Sermon Notes: Mark 6:45-52
Mark 6:45-52
Mark’s Big Idea: Jesus is the divine Son of God and the suffering servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
The Big Idea of Mark 6:14-44: Jesus leads his disciples into difficult obedience to protect, train, and reveal himself to them. In doing this he exposes their hard hearts so that they, and we, might see our need for the new heart only his finished work can give. In doing this Jesus also teaches us how to live by faith in a life of obedience.
Author: John Mark
Audience: Gentiles who are being told the good news of the kingdom of Jesus. Followers of Jesus who are growing up into maturity in Christ and learning how to live under the rule of his increasing kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Occasion: Mark, as Peter’s missionary helper, is writing a gospel “tract” for use on the field as they preach the good news to Gentiles.
Genre: Overall, historical biography.
Key words/phrases/repeated words:
Immediately - (theme – Jesus on mission not in a hurry) v. 45, 50
Made his disciples get into the boat – They were hesitant to leave while Jesus dismissed the crowd. He had to make them leave. Why? Could be related to the reasons John Mark emphasizes the crowd being men and hustling to find Jesus, and that is that they were likely anticipating Jesus to be the next Judas Maccabeus, and with Jesus feeding them all, the fervor was rising, and Jesus didn’t want his disciples getting swept up in that. So, to protect them from getting swept up, he made them leave.
Go before him
Pray
And he saw that they were making headway painfully – Jesus is aware of the disciple’s struggle. How? This is likely not merely from here to the bypass? Jesus, Yahweh in the flesh, is clearly aware of the disciple’s situation.
Walking on the sea – This is cool, but not surprising. Jesus walking on the water sort of figures after the stuff he’s done up to this point.
Meant to pass them by – Why would Jesus just not go to Bethsaida by land, why choose to walk on the water? If he’s going to walk on the water, why would Jesus intend to pass them by? Isn’t that the point of walking on the water, so your dudes can see? If he intended to pass them by, why did he not just do it? The disciples see Jesus, but think what they are seeing is a ghost, so why don’t they recognize it is Jesus? Is it because they didn’t think he could do that? Does their belief in what a ghost is cut out the idea that the flesh and blood God could not do this? What is Jesus doing here? Jesus is going to reveal something about his disciples for their good later on and our good now with this encounter.
Astounded - Because they did not understand about the loaves...their hearts were hardened. Hardened is a perfect passive participle. This is the focus of the text.
The word “astounded” is not positive. It’s not a synonym with amazed. The Greek word (existemi) means “to be moved out of place”, “to be out of one’s mind”, or “beside oneself”. I don’t believe it is a stretch to say that this feels like an existential threat to them.
You could say this encounter with Jesus shook the disciples, and their reason for being this out of control of themselves is they had hard hearts.
Contrasts/comparisons:
Contrast – Made the disciples leave while he stayed and sent the crowd away.
Contrast – Disciples rowing while Jesus is on the mountain praying.
Comparison – The disciples being astounded due to their hard hearts. The comparison is between “astounded” and “hard hearts”.
Expressions of time:
V. 46 “After” – Jesus only goes up the mountain to pray when he is alone.
V. 47 “When” – Advances the history by letting us know some time has passed between events.
V. 49 “When” – This “when” connects Jesus’ intent to his disciple’s interaction with the moment. Jesus “meant” to pass them by, but the disciple saw Jesus, and “when” they did they made a decision to interact with what they saw, and that decision in time moved Jesus to respond a certain way.
Terms of conclusion:
V. 48 “For” – Indicates why they are moving slowly. The wind was working against them.
V. 50 “For”
V. 52 “For” – Indicates the reason the disciples are astounded by what they have experienced, and that is that they didn’t really understand about the feeding of the 5k due to hardened hearts.
The disciple’s hearts are full of ignorance, fear, and unbelief. Jesus is still working on them.
What does the text say?
Jesus has fed five thousand men, and he, being the divine Son of God, is on a mission as the Messiah, so he immediately makes his disciples get into the boat and go on to Bethsaida before him while he stays behind to dismiss the crowd.
Jesus disperses the crowd, and he goes up onto the mountain to pray. Jesus spends the day up on the mountain praying. The disciples are rowing back toward Bethsaida while Jesus is prioritizing his connection with the Father and Spirit.
What time is it? We don’t know. What we do know is the Roman watches of the evening. 6-9 PM is the first watch. 9-12 is the second watch. 12-3 is the third watch. 3-6 is the fourth watch.
So, if Jesus sends the disciples off when there is daylight, perhaps sometime in the first watch, or even before the first watch, they have been rowing for a minute.
Jesus is aware. Jesus is tuned in to the disciples. Just like he is tuned in to us right now.
Jesus, aware of the struggle, comes to the disciples during the fourth watch. So, it’s still dark and windy, and these men are tired.
Jesus intending to pass them by, responds to them when they see him and believe what they see is a ghost. They are afraid and cry out in terror. Jesus, being good, calms the disciples by identifying himself and declaring to them there is no need for fear.
Jesus gets into the boat, and the wind calms down.
The disciples are astounded, literally beside themselves, and the reason for their state of being astounded is that they have heard hearts and don’t yet even fully understand what Jesus just did in feeding the five thousand.
What does the text mean?
1. Jesus made the disciples do something they did not initially want to do to protect them and lead them.
Jesus will sometimes make us do things to protect us or lead us (acts 16).
2. Jesus sent his disciples and let them struggle for a time he determined was sufficient, and he tested them during the struggle.
Jesus will send us and let us struggle to train us.
3. Jesus gave the disciples an opportunity to see him or not see him while they were in the struggle.
Jesus comes walking on the water.
Now, in the Old Testament, only Yahweh makes his way on the water. See Job 9:8; 38:16, Psalm 77:19, Isaiah 43:16.
So, Jesus’ intent in displaying his identity could not be more explicit. Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh. Jesus is doing what his word says he does.
Yet, Jesus intended to pass them by.
But Jesus did not pass them by.
The reason Jesus did not pass them by is because they saw Jesus, they thought he was a ghost, cried out in fear, and Jesus speaks to them, identifies himself, assures them, and then joins them.
They clearly did not understand what they were witnessing.
Did they think this was Jesus, but unbelief led them to think Jesus as flesh and blook could not do this, so they attributed what they were seeing to a ghost?
From John Mark’s witness, this may be the case. The disciples have a hard heart problem, so they are seeing what is happening, but they don’t believe what they are seeing.
4. The disciples have hardened hearts.
The disciples are on the other side of the cross, burial, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit.
They have not yet experienced what we get to experience when we believe.
Mark uses a carefully chosen Greek verb form for the word “hardened.” (It is the perfect, passive, participle) . It indicates that the problem was not bound up merely with this specific, frightening meeting with Jesus. Rather, the disciples’ hardheartedness was a lingering problem.
The disciples still have what folks have until the powerful good news does its supernatural work. The disciples are hanging out with Jesus, but they are what we call “lost”.
The perfect tense is a past action that carries on indefinitely into the future unless acted on.
The passive voice indicates this hardened heart is what they received because they are humans born under the curse of Adam. (See Romans 5).
The participle indicates the state of their heart.
The disciples are not yet new heart, transformed, followers of Jesus Christ. These chosen apostle’s hearts are under the curse of sin, and they are in need of the finished work of Jesus applied to them.
This is hard for us to swallow. We usually don’t think this deeply about what we read in the gospels prior to Jesus’ cross.
The disciples are in this really precarious place where they are compelled by Jesus because the Creator is walking among them. They have followed him physically. Yet, like Judas, they may not finish the drill.
Jesus asked Peter in John 6 in a crucial moment when Jesus’ ministry is shrinking fast because he taught hard truth if he wanted to leave with the rest of the crowds.
People come and go from Jesus all throughout his ministry on earth before his resurrection. The rich young ruler went away sad because his wealth was his “god” after he was so close to stepping into the kingdom.
The question is whether this motley crew will hang on to Jesus until the cross, his burial, his resurrection, ascension, and sending the Spirit.
Thomas said he would not believe unless he felt the wounds of the Lord. When he felt them, he confessed and believed. The Lord told him that was good and yet blessed are those who would believe and never got to see what Thomas saw.
The disciple’s failure to comprehend what Jesus was doing yet still participate with him is wild and mysterious.
One reality it points to is that the work the disciples have done and will participate in until he dies in their place and rises is only because of the powerful name of Jesus and Jesus’ allowing them to wield his name because they are sincerely coming after him.
Gospel Connection: Good news! We are living on the completed side of Jesus’ work on the cross.
When Jesus told Nicodemas he had to be born of the water and the Spirit to enter his kingdom, he was preaching from his old Prophet Ezekiel’s words he had given him so long ago.
Listen to what the Lord Jesus by the Spirit gave Ezekiel: Ezekiel 36:22-27 (ESV) 22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
The disciples are in that precarious place where Jesus is calling them to him. They are tasting the power of the kingdom of God, but Jesus has not yet completed his work.
This, among the reasons we’ve already stated for the Messianic Secret, is why Jesus has to get to the cross and not impeded. Jesus won’t even let Peter’s good intentions get in the way.
If Jesus does not die for sin, he can’t keep the word he gave Ezekiel.
Jesus did die. Jesus was buried. Jesus did rise. Jesus did ascend. Jesus did send Holy Spirit.
You don’t have to battle a hard heart. You can have a new heart that is tender to Jesus.
So, repent and believe today!
Application:
1. If you are a follower of Jesus, don’t be surprised when he “makes” you be led in directions that are facilitated by his power and come with resistance.
Jesus make the disciples leave to protect them and give them the opportunity to experience him if they would as they struggled in the rowing.
Jesus would not let Paul and his dudes get into Mysia and Bithynia. The plans were not working. So, they concluded the Spirit of Jesus did not want them there after all. So, in the night the Lord Jesus gave a dream that gave direction. The winds were at their back, and the good news gets preached in Philippi, disciples are made, they deliver a slave girl from a demon of divination and then get thrown into prison for their good work. (See Acts 16).
Jesus did not let Paul follow carefully laid plans. He made them go in a different direction that led to kingdom success and a beating.
The question is whether Paul and Silas would choose to honor Jesus in the beating or get bitter.
What do you think they did?
They chose to worship.
2. Check your heart.
We live on the completed work of the cross side of the cross. We don’t have to have the dynamic of hanging around Jesus with a hard heart.
But Jesus was clear about weeds being sown among the wheat. That means there are hard hearts who may or may not know they have unconverted hearts. Jesus was clear that only good soil is saved soil. There are hard paths, rocky soil, and crowded soil in every gathering.
Is your heart a new heart that beats the rhythm of the kingdom of God? Don’t let proximity to a church service, a RL group, a student ministry, RK, global work, or serving foster kids alone make you believe those things alone define your walk of faith. Pagans have similarly good things.
Have you seen Jesus? Have you been compelled by the good news? Have you come under the work of the Spirit where you knew you were at war with God and needed to be reconciled back to God through Jesus?
3. Has the road been hard not because you were a fool or chose sin over righteousness, but because you chose to obey God’s word?
Do not miss Jesus’ walking on the water in the middle of hard winds and slow progress. Do not let bitterness cause you to mistake the Lord’s presence for something else. And do not become so focused on the difficulty of the task that you fail to see him.
Jesus may give you the opportunity either to see him and gain something more precious than gold, or to fixate on the hardship, hurt, and pain until bitterness becomes the prison from which you respond to everything, stunted, cold, and alone.
Take a moment of faith to look up and see.
Jesus is with us. Jesus has not forsaken us. Jesus promised he would not.