Making Headway Painfully: Walking on the Water

The Greek Tragedy

Prologue

Complication

Disciples

Crowds

Opponents

Demons

Turning Point

Denouement

Epilogue

But is it a tragedy?

The Story

Misplaced Messianic expectations managed - crowds - disciples

Their locations and activity

Their struggle, and the reason

The time

Walking on the Water

A stunt?

But Mark 3:8-9 When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him,

No stunt performed there

Attempts to explain - eg sand bank

Disciples’ response - cried out - distress - terror

What should have come to mind?

Job 9:1-8 Then Job answered and said: “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. He is wise in heart and mighty in strength —who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?— he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea;

Passing them by

Meaning?

Heiser: “If it’s weird, it’s important”

Moses - golden calf incident - command to leave Sinai - Moses’ intercession

Ex 22:12-23 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

1 Kings 19:9-12 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

Job 9:11 Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

An epiphany - but they don’t get it

‘It is I’ - God’s self-revelation to Moses in Ex 3:13-14 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

Application

Hard-heartedness

Ignorance

Superficiality

Dogmatism

Legalism

2 Cor 3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you?

Alec Motyer story

Literalism

John 2:18-21 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body

‘Making progress painfully’

Effortless, constant, spectacular progress??

A metaphor for normal Christian experience

Paul in 2 Tim: likens life to an athlete running a race - a soldier - a hard-working farmer

Paul in Eph 6: christian life as ‘wrestling against eg spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’

Painful progress is still progress!

Experience and Reality in Christian life

Subjective experience and objective reality

Jesus absent - or was he?

Mt 28:20 “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”