Against the Wind

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, January 13, 2013.  The Bible verses used are Mark 6:45-52.

Jesus’ walking on water is one of his most famous miracles. If you asked most people "name a miracle of Jesus", walking on water would be one of the three or four first things they’d come up with. Almost everybody, even people who don’t believe in Jesus, knows that the Bible says Jesus walked on water. It’s an image that makes a huge impression on us as human beings.

I wonder if Jesus looked at it the same way we do. I mean, it’s not a miracle that really helped anybody. No one was healed. No one was fed. I wonder if Jesus would be pleased that the image of him walking on water is something that’s so strong for us.

Only three of the four gospels mention this story. Luke does not. Of the three that do, only one of them, Matthew mentions one of the most famous parts of the story, the part where Peter tries to walk on the water, too, and starts to sink and has to be rescued by Jesus. That part does not show up in the other two accounts of this story, including the one we read today from Mark.

So let’s look at this miracle as Mark gives it to us. Jesus has just fed five thousand people. Then he puts the disciples in a boat and tells them to go on ahead of him while he goes up on a mountain to pray. Evening comes. The disciples had gotten to the middle of the lake when the wind comes up. It’s blowing in the opposite direction from where the disciples are trying to go.

This next part is interesting to me. Listen to this. We’re told that during the evening, Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars, trying to go against the wind and not getting anyplace. It appears, though, that Jesus did nothing to help them. It was not until it was almost dawn that he started to walk across the lake. Even then, we’re told, he was about to just pass by them. It was not until the disciples saw him and thought he must be a ghost and were terrified that Jesus spoke to them, climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. And we’re told that, at this point, the disciples were completely amazed.

I wonder, when Jesus set out walking across the lake, did he know what was going to happen? Was it his plan all along to help the disciples? Or was he just walking across the lake because he didn’t have a boat and it was a lot easier than walking all the way around on the shore? In other words, did Jesus have a plan with this, or was Jesus just walking across the lake because he could?

I don’t know. On the one hand, with Jesus being the divine Son of God, you’d think he’d know what was going to happen. On the other hand, Jesus was also fully human. The passage does not read as if this was Jesus’ plan all along. It reads as if he was intending to just walk by the disciples when all of a sudden the disciples saw him and more-or-less forced his hand.

It’s one of the things we don’t really understand about Jesus. We say that Jesus was at once fully divine and fully human, but we don’t really know how that worked. It’s one of those things we say to try to explain the unexplainable.

The point of this sermon series, though, is not to examine obscure points of theology. The point of this sermon series is for us to see what lessons we can learn from the miracles of Jesus. So let’s look at the miracle of Jesus’ walking on water from that standpoint. What can we learn from this miracle?

Well, one of the things we learn is that Jesus has tremendous power. That’s something we learn from all of Jesus’ miracles, of course, but it’s not something to be glossed over, either. Look at the last sentence of our reading. It says the disciples "were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened."

It seems like that happens just about every time Jesus performs a miracle. No matter how many times the disciples saw Jesus work miracles, they were constantly amazed by them. You’d think after a while, it would get to be kind of routine, but it looks like it never did. Time after time, Jesus would work a miracle, and time after time the disciples would be amazed by it. No matter how many miracles Jesus performed, the disciples were always caught by surprise.

I think that’s true of us sometimes, too. It’s true of me, anyway. I’ll have times when I pray to God for something. It might be for God to help me with a sermon, or for God to give me more time to get things done, or whatever. And then, I find that what I prayed for actually happened. The sermon came together, or some extra time opened up, or something did not take as long as I thought it would. And each time, I’m caught by surprise a little bit. I go, wow, God actually did that. You’d think I’d eventually get used to that happening, but I never do.

And that brings me to the second thing I think we can learn from this. Remember, we’re told that Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars, trying to row across the lake and not getting anywhere. We’re not told that Jesus used any sort of superhuman eyesight to see this, so my assumption is that he could actually see them from the shore. If so, then it stands to reason that, if Jesus could see the disciples, the disciples could also see Jesus.

At least, they could see him if they looked. The thing is, though, that it does not appear that any of them looked. They were straining against the wind, working as hard as they could, and getting nowhere. They were so intent on their job, they were trying so hard to get that boat across the lake, that it apparently never occurred to any of them to look up and see if Jesus might be around somewhere and be able to help.

I think that happens to us sometimes, too. Again, it happens to me. I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing, I get so involved in struggling against whatever it is I’m struggling against at the time, that I forget to look up. I forget to see if Jesus might be around somewhere and be able to help. It’s not that Jesus is not there. He is. He’s right there. He’s big as life. If only I’d look. But I don’t.

Jesus did not do anything to help the disciples until they saw he was there. The way it’s written, it looks like he was going to just walk on by them and go to the other side of the lake. It was only after they looked up and saw Jesus that Jesus stopped, climbed into the boat, and made the wind die down.

Now, I’m not saying that God will never help us until we ask. There have been many times in my life where I believe God stepped in to help even though I did not ask. I do think, though, that when we get so bound and determined to do things by ourselves that we don’t notice God’s presence, even when God is standing right there, God may let us flounder around on our own for a while.

You and I can get really stubborn sometimes. We can get really determined to do things on our own. We get so determined to do things on our own that we don’t see God. God is present, but we’re so focused on trying to do things ourselves that we don’t look up to see that God is right there, waiting for us to notice and ask for help.

And maybe that’s the main reason this miracle is in the Bible. Maybe it’s a reminder to all of us. When we’re having trouble, when it feels like we’re straining against the wind and getting nowhere, we need to stop what we’re doing and look up. When we do, the chances are we’ll see God there, just waiting for us to notice God’s presence, and waiting for us to ask for help.

We may not recognize God right away, just like the disciples did not recognize Jesus right away. God may look like a friend who comes to give us a helping hand or an encouraging word. God may look like a family member who came to support us when we needed support. God may even look like a card or an email that came at just the right time. God may even look like someone we don’t even know, but who gave us a smile when we really needed one.

We all have times when it feels like we’re straining against the wind and going nowhere. When we do, we need to look up. Because God will be there, and God will be ready to help.