Reading Notes: Gospel of Mark, Part A

 

Breaking of bread. Source: Pixabay.

    One story that stuck out to me in the Gospel of Mark unit was The Loaves and the Fishes Again. I really liked this story because it talks about some of the miracles that Jesus performed such as healing a blind man and feeding four thousand people with only seven loaves of bread.

    The characters that fascinated me the most in the story were the disciples of Jesus. The disciples watched Jesus feed a crowd of four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. However, when they were in a boat with Jesus, they began talking about how they only had one loaf of bread with them on the boat. Jesus was asking them basically how do they not remember the miracles he has performed.

    The disciples are interesting to me in this story because clearly they just watched Jesus perform a miracle feeding a large crowd of people with a very small amount of food. However, they are worried about how they will be fed with just a loaf of bread. They witnessed the miracles Jesus was performing but still had so little faith.

    When thinking about how to reimagine the disciples, I think it would be fun to reimagine them as younger children following Jesus. I think it would be a creative representation of the child-like faith they have at certain points of time. Children often ask a ton of questions and don't always trust what their guardians have to say.

    The stories that are within this story seem to jump around in time and place a little bit. Jesus and his disciples went to Bethsaida. People in the village brought a blind man to Jesus in hopes of having Jesus heal him. When Jesus touched the man, he was able to see everything again. I like the addition of stories like these because they show many different miracles that Jesus performed, which makes it even crazier that the disciples didn't put all their trust in Jesus in different situations.

    I would love to change up the story a little bit and create a miracle that Jesus performed. I think it would a ton of fun and allow for a lot of creativity.

Story source: King James Bible (1611), Mark 8.