Our Captain cannot be stopped

As a volunteer pastor, I’ve come to believe that the No. 1 threat to my congregation is fear. As it turns out, though, I’m not their only preacher. The other ones are broadcast at them.

Twenty-four-hour news channels bombard them with reasons to be terrified. What’s coming next? A new virus? Conflict with Russia? China? Remember when the “murder hornets” were coming for us?

Part of my answer to all that is this: Jesus fed 5,000 men and their families with a few pieces of bread and a plate of fish in Mark 6.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the solution to living in the modern world is to stop engaging with it, in favor of more “spiritual” practices. Retreat into some sort of uber-religiosity is still retreat, and that’s not my recommendation.

I’m saying that the knowledge of God and his son, Jesus Christ, is the antidote for fear. It’s an antidote that allows us to face the things that are supposed to terrify us and stare them down.

Jesus taught the multitude until the evening. He didn’t want them to be sent away without their supper. Initially, he told his disciples to feed the crowd. I can see them turning out their pockets and looking lost. Shortly, though, he gave them what they needed in order to do what he told them to do.

They thought the assignment was impossible. Maybe it crossed their minds that the boss had gone crazy. But then, without knowing how it happened, they suddenly had more than enough and gathered up big basketfuls of leftovers.

Believer, this means your lack of resources, which makes you think you can’t do what Christ has called you to do, is a baseless threat. The one who called you owns the cattle on a thousand hills, as the psalmist said. Of course, this is meant to assure you that he owns all the cattle on all the hills. The hills are his, too, and the valleys, and all the other geographic features you might name.

If you are his, then whatever other troubles you might have, lack of resources is not one of them. He owns it all, and he is kind and generous.

The Mark narrative has all the people sitting down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Bible students will recognize this as military language. The armies of ancient Israel were led in divisions of hundreds and fifties, each with its captain or chief.

Napoleon said, “An army travels on it stomach.” If you can’t feed your soldiers, their fighting days will come to a disastrous end, quickly.

Jesus, God’s prince, seats thousands in the cool grass and feeds them with what amounts to one kid’s lunch. What, exactly, does this army have to fear? Its resources are endless; its supply chain unbreakable; its Gospel a living sword; and its general the master of death itself.

The key to living in a fearful world is not to deny the scary stuff. It’s to examine all of that in the light of a great King.

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

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