Lord of the Sea
Mark 6:45-56
April 13, 2008
This is one of two stories in the gospels about Jesus calming the stormy seas. In the first one he was asleep in the back of the boat, and in this one he comes walking on the water to the terrified disciples. These separate events led early Christian artists to depict the Church as a tiny boat in the storm tossed seas. Usually the picture is stylized, with the boat looking like a little tub and the twelve disciples wide eyed, bearded faces looking out at the turbulent sea around them. This image was captured not only in art, but in language. The English word nave, which describes the main part of the church where the congregation meets, comes from the Latin word for “ship.” Bear this image in mind as we go through this message. The ship represents the church – the vessel of salvation in a turbulent world. The disciples represent us – believers in the church who are cared for by God. The storm represents the world – powerful, unpredictable forces hostile to God that we fear might undo us, but in fact never can.
The theme sentence for this message is: In the storms of life we should not grow hard hearted, but rather grow more sensitive to the presence and activity of God.
Three points:
1. We have a purpose in life.
2. We will have storms in life.
3. We must take care to keep our hearts not hard but soft, and our vision of God’s reality great.
1. We have a purpose in life.
Every human being has a built in quest for meaning. This comes from God because we are made in His image. We all have a deep down yearning for purpose in our lives.
Two years ago there was a famous interview with Tom Brady on ESPN. Tom Brady makes $10M a year, has three Super Bowl rings, two MVP trophies, dates a supermodel, is the envy of millions of kids in America. If you think there would be one man content and happy in this world, it would have to be Tom Brady. But he said to the interviewer: “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and think there’s still something greater out there for me? A lot of people would say, this is what your looking for – I’ve reached my goal. But not me. Me? I think, there has to be more than this.” The interviewer asked “what’s the answer?” And Brady shook his head slowly. “I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”
Tom Brady asking the big question: What is the purpose of life?
Most often questions like this come to the fore most forcefully during the storms of life – when we hit trials and adversity that we think are going to swamp us. Storms bring the question of purpose into crisp focus. We are haunted by the fear that we are out here rowing our hearts out in the middle of the universe and nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. Day in and day out we are pulling on our oars and the wind is against us and we wonder, “Why am I doing this? Is there a greater meaning? Or are the Existentialists right. Life is absurd, there is no greater meaning. The universe is a random place and meaning is what you make it.
I was intrigued by the news story this week of the Dartmouth man who confessed on his deathbed to stealing a cannon from the front of the library in Bennington VT. There was a WWI cannon on display that went missing 50 years ago and was never found. Most people had forgotten there ever was a cannon there. But this guy told his doctor on his deathbed that he took the cannon one night half a century ago and brought it up to Dartmouth and buried it under the stands in the football stadium. If you look there, you’ll find it, he said. Then he died. I haven’t heard if they found it yet.
My question is, why did this guy confess? He obviously felt a moral debt. He had violated a moral law back there 50 years ago and had carried that burden ever since. He felt that he had to make it right before he died.
Now if there is no transcendence; if life is just a collection of random events, then stealing a cannon, burying it at Dartmouth and getting away with it wouldn’t matter at all. There is nothing to feel guilty about.
But the fact that he did feel guilty points to a greater reality. He broke a moral rule in the Universe and something inside him knew it. Same thing as Tom Brady saying “is this all there is?” There is something greater; there is something transcendent.
Our story today begins with a man standing on the shore of Lake Galilee, ready to push his disciples out in a boat in the late afternoon. That man, Jesus Christ, is Transcendence Incarnated. This man tells you what life’s purpose is.
And this is life’s purpose: Tom Brady, I hope you are listening to the tape: To do the will of Jesus Christ. Make disciples of all nations and be agents of His redemptive work in the world.
They had just come from the feeding of the 5000. Jesus saw the hunger of these people and felt compassion. He told the disciples to feed them. They said it is impossible. He said, “I’ll show you how to do it.” And as they did what was humanly possible, passing out just a few pieces of food, it was mixed with Jesus’ divine power, and the people were all fed.
Now at the start of this story he is sending them across the lake to do more of the same. Tell the people that the Kingdom of God has come. Heal the sick, cure the lame, relieve the oppressed. Just start doing this work and the power of God will make it so.
And this is our purpose to. Tell everyone that Jesus is to be believed and work to the end that the Kingdom of God comes and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. There is no greater mission in the world. Take up this mission and your heart will be settled. This is your purpose.
If this is not the controlling passion of your life, then you haven’t really met Jesus. Because when He meets you, He sends you. You can be a banker, a teacher, a doctor, a truck driver, a mother of toddlers, or even a preacher. Your vocation is merely the arena in which you carry out your mission – to bring the Kingdom of God into force here on earth.
Point 2. We will have storms in life. Notice that Jesus sends them into the storm. He is standing on the shore in verse 45 pushing them off. He of course, is God. He knows everything. He fully well knows there is a storm out there that night and he sends them right off into it, which brings us to the arresting truth that storms are included in the purpose of God. Don’t think that the storms in your life are somehow outside of God’s grace and favor, they are right in the middle of it. Jesus sends these people into the storm.
What are storms? Storms are meteorological events that disrupt normal life. Rain is good but a hurricane can destroy a city. Wind is good but a tornado can reduce a house to sticks in less than a minute. 99% of the time we think we are in control of the events in our lives, but storms show us we are not in control, they are.
The storms of life are the things we can’t control. You get hit by a truck, you lose your job, your child rebels, your spouse dies, you lose all your money, your marriage collapses, your friend betrays you. Or a hundred other things – a storm is anything you feel has a determining effect on your life over which you have no control.
The primary human reaction in this situation is fear. Secondary side effects are anxiety, anger, bitterness, blaming and things like that.
So think about this. Jesus sends us into the storms. Why? Because storms expose the loyalty of our hearts.
The real danger for the disciples was not physical. It wasn’t that they were getting swamped and might drown. The real danger wasn’t psychological. They thought they saw a ghost. The real danger was spiritual. Their real danger is brought out in verse 52: “They had no understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.”
A hard heart is the greatest danger you face; the greatest threat to your well being, the greatest threat to your life.
Calling the disciples hard hearted is the most stinging indictment he could give them. Mark’s readers would hearken back to chapter 4 where he talked about insiders and outsiders. The outsiders were the hypocrites, sinners, self important people who had no interest in the things of God. They saw only what they wanted to see, they turned a blind eye to the miracles, they heard only what they wanted to hear; their hearts were stubborn. Only the outsiders were the hardhearted.
The ultimate archetype of hardheartedness in the Bible is the Pharaoh. God said “let my people go” and Pharaoh said “No. I’m going to do what I want to do.” Pharaoh was the poster boy for hardheartedness.
Now Jesus is saying to his disciples, “you think you’re insiders. But I’m telling you that you are not. You are hard hearted outsiders. You are no different than the Pharaoh.”
How do we project this teaching to today? It means that you can come to church and sit in the nave and sing the hymns and worship songs and pray the prayers and take the bread and the cup and still have a hard heart. You can be as far away from the Kingdom of God than the Pharaoh. This is a stern warning from Jesus. Hard heartedness is a far greater danger to you than any storm. It is the greatest danger you face.
To help us battle hardheartedness, our loving God does the best possible thing for us – he sends us into the storms.
Because it is in the storms that we find out what we are really made of. We find out where the true allegiances of our hearts lie. In trials we find out what we really care about.
Storms reveal that we are not in control. Hurricane Katrina revealed that the levees were not in control. A storm in our life exposes that we are not in control. What if your child rebels and deliberately starts living in a way that hurts you the most? What if all your money is lost? What if not only your job but your entire profession dries up? You once thought all those things were safe; you were in control. But now you are not.
Storms reveal that we are never in control. We don’t know if we are going to be alive a year from now. We might be in an accident and disabled for life. We don’t know if our children will follow the Lord or choose a path of destruction.
If you are in a storm and you find yourself grabbing for control, you might have a hard heart. You have a hard heart when things are more important than God – when whatever you really look to for comfort, peace, security, wellbeing is taken away or threatened. Fear and hard heartedness is a call to remember that these things can never save us. Only Jesus can.
The Bible teaches that it is not ignorance, but rebellion that makes us think we are in control. No matter what we say or what church we go to, we live as if God doesn’t exist. That is rebellion. It is only by sending us into storms that God shows us that this is a lie. We are not in control. Repent of your rebellion and acknowledge His control.
So storms expose hardness of heart.
But storms are also the place of our healing. Our vision of Reality is enlarged, our trust in God grows and our understanding of who God really is grows.
Jesus comes walking out to them on the lake to save them. verses 48 and 50 are particularly key. The original Jewish readers would pick up Mark’s meaning in a second. He is making deliberate references to two incidents from God’s dealing with Moses in the Book of Exodus.
In Ex. 3 God appears to Moses in a burning bush and tells him He is sending him to Egypt to lead the Israelites out of bondage. “Go tell Pharaoh to let my people go,” said God. But this is the first time Moses had ever encountered God. He asked him, “who shall I say is sending me? Tell me, what is your name.”
And God said “I am that I am.” I am the I am. And that same name is here in Mark 6. In verse 50 Jesus says to them, “take courage. I am. He uses the divine name. That one back there in the burning bush, that was me. And now I’m coming to you in the storm.” I am the I am.
Then in 48 there is the curious note that he was about to pass them by. What was that? It is another reference from Exodus. In chapter 33 Moses was ready to quit. He had led the Israelites through the Red Sea and was halfway through the desert but all they did was complain and rebel. Moses said to God, “I’ve had it. I quit.”
And God took Moses up into the mountains and put him in a cleft of a rock and said to him you stay here, and I am going to cover you with my hand and cause all my goodness to pass you by. And Exodus says that as God passed by, he saw God’s glory.
So when Jesus passes them by on the lake, He is showing them His glory. These are two bracing references back into Exodus and two direct claims to divinity for Jesus.
So what Mark is saying to us is that the cure for all our ills, all our fears, all our hard heartedness, and all our rebellion, is to welcome Jesus into our boat. Let him climb in. This is the One who confronted Pharaoh and delivered His people. This is the One who showed His glory to Moses. Take Him in.
Are you afraid of the storms in your life? You shouldn’t be. Rather, you should be afraid of the One the storms are afraid of. The minute Jesus got into the boat the storm went away. The storm is completely obedient to His power. Fear Him, not the storms.
I want to end with a practical section on how to break the ice in our hard hearts. Moses got hard hearted. The disciples got hard hearted. The fact is so do I from time to time, and so do you. If you have a birdbath in your yard and you keep it through the winter, you have to go out every day and break the ice in the morning so the birds can use it. We have to break the ice in our hearts on a regular basis lest they get hard.
Three things quickly:
1. Fully participate in worship. Come every week to the nave and fully participate in all of it. The liturgy of Christian worship is intentionally designed to keep the entire heart soft.
The hymns and worship songs we sing speak to the heart, our emotions. We reflect God’s greatness back to him in music – speech that dances.
The Confession of sin speaks to our wills. We agree with our wills that we are rebels by nature and must appeal to God regularly for cleansing.
The sermon speaks to our minds. We hear the truth of who Jesus is and who He says we are.
The Offering speaks to our response. We don’t just take in information, we must do something about it with our time, talent, substance and influence.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that we are not in the boat alone. You are part of a communion of people in the boat together under the care of the Lord.
XXX says that if you prefer one part of the liturgy over another it is poor spiritual hygene. People who say, “I come for the music, or I come for the sermon, or I come for the fellowship” are doing a disservice to their hearts. You will not develop spiritually. It is like going to the gym and working on just your right bicep. You’d never do that with your body, but some people do it to their hearts. Participate regularly and fully in worship.
2. Learn how to pray. It is a learned discipline. Jesus sends them off ahead while He goes to pray, and he does this three times in Mark. It is particularly important for Jesus to retreat to prayer after he has had successes and his fame in growing. The more sturdy you think you are, the more successful our church becomes, the more we need to pray.
On Sunday evening May 4 we have what we are calling a Concert of Prayer in Bradford Hall. This is a time for our whole church to come together and seek the Lord for where we are going, what we should be doing, and to experience whatever He brings us as we come into His presence. Prayer is a discipline like exercise. Hard to do at first, but once it becomes a habit we realize we can’t do without it. Our hearts stay soft with regular worship and prayer.
3. A group. You must have at least one spiritual friend you meet with regularly. Jesus always sent people out in groups of at least two. Isolation will lead to hard heartedness every time. The discipline of meeting with another man or woman on a regular basis to look at a Bible passage and open your life is a necessity to spiritual softness. Jesus said “where even two or three are gathered, there I am in their midst.”
