Mark 8:1-21
We can have different motives in doing good, more or less commendable. We can seek the esteem of other people like the Pharisees, or we can appease our conscience by fulfilling our social duty. And in Christendom, how much work has no other driving force! But what prompted the Lord constantly to action was His compassion for the crowds, whom He fed a second time by this act of power (v. 2; Mark 6:34). Our daily contacts with the world, its covetousness, its defilement, have a tendency to make us hard. Being used to seeing all around us material and moral misery, and above all, spiritual misery, we are no longer concerned. But the heart of the Lord Jesus remained divinely sensitive. The state of the deaf-mute in 7:34 made Him sigh (or groan) and look up to heaven. In v. 12 it is the unbelief of the Pharisees which makes Him sigh deeply. And finally, the hardness of heart of His own disciples upsets Him just as much (see also Mark 6:52; Mark 7:18). The two miracles in which they had taken part had not been enough to give them confidence in their Master (cf. John 14:8-9). How much the Lord suffered during His life because of His sympathy for men but also because of the unbelief and ingratitude of men, and even of His own sometimes.