Tag: Mark 6:45-56

God Passes By

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Biblical Text: Mark 6:45-56

The text is the Markan account of calming the storm and walking on the water. There are multiple accounts like this, but Mark’s is unique. It isn’t about Peter getting out of the boat. It is really about Jesus getting into the boat. In this sermon there are two words from the key phrase that I think need sharpened up. The first is how the disciples are described. “making way painfully” misses both the origin of the word which is in testing the purity of precious metal and misses how the word is normally used as torture. The disciples rowing int the 4th watch against the wind is a test or torture. And Jesus means to pass the by. Means is just too squishy. He desired, a much deeper word. The combination is a tough saying. But it is in the toughest saying that we often find the sweetest gospel. This sermon meditates on that.

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God Passes By

072615wordle

Biblical Text: Mark 6:45-56
Full Sermon Draft

(Recording note: Sorry I forgot to start the system, so I didn’t start recording until the gospel text. The OT and Epistle lesson of the day which I usually include are missing.)

The text might or might not be the familiar episode of Jesus walking on water. In the Gospel according to Mark the story is a little shorter and has a little different purpose than Matthew. Matthew has Peter getting out of the boat. Mark is about Jesus “passing by” and deciding to get into the boat. The two main points from both are: 1) this Jesus is God and 2) trust him, but with different context. The trust in Matthew is more a focus on Peter and hence our ability to trust Jesus in or out of the boat. When we get out, Jesus will put us back in, more like the lost sheep parables. In Mark we have Jesus deciding to get in the boat and those inside deciding how to react to God being with them.

What this sermon does is examine two common reaction to God passing by and the third that he text desires you to do – trust Jesus in calm and in storm. This is looked at in the context of how we pass through life. We have a tendency to sand of the edges and use euphemisms to avoid dealing with the really bad stuff. What Jesus does is not bid us to euphemize ourselves, but to “be not afraid”. The Christian calls a thing what it is. They life in trust that Jesus has this.

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