Photo: solba.ru
Anyone who has ever tried to do good deeds will agree that it is far from a simple task. Alongside external difficulties and obstacles, we often encounter internal challenges as well. Our nature is changeable. Today, I am kind and ready to embrace the whole world, but tomorrow, I'm in a bad mood, and so don't expect any mercy. Today, I do good deeds selflessly, but tomorrow, I may be tormented by the realization that no one notices my sacrifice and hard work. The passage we just heard offers us a sort of algorithm for genuine virtue.
Where should a good deed begin? With a prayerful appeal to God. This is exactly what the apostles do when they wish to help people. In response to their request, the Savior tells His disciples, Give ye them to eat (Mark 6:37). This is one of the key ideas of the Gospel: blessings from God often come through a person. A person is a mediator. Moreover, God may often remain in the background and not act until someone appears who is ready to act on His behalf in the lives of others. In other words, God needs a coworker.
Next, we should pay attention to another very important detail. It is not by chance that the Evangelist mentions that after the disciples fulfilled Christ's command, feeding the hungry with five loaves and two fishes by His blessing, they gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. Their desire to serve others, combined with God's blessing, led to results that exceeded all imaginable expectations and assumptions. There are no unsolvable problems for a person if he acts sincerely and is helped by God.
Finally, there is one more point. A particular expression catches our attention. After the miracle of feeding the multitude, the Lord “constrained” His disciples, literally forced them, to get into the boat. Why was this? The astonishing success had gone to the apostles' heads. Apparently, along with those who witnessed and participated in the miracle, they wanted to immediately proclaim Jesus as the King of Israel. Most likely, they were the initiators of this popular excitement. However, this sharply contradicted the Gospel preaching of Christ. And so, the Lord forces them to depart.
This is also an important lesson for us. If we have the opportunity to serve our neighbors, to show them mercy and compassion, we must not lose our heads over the inspiring results we achieve. We must clearly recognize that all of this is accomplished by the power of the Savior, according to His hidden plan. The Lord will work through a person as long as that person prefers to remain in the background. Only in this way will the mercy we show to our neighbors be rooted not in treacherously mercurous emotions, fantasies, and experiences of humans, but in the unchanging sacrificial love of Christ the Savior. And our good deeds will have beneficial consequences not only for those around, us but also for ourselves.
