that Jesus sat in His grief, as much as He was able to in a world that literally chased after Him continually. Do you need permission to sit in your grief right now? Have you felt almost guilty for wanting to step back, step away to a remote place (figuratively or literally), and be alone? Maybe you’ve been told that being alone in your grieving is not okay, that it’s unsafe or unwise or that your grieving and processing should happen in community. And maybe some of your journey through grief should be in some type of community… but as I read the text from Matthew 14, I am certain that Jesus sees you in this place and He is totally okay with you stepping back and retreating to some sort of remote-ness to be alone for a time. Look, we have no “remote” part of our lives if we post all the time, inviting anyone and everyone right into our lives in every season. And we can feel guilty about hitting pause. If you need to step away when you hear terrible news, you are in good company. And most likely, you will actually succeed at getting a bit of time alone. Jesus did not get time alone, because the crowds heard where He was headed and followed on foot from many towns. (That’s the rest of verse 13.) Verse 14 says: Jesus saw the huge crowd as He stepped from the boat and He had compassion on them and healed their sick. If Jesus, in His own grief, on His way to someplace remote in order to be alone, saw this huge crowd of people and had compassion on them, I want you to grab hold of the hope in this verse and know that He sees you and He has so much compassion for you. He is the same yesterday and today and forever, and you can depend fully on Him to have the compassion on you that you need at the exact moment you need it. These people traveled from their towns to where they figured out where He was going, and He did not take that and set it aside. You also won’t be set aside when you come to Him. Now He was in a remote place, because that’s where He was headed earlier in the day. Late that evening the disciples came to Him and said, “This is a remote place…” Yes, I am thinking He knew it was a remote place when He chose it as His destination. But they had all these people there, and the disciples did not have a way to feed them. They wanted Jesus to send them away so they could get food before it got much later. Jesus told them to feed the people. And this is the time when they had five loaves of bread and two fish. You probably know this story, maybe even learned about it on a flannelgraph back in the olden days. Jesus took the loaves and the fish (or the fishes, as it used to be said) and he blessed them, and started breaking the bread into pieces so the disciples could hand it out to the people. Everyone ate as much as they wanted and the leftovers were about twelve baskets full and 5000 men plus women and children were fed that day. So you have the set up for what comes next, which is the focus of this episode of the podcast. John the Baptist was killed and it was truly horrible, Jesus went away to be alone with the grief, huge crowds figured out where He was going and followed Him there, He had compassion on them and healed their sick, then the disciples wanted Jesus to send the people away to get food, but He miraculously fed them with the loaves and fishes. Let’s pick up in verse 22 of Matthew chapter 14, from the NLT. Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that His disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake, while He sent the people home. (Jesus insisted, and the disciples did as He said to do. That’s called obedience, my friend, and it ought to be a mark of a disciple in 2025 just as much as it was the mark of a disciple of Jesus 2000 years ago. Obedience matters, and sometimes we forget that in the here and now when we’re living in the age of ...