GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 6:43
Clean up
As I write, there’s news about the unimaginably disastrous flood along the Guadalupe River in Texas. Authorities are still searching for missing victims. Cleaning up and repairing the physical damage will take months or years. After catastrophes of this magnitude, simply disposing of the debris is a major issue—wrecked buildings, destroyed building materials, ravaged automobiles, and uprooted trees by the hundreds.
One of the first lessons children learn—or should learn—is the importance of cleaning up after themselves. I wonder how many children have been told to clean up their rooms. An elementary school teacher told her class to clean up their work area because, she said, she was not their mother. Of course, there are some who never master that basic discipline, making it difficult for everyone else. One of my first jobs was cleaning up a work area at the end of a shift. It was easy to tell who had been working in the area. One employee always returned every tool to its proper storage place; his work area was usually well organized. Another employee often left tools scattered about. Putting them back in storage was my job. I often wondered what his home was like. I wanted to shout, “Clean up after yourself.”
After Jesus saw that the large crowd to which he ministered in Bethsaida was fed, Mark wrote, “And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments, and of the fish.” (Mark 6:43) Of the many lessons to be derived from this account, an important one is the need to clean up. This grassy hillside was not going to be littered with piles of culinary detritus because the disciples cleaned up after themselves. From five barley loaves and two small fish, they gathered up twelve baskets full of leftovers. Twelve baskets full of leftovers—and these were small baskets like those used to carry food—for five thousand men (and no one counted the women and children) were not a huge number. Nonetheless, these remnants were not going to be scattered over the hillside, for the disciples cleaned up after themselves.
It’s important to master the simple lessons, like cleaning up after oneself, before mastering the complex lessons—one must master the multiplication tables before attempting calculus.
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