For eight chapters in a row now we have been reading about the glorious passage of the Son of God over the earth. Have we recognized Him? Have we learned to trust Him?...
For eight chapters in a row now we have been reading about the glorious passage of the Son of God over the earth. Have we recognized Him? Have we learned to trust Him? To believe His word? Or do we still need signs? Have we "understood" everything, or have we remained blind? What is there more of in us: the leaven of the Pharisees, or the faith of the hungry and the sick? Does the one who was hungry and was fed, who was sick and was healed, who was blind and received sight, still need signs?
The disciples witnessed the feeding of the people. They were at that feast and even distributed the bread. But in everyday life they remain in doubt and are not sure that they will be fed, although Jesus is with them and they see Him with their eyes. But with the heart? Do we feel God's presence in everyday life, on Monday, in the boat in which we are crossing the week? Or do we "still not understand"? For the second time Mark gives a passage about feeding a large crowd with a few loaves. It is important to understand that if bread is given from God's hands, then it is not just bread. People are fed by God's blessing, by God's love. And this is truly real nourishment.
It is hard to understand what is happening to others when everything is all right with you, when you have nothing to plead for tearfully. When there is no real need, there is no need for hope, and no need for the Healer. When we do not thirst for an encounter with truth and love, when we have not been worn down in this world by our weakness and infirmity while seeking truth, it is hard to be satisfied with what God gives us. Such are the Pharisees: Jesus does not even speak with them. "He left them."
The disciples remain beside Jesus, see Him with earthly eyes, share a meal with Him, and see many healings, but still remain outside the mystery of God. They have received sight for the first time, like that blind man from Bethsaida. After the first laying on of hands, the blind man began to see like everyone else. He saw people outwardly. A person was able to "see everything clearly" only in the presence of Jesus, when he "looked intently."
God gives spiritual sight to those who thirst for it. For this, the "hardened heart" must be "softened." Then it will become clear what the spirit of Pharisaism is; then the spiritual life of people and of God will be visible. Then signs will no longer be needed. What, then, have we managed to "understand" over these seven and a half chapters? What have we really understood, what have we "seen clearly," how have we changed?
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1:19 Let every man be swift to hear - This is treated of from Jam 1:21 to the end of the next chapter. Slow to speak - Which is treated of in he third chapter.Slow to wrath - Neither murmuring at God, nor angry at his neighbour. This is treated of in the third, and throughout the fourth and fifth chapters.
1:20 The righteousness of God here includes all duties prescribed by him, and pleasing to him.
1:21 Therefore laying aside - As a dirty garment. All the filthiness and superfluity of wickedness - For however specious or necessary it may appear to worldly wisdom, all wickedness is both vile, hateful, contemptible, and really superfluous.Every reasonable end may be effectually answered without any kind or degree of it. Lay this, every known sin, aside, or all your hearing is vain. With meekness - Constant evenness and serenity of mind. Receive - Into your ears, your heart, your life. The word - Of the gospel. Ingrafted - In believers, by regeneration, Jam 1:18 and by habit, Heb 5:14.Which is able to save your souls - The hope of salvation nourishes meekness.
1:23 Beholding his face in a glass - How exactly does the scripture glass show a man the face of his soul!
1:24 He beheld himself, and went away - To other business.And forgot - But such forgetting does not excuse.
1:25 But he that looketh diligently - Not with a transient glance, but bending down, fixing his eyes, and searching all to the bottom. Into the perfect law - Of love as established by faith. St. James here guards us against misunderstanding what St. Paul says concerning the "yoke and bondage of the law." He who keeps the law of love is free, Joh 8:31, etc He that does not, is not free, but a slave to sin, and a criminal before God, Jam 2:10.And continueth therein - Not like him who forgot it, and went away. This man - There is a peculiar force in the repetition of the word. Shall be happy - Not barely in hearing, but doing the will of God.
1:26 If any one be ever so religious - Exact in the outward offices of religion. And bridleth not his tongue - From backbiting, talebearing, evilspeaking, he only deceiveth his own heart, if he fancies he has any true religion at all.
1:27 The only true religion in the sight of God, is this, to visit - With counsel, comfort, and relief. The fatherless and widows - Those who need it most. In their affliction - In their most helpless and hopeless state. And to keep himself unspotted from the world - From the maxims, tempers, and customs of it. But this cannot be done, till we have given our hearts to God, and love our neighbour as ourselves.