Mark 6:45 - 6:56


prayer


 

intro:

story; literary/narrative merit; application
we usually look at all these aspects...
today we're going to go story, then narrative -> application twice.
 
normal stuff, but hopefully being explicit will help a bit in the making sense of things.

 

outline review

1:1-8:26 yankee jesus (ministry in galilee)
preaching/healing/calling (1-3) parables (4) the life aquatic (end of 4 - 6)
jesus does amazing things, is rejected by some and accepted by others.
8:27-10:52: on the road again (jesus on the way to jerusalem)
jesus moves towards jerusalem, heightening expectations, but begins to emphasize that his role is to suffer (not conquer).
miraculous validation of his messiahship continues.
11:1-16:8: jesus in jerusalem
jesus enters his city as king, confronts the religious leaders, and is crucified, buried, and raised.

mark 6:7-13

45. Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away.
46. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray.
47. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land.
48. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He *came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them.
49. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out;
50. for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and *said to them, "Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid."
51. Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished,
52. for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
53. When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.
54. When they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him,
55. and ran about that whole country and began to carry here and there on their pallets those who were sick, to the place they heard He was.
56. Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured.

1) understand the story

jesus withdraws to pray

jesus attempted to do withdraw with his disciples previously...but was unable last time and ended up feeding the crowds prayer is important; make time to do so.

the petitionary problem; how long, how much to pray?
he ends up doing so for a while...(4th watch)

the text:

45. Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away.
46. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray.

jesus sends the disciples across...

where in the world are the disciples?

they had withdrawn to "secluded place" (mk 6:31)...and they're going to bethsaida.
but there is some argument where bethsaida is, or even how many bethsaidas there were (might have been 2).
so...let's just say that our heroes are somewhere on the sea of galilee.

they struggle to make it. as in they struggle all night.

super lame.
now granted, as fishermen, this might not be super novel like it would have been for us ("we're all gonna die. game over man.")
but it still would have sucked.

the text:

46. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray.
47. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land.
48. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He *came to them

jesus catches up by walking on the water

jesus opts to walk across the lake; or something like that at least.
the discples seem him and freak out.
he joins them, calms the storm, and goes across with them.

what's with the "he intended to pass by them" in v48?

dunno.
perhaps he was still intending to keep his personal prayer time while he walked?
if so, it started with an interruption and finished with one.

the text:

48. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He *came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them.
49. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out;
50. for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and *said to them, "Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid."
51. Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished,
52. for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.

they land, jesus heals a bunch of people

after crossing, they end up at in the region of gennesaret, which seems to have been on the north-west side of the sea of galilee.


 

and...there are more healings.

this part is less important, since they just kind of gloss over it.
but notice the important detail - *how* the healing takes place is a bit different, so we get to see that.
"they were laying the sick in the market places and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured."
a bit different.
possibly requested because they heard about the bleeding woman who had been healed? no idea really.

the text

53. When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.
54. When they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him,
55. and ran about that whole country and began to carry here and there on their pallets those who were sick, to the place they heard He was.
56. Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured.

story review

jesus withdraws to pray
jesus sends the disciples across
jesus catches up by walking on the water
they land, and jesus heals a bunch of people
 
got it?

2) failure and the apostles

notice the apostles' self deprecation

the apostles had a part in the writing, but the text highlights their delusions.


mark is supposed to have been writing what peter recalled for him...
that nicely explains why there are stories that show the disciples in a bad light, talk about their failures, and frequently show peter himself being kind of an idiot.
in this story, there are a few moments of this...

"oohhhh, it's a ghost!"

"when they saw him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out." (mark 6:49)
they see jesus...and they freak that it's a ghost?
 

then, once they were astonished, the comment is that

"they had not gained any insight from the insight of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.

feel a bit better about your own stupid self about now.

personal hype!

look...none of us can consistently live up to any hype. humans don't do that.
you walk around trying to look cool...you're gonna trip on something at some point. or choke at a fancy wedding or something.

the disciples portrayal of themselves

the 12 apostles are amazing.
god choose them to represent himself to the world.
good luck finding something cooler.
but...they portray themselves as having problems and failures.
more often than not, when they're mentioned in the gospels, it's not very flattering.
in fact, the bible is careful to show us the faults and mistakes of our biblical heroes.

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that however you end up with your conception of self, it should be somewhat similar.

- believe in your personal sinfulness.
we all have and will all fail in the most important areas of life - god's requirements for us.
- we should have enough humility to acknowledge our failures
if the apostles can tell of their own failures, then we should be able to as well.
we all have extraordinary value - enough for christ to suffer and die for us. our value is affirmed by that; it isn't dependent on our ability to never say something stupid, to always look distant and intimidating, or to entertain with aplomb.


3) christ's power

jesus' power reaffirmed

the demonstrations of power we've seen this week...

he walked on the water
he stopped the storm
he healed more people

notice the differences...

walking on water?
healings in a weird way.
calming the storm is really the only normal thing here, since we've seen that trick before.

&nbps;

why all the miracles?

we're showing that jesus is in fact aligned with god and his power.
he teaches consistent with the revelation of the old testament.
he works miracles exceeding any old testament prophet.
he makes claims exceeding any old testament prophet.
the story is proving the divinity of christ...it should be to the point that you are able to say, "i get it already" before mark will be ready to move on to point 2 in his narrative.

on a more basic level, the miracles also remind us that god has power over the world and life.

it is worth reminding ourselves of god's power over anything.

belief and expectation

despite the disciples proximity to miracles...the disciples are still flabbergasted
why?

miracles still aren't 'normal' (jesus doesn't do everything miraculously)
 
when you read harry potter, they don't do everything magically (rowling says that she arbitrarily assigned limits).
jesus doesn't have them fly around from place to place; they walk, or take a boat (struggling at the oars all night).

so...jesus does some things miraculously, but not everything. then whats with the comment when they're surprised?

51. Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished,
52. for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
they were astonished...and this was the result of having a hard heart? as in they shouldn't have been?
i don't think the point is that they shouldn't have been astonished at the miracle (wow! cool!)...but perhaps they shouldn't have been astonished that the miracle was possible.
 
i think that's fair. we should believe that "with god all things are possible", as jesus says in mark 10 (regarding the difficult salvation of the rich).
normal? no.
possible? yes.


so: with god, all things are possible, but that doesn't mean that he wil miraculously work everything out or prevent our work...or our suffering.

we need to give a special note to suffering here. if there was ever something you'd expect to invoke the miraculous...
which...he does here. the primary miracles are the healing of the sick; the compassion of god on human suffering.
but jesus doesn't do such for himself.
in the desert, when tempted, he remains hungry.
on the cross, when told to ("Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!")

check the way the disciples live after christ has been raised, and they are his messengers:
most are killed. and while alive, they aren't exactly popular or hailed as heroes...
do they receive the supernatural assitance of god?
no.

so...we should believe that god works miracles. but we shouldn't count on them to get us out of difficult spots?

basically yes. this is not the passage to discuss why god allows terrible things to occur however.
this week, we should evaluate our beliefs in god's power over the world. especially over our lives.
 
because we can read about jesus walking on the water without surprise, but to believe that our circumstances might be known by god is somehow a slippery thought.
- need guidance?
- need your sanctification?
- need to believe something to fight worry?

finally, an encouragement.

check out jesus' response when they were terrified by his supernaturalness (to walk on the water): reassurance
50. for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and *said to them, "Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid."
he doesn't beat them down; he encourages and reassures them.
the almighty power and nature of god is combined with understanding and affection.

conclusion. remember our friends shadrach, meshach, and abednego?

they were captives and slaves in a land opposed to god.
they were told to worship a false god...and they refused.
under the threat of death by the king ("worship or die"), they showed a superb faith, believing at once that god was supreme over all powers, but that they might nonetheless die.
daniel 3:16-18
16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. 17 "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 "But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up."