Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction
Where is your focus?
What your mind dwells on determines what you make of your circumstances.
If they’d been in worship, they’d think, “that must be Jesus” when they saw someone walking on the sea.
Read
Turn out the Lights, the Party’s Over
45–48a
(Forcefully) sending away disciples—surprisingly strong word (compelled); why?
Let’s first look at the crowd:
Dismissing the crowd: “loose; grant release”
Why?
Hints in narrative that crowd had something in mind.
Mark doesn’t spell it out, but John does:
So why does Mark say “compelled” 12 to go? Verb suggests they were reluctant to go.
Jesus probably doesn’t want them swept away w/ crowd
Communion with the father
We know Jesus often communed w/ Father in prayer, only 3 specific mentions in Mark of Jesus praying:
Beginning of ministry, 1:35
Here
Gethsemane, 14:35
This is apparently a critical time.
Jesus may have felt pressure to take on kingly role.
Certainly preparing for a shift in ministry: Mark’s geo structure, been in Galilee/area, shift to Gentile areas in ch 7. Shift w/ disciples, as we’ll see later in this passage.
Whatever the specific needs, Mark points out Jesus spending time w/ Father in prayer
If the man Jesus, who in addition to being human was also God himself, needed to commune w/ Father in prayer, how much more should we?
Know who’s not depicted in prayer in Mark?
Twelve.
Will be in Acts constantly, but haven’t learned yet.
Wish they had been in prayer, maybe response to next scene would have been better
Look!
Out on the Lake!
What Could It Be?
v 48 has probably 2nd miracle of the text so far
First was dismissing the crowd: how does one man get 5000 men to stand down from an insurrection against Rome?
Second is this: Jesus is on the land, disciples are “out on the sea”; literally “in the midst of the sea”—not near shore, out in the middle.
It’s night, about 4th watch (Mark, writing for us Gentiles, uses Roman system for reckoning time, 3-6 AM), long distance, how does he see them?
He does, and now comes his 3rd miracle in this passage, the important one:
And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea
Now if you were just a simple, small-town man or woman, without any fancy theological training, and you read that for the 1st time, what would you think Mark was describing?
Jesus walking out into the middle of the lake, on the water
Well, if you’re really sophisticated, like so many scholars and academics, you’d realize that’s impossible!
So you’d do what they’ve done, work hard to explain what Mark must *really* have been describing: Jesus was walking along the shore, or there was a barely-submerged sandbar, etc.
I could give you multiple arguments why Mark must have meant exactly what a simple reading suggests (Jesus walking on water).
I’m not going to assume you’re as foolish as an academic, and waste your time.
The plain sense of the text is exactly what it sounds like: Jesus is walking on water.
Mark is describing a miracle
Seems like kinda random miracle.
Why walking on the sea?
Not random.
Specifically something Yahweh, God of Israel, does.
Remember how Job described God in response to his friends?
In Job 9 we read:
Job: Yahweh tramples the waves of the sea and passed by me, same wording Mark uses.
Hold that thought
The psalmist Asaph said to God in psa 77:
Isaiah knew this too.
And not just out for a stroll: both Asaph and Isaiah tie his walking on/through sea with the Exodus, Israelites passing through the Red Sea
Not a random miracle.
Jesus making a point, identifying with God of OT.
Comm James Edwards:
In walking on the water toward the disciples, Jesus walks where only God can walk.
As in the forgiveness of sins (2:10) and in his power over nature (4:39), walking on the lake identifies Jesus unmistakably with God.
Further indication: Mark’s strange comment, “meant to pass by them?”
Could indicate his intention was to keep walking and let them catch up, but think there’s more to it.
I think he’s intending to pass by them like God passed by Moses in the cleft of the rock.
This miracle isn’t for anyone’s healing or deliverance; it’s simply to show them his glory
One more indication that was Jesus’ intention:
But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
In the original language, “it is I” = normal expression.
But it’s also the language for God’s self-revelation to Moses at the burning bush: “I am”
“Take heart.
I AM.
Do not be afraid.”
This is a special miracle.
It’s for the disciples only.
Jesus doesn’t heal any sick, raise any dead, cast out any demons; simply shows them who he is
Mark doesn’t just say Jesus is the Son of God (1:1), he shows it
Do they get it?
The Disciples’ Failure
Now, is walking on water possible?
Of course not.
Why disciples respond as they do:
Mark 6:49–50 (ESV)
but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified.
Mark records the disciples believed what they saw was a ghost.
Word used only here and in Matthew, from which we get “phantasm.”
“Ghost” is good translation.
They’re seeing something that should be impossible
Mark says they “cried out,” same word he used about the demon-possessed man in the synagogue when Jesus teaching back in ch 1.
Mark doesn’t record what they cried out, let me fill that in: they said, from original Aramaic, “aaaah!”
You can sympathize with their fearful response, right?
Why does Mark criticize them so harshly?:
English Standard Version (Chapter 6)
And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
This is a twist.
First time Mark has outright criticized the 12. Mark has been portraying the disciples as insiders, those with the privilege of having the secrets of the kingdom revealed to them.
Here he says they did not understand
More than that, says their hearts were hardened.
Harsh language.
Last time Mark described “hardened hearts” he was talking about those who opposed Jesus in the synagogue when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand
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