All we need

Mark 8:14-21: Jesus gets into a boat with His ­disciples. He says, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

They don’t get it.

Neither do I.

Their clueless conclusion, as they discuss it among themselves, is, “Didn’t anybody remember to bring the bread?”

At that, the Lord reveals more than a little impatience. “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?” Remember those times He fed multitudes with a little bread and a few fish, and they picked up baskets of leftovers? “Do you not yet understand?”

Well … no.

Commentators say Jesus was speaking in spiritual terms while His disciples—not for the first time—took Him literally. He addressed the supply side issue: Don’t worry about the next meal after you’ve seen Me supply much from little. But what was His point to begin with? Rather than scribble a question mark in the margin, I decided to sit awhile with this one.

The leaven of the Pharisees was legalism and misapplying the law. The leaven of Herod was sensuality and ignoring the law. Between the two is a line that’s often hard to make out: the narrow path. Swerving to one side or the other is dangerous, possibly fatal, as the insidious leaven of self-righteousness or indulgence swells the ego and gorges upon a shrinking soul.

But there’s a good kind of leaven: the kind that multiplies loaves and fishes. The kind that, mixed into a lump of dough, will quietly grow the kingdom of heaven both within and without. It’s the leaven of Jesus Himself. No matter how much you consume, there will always be more of Him.

Application: My brother-in-law, Ron, who divorced from my sister Laura 40 years ago, remained part of our family. He was a steady, decent guy who had no use for religion but was never rude about it. OK for you, his attitude said, but I’m fine without any settled ideas about God.

Years ago Ron experienced a couple of scary seizures, which may have presaged the brain tumor that developed last fall. Radiation helped, but chemo knocked him for a loop. The night after his first treatment, he apparently had another seizure and not only fell out of bed but turned the bed over on himself. By the time his son broke down the door of his apartment, Ron had been trapped without food and water for three days and nights.

When my sister Melissa told me about this, I thought of someone who’d been in a tomb for three days. Might this lead to another kind of resurrection? We began praying for exactly that.

Ron improved with rehab for a few weeks before taking a hard downward turn. The family organized shifts to sit with him while he was dying. He was a demanding patient, Melissa told me: always needing bed adjustments or vending-­machine snacks. The conversation around him stayed light, about family stories and the long camping trips he loved.

But one day, as Melissa was leaving, he stared at her and said, “Give me the truth.”

Don’t you wish your unbelieving friends and relatives would hand you an opening like that? She gave him the gospel, and he didn’t reject it. Didn’t accept it either, but when she told him she’d be back, he said, “Bring the book.”

She knew he meant the Book. On their first day with the Book she got through the Sermon on the Mount. Next time, six more chapters of Matthew. On through Mark, and into Luke. Was he still listening? At one point she asked him, Is that enough for one day?

By then Ron could barely speak. But he managed to say, “More Jesus.”

Beware the leavening effects of sin, but there’s always more Jesus. There’s no end to Him. You’ll never get enough.

At Ron’s memorial service, my sister shared how the only time he stopped her with a question was to ask what “Hosanna” meant.

“I think it means ‘Save,’” she told him. Whereupon he held up his hands and said, “Hosanna!”

Was he crying out to the Lord to save him? Melissa didn’t lead him in the sinner’s prayer or exact a confession, so that we’d have verbal confirmation. But I believe we already had it.

“More Jesus” is what he asked for. More Jesus is all any of us needs.