Jesus Walking on Water

The disciples were fishing in a boat when they saw something coming toward them. I think some would think that seeing a person walk on water would be fairly exciting. We might wonder, how's he doing that? So what's behind the disciples' reaction to this unusual encounter with their teacher?

As Dr. R.C. Sproul continues his sermon series from Mark's Gospel, he will begin reading from chapter 6, verse 47. Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land. And then he saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.

Now there's enough in this verse to last for the next few weeks, but God willing I'll move at an accelerated pace and try to finish it this morning. But while he is out coming down from the mountain of prayer, he looks out into the Sea of Galilee, and in the distance he can see that his disciples have made very little progress in getting to the other side because there is a fierce wind blowing against them, and Jesus observes that they are straining at the oars. They can't sail across the turbulent waters at this time, and they're trying to do it with oars rowing. And when he notices them, the word that is used here translated straining elsewhere in the Bible is translated by the word torment, that the pain that they were experiencing trying to row against this wind was excruciating.

In all probability, it was an easterly wind known to the natives as the sharkia, or in English would be the shark. This is the New Testament's version of Jaws, only the shark is a wind rather than a fish, but the end result could often be the same. And so now Jesus sees that His disciples are in trouble, and He begins to leave the land to walk out to them, and He walks on the sea.

Let me just comment on that for a second. Again, the language here in the text makes no mistake about what Mark is saying, that the word there means on top of the water, that clearly Jesus is doing something that no mortal is able to do. Last week I mentioned the nineteenth-century assault on the integrity of Scripture by European liberals who desupernaturalized the biblical text. These same scholars as noted by Albert Schweitzer in the quest for the historical Jesus explain this particular incident of saying, well, it must have been misty that night with the wind churning up the water, and Jesus is out there in the fourth watch, which is between three o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the morning. And so in the fog, the disciples suffer an optical illusion, or more possible, there was a sandbar hidden from view, and Jesus was taking advantage of that sandbar to walk out to meet the disciples who are in the middle of the lake that they know as well as the palm of their hand, that they know where every shoal, where every rock, where every sandbar would be. Nevertheless, the one thing that the nineteenth-century critic couldn't stomach is even the remote possibility that what Mark describes here actually took place. No sandbar, no optical illusion, but rather Jesus walking on the water. Now notice something strange here in this description. In about the fourth watch of the night, He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.

Stop the music. And Jesus sees they're in trouble, straining at the oars, they're in physical torment. The wind is howling.

The shark is loose on the sea. And so Jesus starts out on the water to pass them by, just to walk past the boat and say, how you doing? Have a nice night and keep on going to the… What's that about? Why would the description be here in the text that Jesus purposes to walk by them? Well, you know, one of the basic principles that we have of biblical interpretation is that you interpret the Scriptures by the Scriptures. And if we want to get a hold of what the text is about here, we have to go back to the Old Testament to understand this phenomenon. It's in the book of Job where the Scriptures say that it is God who walks upon the waves.

And in Jewish understanding, indeed in all human understanding, the only one who has the power or ability to walk on water is God Himself. And when God manifests Himself in the Old Testament in a visible way, that visible manifestation of the invisible God is called a theophany, coming from the Greek word theos, which means God, and from the Greek word phoneros, which means to manifest or show or demonstrate or display. So a theophany is again a visible manifestation of the invisible God. You've heard of other theophanies when Moses sees the burning bush in the Midianite wilderness where the bush is burning but not consumed, and God speaks to Moses out of that bush. That's a theophany, a visible appearance of the invisible God. In Genesis, when Abraham is given the promise of his inheritance, and he says to God, how can I know that these things are true, and God put him to sleep and cut up all these animals, and the smoking torch and the burning oven passed between the pieces of these animals. It's a theophany.

It's God visibly moving to show Himself. But perhaps the two most famous theophanies like this in the Old Testament are found in the book of Exodus and in the book of 1 Kings. First of all, let me look at Exodus chapter 33. Moses is speaking to God, and he says in verse 18 of chapter 33 of Exodus, Lord, please show me Your glory. And God said, notice this, I will make all of My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious.

I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But He said, you cannot see My face, for no man shall see Me and live. And then the Lord said, here's a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. And so shall it be that while My glory passes by that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand. You shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen. Now you're aware of this story.

We've looked at it in other circumstances. Again, for review, what does Moses want? He wants to see God. Please, please, Lord, show me Your glory. And three times in the response to this request, God says to Moses, words to this effect, Moses, I will let all of My goodness pass by you. I will stand you in the rock. I will hide you in the rock. I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I will have My glory pass by you. And I will let you see My backward parts as I pass by you, but My face shall not be seen. You notice now that in this theophany, even as in the Genesis 15 passage I mentioned a moment ago, when God moves with His glory to show Himself to creatures, His glory passes by. And that's what Jesus is saying. I'm going out to the boat.

I'm going to walk on the water that I might pass by them. Jesus is self-consciously involved here in a theophany. One more example. Let's look in 1 Kings, another familiar text, the story of Elijah as he flees from Jezebel, and he hides in a cave, verse 9, chapter 19. And there he went into a cave and spent the night in that place. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? And so Elijah said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, but the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They've torn down your altars. They've killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left. This I call the Elijah syndrome that many of us experience from time to time when we think we're the only ones left who are faithful.

And now they seek to take my life. Now how does God respond to this expression of despair by His prophet? Listen to what God said. God said, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, and behold, the Lord passed by. And a great and strong wind tore into the mountains, broke the rocks in pieces 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 a still small voice. So it was when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God, but because the children of Israel have forsaken their covenant, torn down the altars, killed your prophets with the sword, I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. And God said, Go and return to the wilderness Damascus, and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria, anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphan of Abel, you shall anoint his prophet in your place. And there shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. Whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. But I have reserved seven thousand who have not yet bowed the knee to Baal.

So don't talk to me about being alone. I always have a remnant who are faithful to me. But in that crisis encounter, Elijah experienced the theophany as the glory of the Lord passed by. And that's what happens here on the Sea of Galilee where the glory of God bursting through the shroud of the humanity of Jesus manifests itself to the disciples in the middle of their distress.

They look, and they see the glory of God passing by, the glory of the Lord shining out of the Son of God passing by. And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, or the word could mean a phantom, or even worse, the word could be demon, because there were superstitious ideas that the sea when it was churning and boiling, that it was the result of the visitation of the demonic world upon this destructive force. So now when they see Jesus, they say, this must be a demon. Well, they knew it was something supernatural, but it wasn't a phantom. It wasn't a ghost.

It wasn't a demon. It was Jesus coming to them, walking by them. And they all saw Him, and they were troubled. But immediately He talked with them, and He said to them, listen to this. This is not just an empty greeting. They hear Him speak, and He says, be of good cheer. It is I.

Don't be afraid. Now many of you were here when we preached through the entire gospel of John, and one of the things that we paid close attention to in our study of John's gospel were the several I am's of Jesus, you recall. I am the bread of life. I am the Good Shepherd.

I am the door. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and before Abraham was, I am, and so on. And when we looked at the structure of those proclamations by Jesus, we found something extraordinary, that when a person says I am in Greek, he can do it one of two ways. He can say ego. We get the word ego from that, which means I am.

Or we get the word emi, which is another form of the verb to be I am. But we find this strange construction in the gospel of John in John's I am's, where when Jesus says I am the Good Shepherd, I am the door, and so on, He combines ego and emi and uses that intensified form of the verb to be where He says, ego, emi. It's like He's stuttering, I am, I am.

But He's not stuttering. He's using an expression that the New Testament Greek uses to translate the ineffable name of God that God gives to Moses from the burning bush when God said, my name is Yahweh. I am that I am. When the Greek translates Yahweh, it's by that strange conjunction of ego, emi. And when we think of the I am's, we think of John's gospel. But Mark has one of the I am's of Jesus because now as He passes by walking on the sea and His disciples are terrified, He tries to calm their spirits, be of good cheer, don't be afraid, ego, emi, I am. If there was any doubt earlier that what was going on here was a theophany, Jesus' use of the sacred name to identify Himself as He's walking on the water makes that virtually certain. But then we have to ask the question, why did He do that?

Here we don't have to speculate. He went into the boat. As soon as He goes into the boat, the wind ceased just like it did earlier when He calmed the storm. And they were greatly amazed at themselves beyond measure, and they marveled, for they had not understood about the loaves. They didn't get it. What should they have understood? They should have understood that the one with whom they had to do was God incarnate.

Who else could take a few loaves and some fish and feed thousands and thousands of people? But instead of seeing the presence of God, they saw the presence of a liberator from the military oppression of Rome. They didn't get it. And why didn't they get it? In the book of Exodus where Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh and say, Pharaoh, we're going to tell you again what the Lord God has commanded. He told us to tell you, let My people go that they may come out into the wilderness and serve Me. But Pharaoh said, no.

Why? Because his heart was hard. And when they threw down the rod of Aaron and the Nile turned into blood and the fish died and the river began to stink and the water could not be drunk not only there but in every well, every river, every brook, every bowl, every glass of water in the land turned to blood. Now if you're Pharaoh and you see that, what do you say? Where do you want them to go?

How long would you like to stay? Surely this is God, but his heart was hardened. Beloved, when people don't get it about the identity of Christ, it's not because they don't have any brains. It's not because they're unintelligent. It's because their hearts are recalcitrant.

Their hearts are made out of stone, that sin causes so great calluses to grow upon our hearts so that when if Christ Himself would walk in front of us on the water today, unless the Holy Spirit changes that heart of stone to one that can beat and pulsate with spiritual life, people will not believe. And so Jesus makes it unmistakably clear. You didn't get it when I fed the five thousand. You don't get it when I tell you, Ego, Amy. You don't get it when I step into the boat and the wind stops blowing, and the shark becomes a minnow.

It's because your hearts are hardened. And then when they crossed over, they came to the land of Janassar, and they anchored there. They came out of the boat, and again the story repeats, the people recognize Him. They go running through the whole region. They go to the agora, to the marketplace. They bring their sick.

They bring their lame. They bring their oppressed just in the hope that if Jesus passes by, if they can just touch the hem of His garment, they would be healed. Because they understood in those villages that when Jesus went to Janasser, surely the Lord was in that place. And when we know the presence of the Lord, we stop straining at the oars. We are removed from our torment, and we are left in a state of awe and reverence before Him. I don't know about you, but sometimes I find myself straining at the oars, as Erci said earlier, and I have to remind myself that there is peace in God's presence. We're glad you've joined us on this Lord's Day edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb. Each Sunday we return to Dr. R.C. Sproul's verse-by-verse series through the Gospel of Mark. I recommend that you contact us today and request our resource offer. I think you'll find it to be a great study companion as you continue with us week by week. It's Dr. Sproul's commentary on Mark's Gospel. This is an online offer only, and our web address is RenewingYourMind.org. While there was much confusion in Israel over what defiled a person, the Pharisees had created hundreds of laws to keep a person clean on the outside. But next week as we continue this study, Jesus will make it clear that defilement actually comes from within. I hope you'll join us next Sunday for Renewing Your Mind, the listener-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries.