“Be Prepared!”  As a former scout, I take this motto to heart.  I love to be prepared.  I want to identify every contingency and have a plan, and a backup plan.  And thanks to the internet, my ability to “know before I go” has advanced from strategic to obsessive. 

We used to read a series of books to our children called the Alpha-Pets.  For each letter there was a caricatured animal and a moral tale.  There was Albert the Absent-minded Alligator, Bradley the Brave Bear, Vinnie the Vocal Vulture, and Fenton the Fearful Frog.  Fenton’s fear was satirized by his “just in case bag,” a bag so full and heavy he could hardly carry it.  But I always found Fenton’s caution and preparedness admirable.

Most of us want to be as prepared as we can be.  We want to know what to expect.  And most of us don’t like surprises when they come with significant consequences.  Few want to be randomly called on to speak, or answer, or even pray.  In fact, I recently read that of all the things people fear, the number one fear was the fear of public speaking.  And so, we like to be informed, and we want to be prepared.   A lack of preparation creates anxiety.

Perhaps this is why “works salvation” is so appealing and prevalent.  We want to do our part, contribute what we can, get our spiritual ducks in a row, clean up what we can clean up, and get our house in order before we turn to God.  Surely, we must prepare ourselves to be as righteous, knowledgeable, and pious as possible before we can approach a holy God.  The idea that we have nothing to prepare, nothing to contribute, nothing with which to prime the pump of grace feels too much like presumption. 

Of course, we know our righteousness is not sufficient.  And certainly, we all agree that some measure of grace is necessary.   But our fear that God might not be who he says he is causes us to default to the pagan view of him.  A view that demands we offer up something to pacify an emotionally fragile God.  Or to induce him to love us.  And so, we rummage around in the morbid introspection of unbelief trying to prepare ourselves before we coming to him for grace.

The hymnwriter warned us well.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall;
If you tarry ’til you’re better, you will never come at all.
Not the righteous, not the righteous; sinners Jesus came to call.

Let not conscience make you linger, nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requires is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you, this He gives you, ’tis the Spirit’s rising beam.

Mark 6:53-56 offers a summary of Jesus year of Galilean ministry.  It is the third of the “summary” passages in the Gospel of Mark.  Like many other passages up to this point, Jesus arrives in a remote place and crowds from miles around quickly assemble.  He teaches the simple, heals the sick, casts out demons.  The people are so desperate and eager, and their faith so simple that they “they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment.”  And despite their simple, uninformed faith, we read that “as many as touched it were made well.” 

This is no argument for a magical view of faith or of the importance of religious relics. But rather that faith, itself, is not something that evolves from our intellectual, volitional, or spiritual preparation. It is completely the gracious gift of God.  If preparation could have granted it, the disciples would surely have demonstrated tremendous faith.  Yet what do we read?  “Is your faith yet so small?”   And what will we read in the very next passage?  “Are you yet so dull?” 

Our forefathers noted that “the hand of faith that reaches out to Christ is an empty hand.”    Jonathan Edwards famously wrote that the “only thing we bring to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.”  Ephesians 2:8 notes that it is “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”  Paul’s grammar makes it clear that faith is the gracious gift of God.”  No preparation is necessary or even possible.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, in its discussion of “Free Will” puts it this way.

“Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”

And this is good news! Our hope depends completely on the free love of God and never on any adequacy in our understanding, piety, or preparation.  Our faith is never in our faith, but only in the object of our faith, the Faithful One, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has done all that is necessary.  He provides everything for our salvation.  He requires nothing more than to come to him in the faith that he gives as a gift.

Join us as we examine Mark 6:53-56 and consider what it means to reach out to Jesus with the empty hand of faith.  We meet Sundays at 10:30 am on the square in Pottsville, Arkansas right next to historic Potts’ Inn for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.