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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Did you and I understand last week’s Gospel Reading’s report of Jesus’s miraculously multiplying five loaves of bread to feed five-thousand people? If we say that we did understand about the loaves, then did that understanding about the loaves make a difference in our lives this last week? For example, have we, as I suggested in the conclusion to last week’s sermon, told others about the value of the “free lunch” God provides us, His meeting all of our needs of body and soul? If understanding about the loaves did not make a difference, then do we really understand about the loaves at all? Picking up where last week’s Gospel Reading left off, this week’s Gospel Reading continues to tell of the events of that same day by and on the Sea of Galilee, and, by Divine inspiration, St. Mark uniquely connects for us the Twelve disciples’ failure to understand about the loaves with their utter astonishment at Jesus’s walking on the sea. This week, we meditate on Jesus’s wondrous works, as we said in the Introit that we would do, using as our theme the question, “Do we understand about the loaves?”
As this week’s Gospel Reading tells us, immediately after the miraculous multiplication of the loaves, Jesus made (compelled, or forced) His disciples to get into the boat and to go before Him to the other side. St. Mark does not say how much force Jesus had to use to get His disciples into the boat, nor does St. Mark say why any force at all may have been necessary. We can say, however, that Jesus made them get into the boat, knowing that they would make headway painfully, knowing that the wind would be against them. Sending the disciples out onto the sea under such circumstances was the second seemingly difficult or impossible thing Jesus had the disciples do, the first being telling them to give the crowd something to eat, after they late that afternoon told Him to send the crowd away. After the disciples with Jesus’s help gave the crowd something to eat, Jesus did do as the disciples had requested: He dismissed the crowd and then went up on the mountain to pray. So, when evening came, Jesus was alone on the land, and the disciples were together in the boat in the middle of the sea. Jesus saw that they were making headway painfully (they were being tested, or tortured, or distressed in the rowing), and, about three‑o’clock in the morning He came to them, walking on the sea, wishing to pass by them. They thought He was a ghost and cried out, but He immediately spoke to them, got into the boat, and the wind ceased. The disciples were utterly astounded, for, St. Mark says, they did not understand about the loaves, but, rather, their hearts were hardened.
We may be surprised to hear St. Mark say Jesus’s disciples’ hearts were hardened. Hard‑hearted is an expression the Bible more commonly uses to describe those who do not repent and believe, such as Jesus’s usual opponents, the leaders of the Jews. But, the disciples may have relapsed into thinking as Jesus’s usual opponents thought. Even if the disciples were not obstinately refusing to believe, they may not have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, either in His multiplying the loaves or His walking on the sea. Or, they did not expect Jesus to act as the Son of God in all things. “If their hearts had not been [hardened (that is, dulled by unbelief)], they could have known that He who multiplied the loaves could come to them, not as a ghost but as a person, and bring peace to them.” But, their hearts were hardened; the disciples did not understand about the loaves.
Do we understand about the loaves? Would we have reacted any differently if we had been in the boat and had seen Jesus walking on the sea? (No doubt at other times we have been more afraid at less of a specter!) We claim to repent and believe, but do we always recognize Jesus as the Messiah in His multiplying the loaves, or His walking on the sea, or in all of His other great deeds that pass before us in Holy Scripture? In our time, do we expect Jesus to act as the Son of God in all things related to our lives? Do we live our lives as He would have us live them? By nature, before our conversion, we were as hard‑hearted as they come: we were dead in trespasses and sins. Too often still today, God may be able to say of us that our hearts are hardened, like the hearts of the disciples were hardened.
When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea, the Gospel Reading tells us, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. Although St. Mark does not tell us what the disciples cried out or to whom they cried out, the word is often used of someone “crying out” to Jesus, in repentance and faith, seeking help. The disciples may well have been crying out to Jesus for help, even if they did not recognize that what they thought was a ghost was in fact Jesus coming to them walking on the sea. You and I similarly can “cry out” to Jesus, in repentance and faith, seeking help. We can turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sins, and want to do better. When we so repent, God forgives our sin—our sin of not always recognizing Jesus as the Messiah in His great deeds of Holy Scripture, our sin of not expecting Him to act as the Son of God in our lives, or whatever our sin might be—when we so repent, God forgives all our sin. He forgives all our sin for the sake of Jesus, Who died on the cross and rose from the dead in order to save us from our sin.
The disciples with their hardened hearts failed to see Jesus for Who He was, even after He miraculously multiplied the loaves and walked on the sea. But, the people of Genesaret immediately recognized Jesus, even though He had never before been there. Some of them must have seen and heard Him elsewhere, perhaps some were even present the day before in the crowd of five‑thousand. They apparently understood about the loaves. In faith, the people of the region of Genesaret implored Jesus for and received from Him salvation.
Jesus can give salvation because He is the God-man. Jesus’s walking on the sea shows Him to be both God and man, divine and human. (The disciples were not far from the truth in thinking that the one walking on the water was more than a mere mortal.) Jesus’s walking on the sea is a special revelation of the majestic presence and power of the Lord Who rules over the sea and all of creation. Yet, the majestic presence and power were in the man Jesus. We are not told that an eerie light made Him glow, as artists generally depict. He did not float about as a ghost is thought to do, but He walked upon the sea. Perhaps as God in the Old Testament had passed by Moses and Elijah, Jesus wished to pass by the disciples, giving them a glimpse of His glory that He might have thought they could handle. His death and resurrection may well have been on His mind, and He knew that, if they did not understand about the loaves, then much less were they going to understand Him when He predicted those things. Still, He died on the cross and rose again from the grave for them, as for you and for me. As the people in the region of Genesaret believed, so the disciples later repented and believed, too, and so can you and I, receiving forgiveness for all our sins and for our sinful natures themselves.
We receive such forgiveness in the ways that God has appointed for us to receive such forgiveness. Today’s Old Testament Reading reminds us of God’s everlasting covenant with Noah and all those who came out of the ark, who had been saved by the waters of the flood that had cut off and destroyed all other flesh. God likewise made an everlasting covenant with you and with me and all those who have entered into the ark of the Church through the flood waters of Holy Baptism. There, at the Baptismal Font, as God described through Ezekiel, God sprinkles clean water on us and makes us clean. There, at the Baptismal Font, God removes our hearts of stone and gives us a new heart of flesh. There, at the Baptismal Font, our sinful natures drown and die with all sins and evil lusts and our redeemed natures come forth and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. So Baptized, we privately confess the sins that trouble us most and receive individual absolution from the pastor as from God Himself. So absolved, we come forward and here receive Christ’s body and blood, in, with, and under bread and wine, given and shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Understanding about the loaves, in such ways we are forgiven, and in such ways we are strengthened as an answer to the prayer St. Paul prayed in today’s Epistle Reading: with power through His Spirit in our inner beings so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.
Such strengthening, we need! For, although the wind against the disciples ceased when Jesus got into the boat with them, we continue to be tested, tortured, and distressed throughout our earthly lives. Making headway painfully seems difficult if not impossible, even with Jesus’s help! Overcoming such difficulties forms us as Christians, though we often fail in the process and so live each day with repentance and faith. As God came in the flesh walking on the sea, Jesus’s words to the disciples are His words to us: Do not be afraid, but take heart (have faith). Ultimately He will bring us to the distant shore of eternity with Him. Until then, no matter how wind rages, inside the ark of His Church we are safe.
Pastor and hymn writer Paul Gerhardt understood about the loaves, for he had a fervent faith in Jesus, but he also knew well the testing, torture, and distress of this earthly life. His father had died before he was fully grown. His first parish was in Mittenwalde, Germany, south of Berlin, which suffered from fire and plague during the Thirty Years’ War. There, Gerhardt comforted his people with dozens of his hymns of joy, praise, and thanksgiving, such as that appointed for our Hymn of the Day today, which begins in this way:
Entrust Your Days and Burdens / To God’s most loving hand;
He cares for you while ruling / The sky, the sea, the land.
For He who guides the tempests / Along their thund’rous ways
Will find for you a pathway / And guide you all your days.
Do you notice how Gerhardt in that first stanza seems to allude to passages such as today’s Gospel Reading? Likewise in our third stanza, Gerhardt encourages himself and us in this way:
Take heart, have hope, my spirit, / And do not be dismayed;
God helps in ev’ry trial / And makes you unafraid.
Await His time with patience / Through darkest hours of night
Until the sun you hoped for / Delights your eager sight.
Do you see why this hymn is such a good one to have in our congregational and personal repertoires? Ultimately, Gerhardt, as we have him, concludes with the following prayer, as we do now:
Our hands and feet, Lord, strengthen
With joy our spirits bless / Until we see the ending / Of all our life’s distress.
And so throughout our lifetime / Keep us within Your care
And at our end then bring us / To heav’n to praise You there.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +