Pentecost 7

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 7
PROPER: 12B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 30, 2000


TEXT: Mark 6:45-52 - When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, the thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

ISSUE: - Jesus walking on water is something of an embarrassment to some people today. Yet, the story is not so much a strange miracle as it is an epiphany story of who Jesus Christ is. He is divine presence and expression of God’s bountiful grace on both land and sea, at the feeding of the 5,000, the previous story, and of bountiful assistance and aid to a struggling community. Don’t be afraid, it is I, (Ego eimi.) God is with his people.
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The story that Mark gives us of Jesus walking on the water is a wonderful and remarkable story. For some people today the fact that Jesus is supposed to have walked on water is something of an embarrassment. It is an event used sarcastically when we say of someone: “He thinks he can walk on water.” Some scholars of the past have mocked the story for have little or know value. It has been thought by some to have no relevant meaning. It is thought of at times as little more than a folk tale about Jesus, perhaps invented and told by superstitious people. It does have a sort of ghost story appeal. Jesus appears in the darkness, walking on the fog laden waters, and the disciples are terrified, and scream. For saome it is a misplaced post-resurrection story. Whatever, the story is recounted several times in the Christian Scriptures. Mark tells two stories of Jesus calming the storm, one in the boat we heard several weeks ago; one today of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm. Matthew has both stories. Luke has Jesus calming the storm in the boat, and even John’s Gospel has the story of Jesus walking on the water. The story obviously had some special meaning to the early church that can’t be easily dismissed.
As mark tells the story it follows the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus had been with his disciples feeding a multitude in some profound way. People’s bodies and spirits were fed. After that even Jesus takes time for prayer alone, and send his disciples off. In the middle of the night, the disciples experience one of those terrible storms which come up quickly on the Sea of Galilee. The sea was a place of chaos and danger for these people. It was a place of the dwellings of evil spirits. The disciples are attempting to row the craft against an evil blowing breath or spirit. In the raging storm they see Jesus walking on the water. (Some scholars believe the translation could be walking by the sea , but such a translation greatly diminishes the power and impact of the story.) Jesus speaks to the disciples saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” He steps into the boat, the storm is calmed. The disciples whose hearts are hardened are astounded. What seems to be the key point of the story is Jesus’ saying “It is I.” The Greek translation of “It is I,” or “I am.” The Hebrew name for God is I AM (Yaweh). They story of Jesus walking on the water is not so much a miracle story as it is an epiphany. It is a story that is meant to be a manifestation of Jesus as a divine being who has the power to calm the storm, who has power over the evil spirits and who can bring calm and hope to God’s people. God is with them in the danger and the chaos, and the evil spiritedness of the world.
There are many related Hebrew Scripture passages that infiltrate this passage. Jesus is said to be walking on the sea, and He intended to pass them (the disciples) by. In Exodus, Moses is asking to see the dazzling light of God’s presence, and God replies: “I will let my splendor pass by you.” Jesus is seen as the dazzling presence of God passing by his disciples in their boat on the sea.
What’s more is the fact that the early church, and certainly Mark saw Jesus as a powerful leader and shepherd of his people in ways very similar to Moses and Elijah. Moses, as a man of God, had the ability to raise his staff and part the sea, in order that God’s people could be delivered from the oppression of the evil spirited pharaoh of Egypt. In the Elijah/Elisha story that we read as the Hebrew Scripture reading today, Elijah has the power of God, and by striking the Jordan River with his cloak, the river parts so that the prophets may cross. Once the power of Elijah is transferred to Elisha, he is given the same power to cross the Jordan River.
Psalm 77 is a song intended to give comfort to those whose lives were in distress. The psalmist writes of God’s presence to a people in distress: “When the waters saw you, O God, they were afraid, and the depths of the sea trembled. (vs. 16) . . . . You walked through the waves; you crossed the deep sea, but your footprints could not be seen. You led your people like a shepherd . . . (vs. 19-20) It is interested that the shepherding of God, or Jesus as well extends beyond the dry land into the seas of danger and chaos.
What I believe is one of the most revealing Hebrew Scripture passages which is related to Jesus’ walking on the water is from Isaiah 43:16f. Isaiah writes to God’s people who were about to escape from their bondage in Babylon: “Long ago the Lord made a road through the sea, a path through the swirling waters. . . . . . . Watch for the new thing that I am going to do.” Undoubtedly the early church, Mark, saw Jesus as walking the road through the sea, walking the path of the swirling tempestuous seas and was doing the new thing of bringing peace to his people, of reassuring them that God was with them. There was victory over the evil spiritedness and the world’s chaos. God was in Christ restoring peace and calm to his people. For the people who first heard this story of Jesus walking on the water, it was not merely a superstitious ghost story. It was the reassurance that God had indeed built a road across the sea, a path through the swirling waters. And God in Christ Jesus had come to reclaim his people and save them from the evil spiritedness, from the chaos, from the injustices, from their degradation, and from the oppressions of their time.
What does this passage mean for us today? What is it’s relevance to us in the modern scientific world where the wonders of technology of our age really seems to greatly diminish the so called miracles of an age gone by? What’s important to us in a religious sense is not the miraculous aspect of the story, but what the story means. The issue of Jesus walking on the water, is not the miraculous, by the epiphany, the manifestation of the meaning of Christ coming to his disciples. They are in the dark. Human beings today, in spite of all the technology know what it feels like to be depressed, to feel blue, to be in the darkness of uncertainty, and unassured of the direction our lives should be taking. To have someone we love become sick, and to live in a world where there are diseases we cannot conquer. To lose a loved one. To lose a job, to go through a divorce. These are some of the bleak times of our lives, the dark hours of our lives.
We too live in times of chaos, times of danger. We’ve hardly ever known a time when we as a country have not been at war or subject to some possibility of terrorism. We live constantly with dangers and uncertainties that can be dramatized as being as wobbly and unstable as being on a boat in a storm. We are subject to powers and circumstances that are often far beyond our control. We sure do cherish those times when life feels firm, when we feel like we are on solid ground. But inevitably there of those times of anxiety, uncertainty, when we are totally out of control and feel as if we are in a small boat on a great sea in a whirlwind of a storm. What becomes our strength, our peace, our calm, our hope and assurance is the faith and confident belief that Long ago the Lord made a road through the sea, and a path through the swirling waters. Christ is the Lord, the very presence of God who is walking the road of calm beside us, and ready to step into our lives to bring us peace. Jesus Christ is the presence of God ready to be the hope and the stability for troubled uncertain lives, that enables us to carry on with what we must do and what we must face. God is with us. God’s grace abounds both in the stability of our lives as well as in the troubled uncertain times. God reveals his glory in Christ who is the great epiphany, the manifestation of God. Into the uncertainty, feebleness, into the instability, the vacillation, the waves of doubt in all of lives, Christ brings the calmness of his loving and forgiving presence.