Walking on the Water

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I’m sure a lot of you have been in situations like I have where you’re trying to tell something to a person, you’re trying to explain something to them, and you just cannot seem to make them understand. Has anybody else ever been there? For the life of me, I have yet to figure out why in my entire life, why it has always been such a difficult thing for people to fill an order without American cheese on it.

I am not a picky person, but there are certain things I just cannot bring myself to do. and onions and American cheese are at the top of the list. First of all, you order a cheeseburger with no cheese because everybody just has cheeseburgers on their menu. Order a cheeseburger with no cheese, they’re going to look at you like you’re nuts.

But they can’t figure this out. And try to explain it to them, they cannot figure out. Maybe you’ve dealt with customer service, making a phone call, and you’re trying to explain to them what you need.

And I don’t know if it’s, maybe it’s in the customer service job description that they’re supposed to not understand. It could be, it could be a language barrier. And by the way, I don’t fault people.

You know, this is not a, this is not a racial thing. I don’t fault people from other countries for not being able to understand me when I call their call centers because I speak Okie, right? And when I get frustrated, my volume doesn’t go up, my accent does, right?

I, and I just, several weeks ago, I remember being on the phone and just very clearly telling them, this is not what I pay y’all for. And no wonder the lady could not understand me. But anyway, you try and you try and you try to get somebody to understand something and they just won’t.

And it’s frustrating, isn’t it? And so you have to try another way. You have to keep trying in hopes that they’ll understand before one of you just dies, right?

That at some point they’ll understand. We’ve all been there. And as we’ve gone through the gospel of Mark up to this point, that’s sort of where Jesus is.

He has been showing and he has been telling the people around him, especially the disciples, exactly who he is. He’s been putting it right out there for them to understand. And they still don’t understand.

They still don’t get it. And so he does something else to give them a clue. And by the way, it’s not going to be until after his resurrection that they finally put all these clues together and realize, oh, that’s what that meant.

And at some points, it seems like the disciples actually have an intellectual grasp that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he’s more than just a human teacher. But when it comes to acting like it, when it comes to the implications of what that means in their lives, they don’t seem to understand it. And so we see Jesus in this phase of ministry where he’s becoming more open about who he is.

Early on, we’ve looked at some of these stories in Mark where Jesus said, don’t tell people, don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen here. It’s not that Jesus was trying to be modest and say, oh, I’m not really the son of God. That’s what the skeptics will tell us is that in the book of Mark, he’s portraying himself as not the son of God.

Mark explains that the reason for it is that it wasn’t time for the crowds to understand yet, because if the crowds understood at this phase of his ministry that he’s making those claims, then they’re going to try to sweep him into power as a political messiah, and that’s not what he came to do. So God had this timeline that we don’t have to fully understand or be comfortable with. We just have to accept that Jesus knew what he was doing, that there was a layout of how things had to go, that the religious and the political leaders had to be lined up against him just right so that the people would turn on him when they understood these claims. But we’re coming to a point where he’s beginning to be more open about who he is and they still don’t get it.

And so Jesus shows them again where we are tonight in Mark chapter 6. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 6, we’re going to look at verses 45 through 53 tonight. And once you find it, if you’re able to, without too much trouble if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

Mark chapter 6, starting in verse 45, it says, Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side to Bethsaida, while he sent the multitude away. And when he had sent them away, he departed to the mountain to pray. Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land.

When he saw them straining at rowing, or then he saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea and would have passed them by. And when they saw him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost and cried out for they all saw him and were troubled.

But immediately he talked with them and said to them, be of good cheer. It is I, do not be afraid. Then he went up into the boat with them and the wind ceased and they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure and marveled for they not understood about the loaves because their heart was hardened and you may be seated so this is mark’s telling of the story again the uh the their tellings of it are a little bit different meaning in in the details they offer but it’s the same story they don’t contradict each other they just point out different things they tell the same general story but each one gives a a little extra information that the other one doesn’t include.

For example, in John 6. 15, he explains that Jesus left in the beginning so the people didn’t try to make him their king. He got out of there because after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus saw that they were thinking, hey, this guy can feed us.

Why don’t we put him in charge? And Jesus was saying, it’s not time yet. So he sent the crowds away and then he got out of there.

John tells us that. Mark 6. 48 explains that Jesus intended to reveal His glory to the disciples.

We’ll talk about that in just a little bit. The other gospel writers don’t tell us that. Matthew 14 in verses 28 through 31, it tells the story of Peter climbing out of the boat to walk with Jesus.

So if you’re looking at this story saying, wait a minute, I thought there was part of this where Peter climbs out of the boat. Matthew’s the one that tells that story. Which I think is odd because we know that Mark was writing from Peter’s accounts of these things.

ultimately he’s writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but he’s writing about things from Peter’s perspective and so I can only speculate as to what reason Peter doesn’t include that either he’s trying to be modest because he had the faith to get out of the boat but didn’t want to brag about it or maybe he was embarrassed because he doubted once he got out of the boat we really don’t know why but we know that Matthew’s the one that records that story and so take take all their accounts together, they’re telling the same story, and they’re telling us about a time when Jesus has started to become more open about who He is.

The time is approaching when people need to understand who Jesus is, and He’s trying to get His disciples, at least. He still may not want the crowd to understand all that they will understand later about who He is, but He wants His disciples to understand, and they still don’t. And so the storm provided another opportunity for the disciples to see just exactly who Jesus is. And they saw his nature and his identity on display in three ways.

When I say his nature and his identity, by nature I mean what he is. That Jesus Christ is God, the Son in human flesh. That Jesus Christ is more than any mere human teacher.

And by the way, I know that I have harped on this point like I’m playing a one-string banjo up here the whole time through the study of Mark. But I get so irritated the way modern skeptics try to play the gospels against each other and say that John, you know, it was just their own opinions because John makes it seem like Jesus Christ is God. He’s very open about it.

Mark just presents him as a man. And they’ve tried to put the gospel writers at odds. As we have gone through this study, verse by verse through the book of Mark, I have been struck in a way that I’ve never noticed because I’ve never done a verse-by-verse study through Mark before, I’ve been struck in a way that I’ve never noticed before that Mark is, each section of the text, he is putting another brick in the wall of making his case that Jesus Christ is God.

He is every bit as emphatic about this case as John is. His language isn’t just quite as overt. And so John later on gets out the megaphone and says it loud for the people in the back, but Mark is saying the same thing.

So when we say his nature was on display, it means the fact that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. His identity is the fact that he is the Messiah, that he is the Son of God. All of this is what he’s putting on display.

He put this on display in three ways in this text. First of all is in verses 48 and 49, the way that he walked on water, or I should say in this story, because we’re going to look at Matthew as well, in the way that he walked on water in verses 48 and 49. It says that he just came strolling out by them.

He’s out for a walk in the midst of the water. He came to them walking on the sea and would have passed them by. And we will get into this more in just a moment.

That doesn’t mean he was just going to leave them there. See ya, you’re on your own. I’m just going to keep on going.

That’s not what passed them by means. It means he was going to come close to them. He’s just out for a walk on the water.

I can’t do that. Can you do that? if you say you can we’ll fill up the baptistry and put you to the test all right because I don’t believe it I was born at night but not last night I have never seen anybody who is capable of walking on water it defies the laws of physics for a person to walk on the water unless you are the author of those laws of physics and they’re a little more specific than we realized you and I can’t do that that’s why it shocked them so much that’s why they thought it can’t possibly be a person and their mind went immediately to ghost. I still don’t understand why their mind immediately went to ghost. Hey, maybe it’s the guy that you’ve seen raise dead people and just made food appear, but their mind went to ghost. It’s really, it’s because they still don’t understand who Jesus is.

But that’s why it was so shocking because it’s a thing that people can’t do, that people don’t do. So by the very fact that Jesus was able to do this, and from the description in here of what he’s doing and how he’s doing it. He’s just very nonchalant.

It’s just another night walking on the water for Jesus. That to them was a sign. Once they finally got ghost out of their mind and thought about it and recognized, he said, it is I, don’t be afraid, be of good cheer.

Once they realized who it was, it was a sign to them. Okay, he’s not just an ordinary human being. He’s something more.

So the fact that he walked on the water put who he was on display, who he is. Then there’s the story in Matthew about the fact that he called Peter to walk on water. Now, as I understand, I’ve never been athletic, but as I understand it, the job of a coach is to pull out the best from you that you’ve got inside.

I think you coach some, don’t you, Lee? That’s what you want to do. You want to take what they’ve got inside and pull it out and help them realize that, right?

All right. I don’t think there’s any amount of coaching that can get you to walk on water, right? Again, we’ve got the baptistry thing.

We’ll try it later if we need to. I don’t think there’s any. .

. A human coach can only work with what they’ve got. And so the very fact that Jesus tells Peter to get out and walk on water, Peter didn’t have that ability.

It’s not some new agey thing that the power was inside of Peter all along and Jesus just called it out. No, no, no. Jesus commanded him to walk on water. That was something that only Jesus could make happen.

And for all the talk we do about the disciples and how they not understand? How did they not believe this? You’ve got to give Peter, you’ve got to give the man credit for having the faith it took to step out of the boat, because I’m not sure I would have.

Because I’m not always inclined to step out of the boat when Jesus calls me to figuratively, if you understand what I’m saying by that. It’s not always my first impulse to say, yeah, I’ll step out on faith and do the hard thing in front of me, because Jesus told me to. Peter was willing to do it.

But the fact that he called Peter and enabled him to walk on the water and rescued him as he did. Everything about that story points to Jesus Christ being more than a mere man. And then we could almost miss it the way some of the gospel writers tell it.

He calmed the storm. It’s almost an afterthought the way they record it. Because at this point it’s kind of, yeah, what else is new?

He’s already calmed storms in front of them. But he does it again and I don’t think the second time should be any less impressive than the first time. They record, Mark records, for example, in verses 51 and 52, then he went up into the boat with him and the wind ceased.

And that’s why I say they almost, it’s almost an afterthought. And by the way, I’m not saying the gospel writers are not impressed. Right?

I’m just saying at this point, they are so focused on the miracle of him walking on the water that they tag on there as well. Oh, by the way, and he calmed the storm again. Folks, that should not be any less incredible to us the second time or the 10,000th time than it was the first time.

Shouldn’t be any less impressive. When God comes through for us and when God does what only God can do for the millionth time in our lives, it is no less something that only God can do than it was the first time He came through for us. And I think there’s probably, I’m not going to get too deep into this, but I think there’s probably a lesson in there for me and for you about sometimes being thankful to God for the ways He comes through to us instead of taking them for granted.

Oh yeah, He’s God. He does that all the time. Doesn’t make it any less an act of God than the first time He did it.

And so we see the walking on the water, calling Peter out. We see the calming of the storm. All three of these things showed them and show us today also who Jesus Christ is.

These were things that a mere man could not do. Not even an extraordinary man. Not even a great spiritual teacher, not even a prophet.

These are things that no ordinary man could do. So he’s operating outside of the norms of nature as we understand them. I want to say more about that, but I’m going to get bogged down, so I’m going to move on.

Just understand he’s operating. This is not the way nature normally operates. And so everything they’re seeing in front of them is just another flashing neon sign telling them he is not just an ordinary man.

And so they saw these things and they recognized, at least for a moment, who he is. And we’re not just talking about identity, because it does tell us in verse 49 they thought he was a ghost at first. And so to understand who he is is not just saying that, oh, okay, it’s not a ghost, it’s Jesus. Like, hope you don’t mind me telling this story.

Daniela scared the life out of me right before church started. I was in the in the copy room fighting with the printer and she was standing there at the window when I looked up and I clutched my chest and about hit the floor because I was not expecting anybody to be there, right? Which was probably an overreaction, but it was it was my overreaction.

So and it took me a split second to realize it’s Daniela. I don’t know who I thought it was. I just saw a person.

Yeah, it’s not a comment on you. There was a figure there that I was not expecting. And then I realized, oh, it’s Daniela.

Come to say something very nice to me and give me a free cardiology checkup, right? And everything appears to be ship-shaped. It took me a second to realize her identity.

That’s not what I’m talking about when I say they recognized who He is. Oh, it’s not some scary shadowy figure out there, it’s Jesus. When I say they recognized who He is, I mean by His nature that He’s God.

And we can see this in verse 51 where it says, they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and they marveled. They were in awe. They were so amazed.

When He says beyond measure, they were amazed to a point that you couldn’t by it. This was maybe the most amazed they had ever been in their lives up to that point. And Matthew is even clearer.

He said, those who were in the boat came and worshiped him saying, truly you are the son of God. They got the message. The storm provided another opportunity.

They got the message at least for now, at least that night. But this storm provided another opportunity for the disciples to see who Jesus is. And that was his plan all along.

Revealing his nature to his disciples was his plan all along. We need to understand verse 48 properly. I’ve told you a couple times, we’ll come back to verse 48.

It says, then he saw them straining at rowing for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea and would have passed them by. I dug into this quite a bit because as I was reading it, you know, you read that phrase and he would have passed them by.

And I’m thinking of those times when my wife is following me somewhere in separate vehicles and we get close enough that she finally knows where she’s going and she whips around me and takes off and is like, see you, right? Because I’ve told you, right? I drive like an old person and she just doesn’t have time for it.

She’s just going to pass me by. That’s not what we’re talking about. When it says Jesus was going to pass them by, it was talking about coming near to them in a way that they could see him, in a way that he could interact with them, and they just happened to have seen him and thought he was a ghost. It doesn’t mean that he planned to just keep on going because that would be uncharacteristic of everything we know about Jesus, that he sees them out there rowing and straining against the wind, and suddenly he’s just like, see you.

Y’all have a good time out there. There’s nothing about that that sounds like Jesus as we’ve come to know him in the scriptures. He had seen them in distress in verse 48, and He came near to give them the opportunity to call out to Him.

And I think this is a continuation of the lesson on faith that He taught them in an earlier text that we’ve looked at in Mark chapter 4 where He calmed the storm before. In that case, He was asleep on the boat. He was with them on the boat when the storm came up, and they just lost their ever-loving minds.

And they had the audacity to say to Him, Do you not care? Do you not care that we’re about to sink? and he gently chastens their, more gently than I would have, he gently chastens their lack of faith, calms the storm, actually reversed that order, I think.

Well, now they’re in the middle of the storm and he’s not in the boat with them, but he’s still nearby. He’s giving them the opportunity to call out to trust in him. They went a different direction though and just said, oh no, it’s a ghost, right?

But by seeing him and calling out to him instead of panicking about the storm, but say, there’s Jesus, let’s call out to him. By calling out to him, they would have demonstrated their faith and they would have seen him demonstrate his power again. They just took a little detour through the ghost thing.

But one other thing we need to understand about this, beyond just the whole thing that passed them by means came near to them, this word is used somewhere else. This Greek word, and I’m not going to, it’s a tricky one to pronounce. But there’s a Greek word here that’s translated as passed by in verse 48.

there’s a greek translation of the old testament that they would have used in jesus time called the septuagint the septuagint uses the same word and it’s translated the same way in english in exodus chapter 33 where the story is told about how god hid moses in the cleft of the rock and passed him by now if you recall back what the purpose was of god passing by moses it was to reveal a little glimpse of his glory to Moses while he was hidden in the cleft of the rock. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jesus Christ set out to pass them by and give them a little glimpse of his glory and who he was while they were stuck there on the boat. I think all of this fits together to tell us that everything about Jesus’ actions that night were designed to bring the disciples to an understanding of just exactly who and what Jesus is.

They had missed this point during the previous miracles, but He’s giving them another chance. He’s giving them another opportunity to finally get it, to finally understand. By the way, aren’t you glad?

Aren’t you thankful that He is gracious enough to give us these multiple opportunities? I don’t always get things the first time. Rarely do I get things the first time.

God has to tell me over and over. Charlie and I have conversations about our kids that we get frustrated. Believe it or not, we don’t have to tell them things just one time and then get it.

We have to tell them over and over and over, and we get frustrated with this. And usually whichever one is not frustrated at the moment will tell the other one, wait a minute, how many times does God have to tell us something? Okay, so I guess we keep giving them an opportunity to get it.

Folks, Jesus Christ gave them opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to see Him for who He was and who He is. I am thankful that He doesn’t just look at us usually after one opportunity and say, well, that’s past, you don’t get any more. But He’s gracious and He shows Himself and who He is in a multitude of ways.

We can see Him all through the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit convicts us. But He gives us those opportunities to come to terms with who He is.

And this also shows us that we are better off knowing Jesus Christ for who He is rather than who we want Him to be. Because look at where this started in John 6, where it said that the crowds were ready to sweep Jesus into power. And so he just got out of there.

The crowds were looking at Jesus. They were after the Jesus they wanted. They were after a Jesus who was going to rally the nation.

They were after a Jesus who was going to stir up the people. They were after a Jesus who was going to kick the Romans out. They were after a Jesus who was going to restore the glory of the nation.

And all of that sounds pretty good if you’re in their culture. But what they were missing is who Jesus is. He’s not just some political leader, not just some military leader.

He’s God in human flesh. He’s God the Son. He’s the second person of the Trinity.

He can do so much more than liberate the country. He can do so much more than maybe marginally improve people’s lives for a generation in a small corner of the world. He could do so much more than that.

That’s who they were after. That’s who they thought he was. That’s who they were looking for him to be was that guy who, let’s be honest, even the most skilled political leaders of our lives have only made our day-to-day lives a tiny bit better.

That’s who they were looking for though. That’s where their hope was that they thought in this guy who was going to fix all their problems, all their problems here. And yet what Jesus brought to the table was the ability to transform hearts and give eternal life.

They were looking for somebody to fix the problems in their country when Jesus offered them the ability to fix the problem in their relationship with God. Jesus was offering them something that wasn’t necessarily quite as visible, but something of infinitely more worth. Jesus was offering them something far more valuable than they could ever conceive of.

And what a shame it would have been if they had, well, and so many did. What a shame it is that so many did get so swept up in who they hoped Jesus would be that they missed who Jesus is. And the sad truth is that this takes place in churches all over this country.

Now, I’m not saying they’re the majority of churches, but there are churches that the redefinition of Jesus Christ or the attempted redefinition of Jesus Christ is shameless and shameful at the same time. There is a so-called pastor. So-called pastor.

Actually, there are a few that I’ve seen that make these social media videos saying, well, if you read this text, God is this, God is that. One man claimed and argued that God is LGBT. People will tell you that Jesus Christ is all these things.

What they will do. And it’s possible for us on the other side to do this ourselves. You know, it’s possible to try to make the American Jesus.

Everybody’s capable of this, but the most egregious things I’m seeing are coming when the world is trying to reshape Jesus in its image. They want a Jesus who looks like them. And maybe it’s human nature.

Maybe we’re all guilty of that on some level. That example just sticks out in my mind. But here’s the thing.

If we take Jesus and try to make Him be what we want Him to be, we miss out on who He is. And the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus who came and lived among us, the Jesus who came and taught with authority, the Jesus who came and revealed the truth, the Jesus who lived a sinless life, the Jesus who went to the cross as the only sacrifice for our sins, the Jesus who rose again in the same body three days later, the Jesus who ascended at the right hand of God the Father, the Jesus who commands us to repent and calls us to transformation, that Jesus is infinitely better than any Jesus that anybody is inventing in their minds today. He’s so much better.

And it would have been a mistake for them to conform Jesus to their expectations. It’s a mistake for us to conform Jesus to our expectations because we’re better off knowing Him for who He is. And sometimes that’s hard because it’s inconvenient.

He calls us to do inconvenient things. I think I talked about that this morning, that our Christianity should be inconvenient to us at times. Sometimes knowing Jesus for who He is is difficult because who He is is holy.

Yes, He’s loving. Yes, He’s merciful, but He’s also holy, and He’s also our master. And so it may be difficult to, at times, it may be difficult for our flesh to accept who He is, but who He is is always better than who we want.

him to be. As I said, they were looking for a political Messiah, and a lot of people today are looking for a symbol. Let me tell you what, a political leader never died for our sins, and a symbol never made us right with God.

But Jesus Christ, God the Son in human flesh, came to earth so that he could die on the cross as the payment for the sins that you and I committed, so that we could be reconciled to a holy God. And this story is just one more attempt, this event. When I say story, when I say the word story in this context, I don’t want that to sound like fairy tale story, like I don’t believe it happened.

I absolutely believe this or I wouldn’t be telling you. But this story, these events, this is one more opportunity Jesus gave them to know him for who he is so they could one day understand what he was coming to do.