Boat Ministry

Mark 3:9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him.

It is so easy in life to get sidetracked from our primary missions. There are some things that must be done in order for life to continue. Farmers must work the fields or when harvest time comes, there won’t be a crop and hunger ensues.

If factory workers don’t show up to run the machines, the products aren’t produced and the paychecks disappear. Companies go bankrupt and employees are laid off. Diapers need to be changed! Trash needs to be collected. Grass needs to be cut.

There are a myriad of things that happen almost out of sight that are necessary for life to continue. These tasks have been labeled “Essential” in recent months. But aren’t there many other things in the “Essential” category that have been arbitrarily left out? We must be able to earn a living. That is also an essential.

Jesus had a good idea about what was essential for Him to do and accomplish. We see Him in our text getting into a boat in order to avoid the crowd. You see, so many were coming to be healed that Jesus needed space to do what was more essential. But what could be more essential than physical healing?

Physical healing has its place, but Jesus was concerned with something much more permanent than our physical bodies. He wanted to draw the people into a relationship with God. His mission was the reconciliation of humanity with the Creator God. Everything pointed in that direction, and He couldn’t allow Himself to get sidetracked by the rushing of the crowds.

Jesus didn’t heal everyone He encountered. The words “he healed some” appear repeatedly in the Gospels. Jesus gets into the boat to prevent some physical healings. He had priorities that superseded the physical.

One of those priorities is outlined in the following verses in our text. Jesus pulls aside an inner circle of His followers and appoints twelve to be His closest companions on this three year journey to the Cross. He needs time with just them, to make sure they are ready for their first mission on His behalf.

But this group is not limited to twelve. In the next chapter (4:10) we read that there were others around Him who also were privy to the close intimate presence and wisdom of Jesus. They also had access to the explanations of the parables and other teachings. They were disciples without the title.

We know this to be true when we read in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. They choose someone to replace Judas who has committed suicide. They choose from the group of people who were with Jesus from the beginning, but were not part of the twelve.