Jesus Performs Miracles

Jesus Performs Miracles

Mark 6:45-52

Good news!  This morning’s service is “Magic Eye” drawing free.  I promise!  However, I do want you to bring the metaphor with you.  Sometimes, we see things but we have to keep looking to see what’s really there.  Sometimes, we hear but we have to keep listening.  Sometimes, there are meanings to things that are not immediately obvious.  Sometimes, what is “planted” in us are not seeds but bulbs and bulbs take time and the right conditions to grow.

For Mark, faith is personal.  You can hear what Jesus preached, secondhand.  Someone can recite one of Jesus’ parables.  You can be amazed at the story of a blind man being healed.  You can be left slack-jawed at hearing about any of the miracles.  You might think, “Wow, that Jesus, he was a fantastic teacher or preacher or healer or miracle worker!”  However, when you say that you are really just being a spectator, a fan: “You go, Jesus!” You’re sitting in the stands, watching and being entertained.  You are not yet in the game.

A story that I shared a long time ago has always made this point for me.  Here’s the short version.  There was a guy who was tightrope walking across Niagara Falls.  He walked across.  He pushed a wheelbarrow across.  He rode a bike across.  This man drew huge crowds and was considered a hero.  Then, one day, he looked out at the crowd and said, “Today, I want to cross the rope with one of you on my back.  Who will join me?”  Suddenly, the whole dynamic changed.  I like to imagine shuffling feet and everyone working as hard as they can to avoid any eye contact with the daredevil.

Lived faith is not a spectator sport!  Trust me, I love watching others exercise while sitting in the stands and eating hot dogs just as much as any other Chicago sports fan!  However, Jesus is showing us the Way to live a faithful life.  At some point, we actually have to live it.  And, we’ll know when we are actually living in that way because everything will start to change.

There’s a vivid example in my own life.  We’re having our work trip fundraising brunch today.  Here’s my confession.  For most of the year, there is “theoretical” work trip.  Where should we go?  Where should we stay?  What should we do?  We go visit people and introduce ourselves and ask what we could do to help them.  The possibilities are almost limitless because at that point they are only possibilities.  I love theoretical work trip!  At some point, though, things start to get real.  We pick up vans and realize, “We’ve got a lot of driving to do.” We get to the place where we’re staying and it dawns on us, “I’m staying with this many people for how long?” Finally, on a super hot day, we walk up on the work site and think, “How are we ever going to get this done?

Theoretical life is so much less messy than actual life.  There’s joy in planning a vacation.  Sooner or later, though, there’s the hard work of packing and the high risk that something will go wrong.  There’s joy in thinking about having a child.  Then, you find yourself staring at “that diaper,” (you know the one I’m talking about) and things get real.  There’s joy in knowing you have a friend.  Then, there is the very real moment when that friend is struggling and you have to decide, “How good of a friend am I going to be?” Sooner or later, it’s time to show up.  Sooner or later, it’s go time.

Chapter six of Mark’s gospel is “go time” for the disciples.  Up to this point, they’ve been spectators.  They have had box seats for the Jesus show.  They get to hang with him.  They get special teaching from him.  They are part of Jesus’ posse.  Then things start getting very real, very fast. 

Things get hard first.  They watch as Jesus is rejected in his home town.  It’s one thing to be a part of someone’s posse when that someone is a star.  What do you do though on the day when the star is ridiculed and rejected?  (Now…think “magic eye” here.  Oops!  Sorry!  Think about how this moment foreshadows one of the biggest questions coming for the disciples:  “Will you be loyal to Jesus, no matter what?”)

Jesus then asks them to leave him for a little while and go do what he’s been doing.  He pairs them up first.  (We humans almost always do better with the buddy system, right?)  He empowers them to teach and heal.  He tells them to take next to nothing and that if they are rejected they need to let it go and move on.  Shockingly, this actually goes pretty well:  they find the words to say and with the help of the Spirit, they show a little promise as healers, too.  Look deeper, though:  the implication is that they don’t get to just watch Jesus.  They are actually expected to do things, too.  (So, by the way, who’s preaching next Sunday?)

Mark then tells us about the death of John the Baptist. John is a really good person who is doing exactly what God calls him to do but he may not stand a chance in the hands of a powerful person.  Mark points out, it’s not that this powerful person, Herod, has no good reason to kill John.  Herod respected John.  (Remember, Pilate would later look for a reason not to kill Jesus.) However, Herod needs to save face so he does what he has to do.  If that can happen to John, it can happen to Jesus.  If that can happen to Jesus, then it can happen to them.  “We may die trying, here!”

Finally, despite having had that incredible time preaching and healing and ministering to people, the disciples forget everything they’ve learned.  (Gosh, I can’t think of a time later when the disciples will forget everything they learned, can you? Oh…wait.) Jesus says exactly what the disciples wanted Jesus to say, “Let’s go away and have a little quiet time together.  Let’s ditch the crowds for a while.”  However, the crowds have other ideas.  (As I like to say, “Ministry keeps getting in the way of my ministry.  I plan and God has other plans.”) Jesus recognizes the needs of the crowd which had to sting for the disciples:  “What about our needs, Jesus?”  I bet they sulked a bit for the rest of the day, the way people do when plans change and needs go unmet.

That’s why I always imagine the disciples being a bit whiny toward the end of the day: “Jesus…you’ve spent so much time taking care of these people.  Isn’t it about time to let them go?  They’ve got to eat.  They’ve got to find a place to stay.”  We’ve all been a little passive aggressive when our needs aren’t met, right?  We’ve all been “blinded” by our resentment.  We’ve all been the kind of people who see other people’s needs and offer up the helpful thought, “Someone should do something!” 

There is such a gap between “Someone should do something” and “What are we going to do?”  Bridging that gap is what makes faith come to life.  A faithful person doesn’t walk around judging everyone and pointing out what they are doing wrong. A faithful person doesn’t sit and judge whether other people’s needs are worth meeting.  A faithful person doesn’t “brainstorm” faithful actions that others should take.  No, a faithful person recognizes the needs of others and responds to those needs.

This is the lesson that the disciples are given on a hillside with a huge crowd of tired and hungry people.  After the disciples whine for a while and become the ideas committee, Jesus says, “You do something.”  They proceed to say what all of us have said when we see the needs of others:  “We don’t have enough.”  Jesus says what we know is our calling:  “Share what you have.” And of course, it turns out our “not nearly enough” turns out to be way more than enough, after all. 

These lessons are incredibly important for the disciples.  They are learning to respond to the needs of others—themselves.  However, the disciples are still spectators. They are learning to do something.  However, we all know how much more comfortable it is to help the people in need than it is to be the people in need, right? They don’t yet know what it is like to be desperate and afraid.  

In our text, all that changes.  At the end of the feeding of the crowd, Jesus instructs the disciples to get in a boat and cross over the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida.  Jesus is going to finally get a little quiet time by himself in the hills.  (What comes to mind here are my less than stellar parenting moments when I removed all the potential dangers from the living room, turned the t.v. on and hid in the kitchen for five minutes, breathing and thinking, “I love these kids but holy cow…”). Here this clearly, though, the disciples do exactly what they are told to do.  They get in a boat and head out to cross the lake.  (Good for them!)

Here’s the scary thought:  they are doing the right thing, the faithful thing, the thing that they were called to do and suddenly everything goes haywire.  It’s night so that’s already spooky enough.  Then, the waves start to roll. The wind starts sliding the boat sideways across the waves.   It starts raining and then starts pouring.  They have one choice:  they row as if their lives depend on it, because, well, they do.  Things are very quiet in the boat and in that silence desperate fear puts down deep roots:  “Oh, my God, we’re going to die here.  We’re never going to make it.” (Who hasn’t been doing exactly the right thing and had this moment:  “Hold it.  I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing and this is what I get?”)

There are a lot of possible miracles that happen next.  Miracle number one might be that Jesus becomes aware of their struggle.  He can feel that something is wrong.  This is good news but maybe not a full blown miracle.  I’ve had moments when I just knew that something was wrong for someone I loved.  I have no problem thinking Jesus would have such an awareness, too.

The second possible miracle is that Jesus walks on water.  Now, we’re talking miracles, right!  Except, I’ve had people show up for me when I was in need in some pretty spectacular ways, too.  It wasn’t that they walked on water but they did what it took to show up.  We’ve done that for others, ourselves.

The disciples don’t see a miracle when Jesus comes strutting across the waves.  They can’t see straight because they are scared to death.  No one can take much in when we’re terrified.  They think they see a ghost.  (Again, consider just how terrified these same disciples will be in Jerusalem when Jesus is arrested.)

Here’s the real miracle.  No, it’s not Jesus knowing something was wrong or walking on water.  It’s not even when Jesus calms the storm, thought that is pretty cool!  Nope…the only thing that’s harder than calming a storm is that Jesus calms terrified people.  The disciples are losing their minds and totally overwhelmed and Jesus shows up and calms them, just like he will do later.

Ponder this…When were you caught in a terrible storm and terrified? Who was the “God-send” of a person who came and calmed you?  Mark tells us that all of this wasn’t enough for the disciples to believe.  They didn’t understand.  Jesus’ care didn’t really make it all the way into their hearts.  Be fair, though, was the fact that someone showed up in your time of great need enough to change you? What if, looking back, it should have been?