Mark 6: 45-52

Interpretation:

Right after Jesus feeds the five thousand He commands His disciples to take a boat to Bethsaida. They were commanded to go to Bethsaida so that they could  actually achieve the rest they meant to take before Jesus addressed the five thousand.

Jesus stays behind to dismiss the crowd and then walks on the sea to catch up with the disciples. In verse 48 it says He meant to pass by them. That doesn’t mean He was trying to avoid them, because clearly He could have.  Instead it means more He was trying to give them a glimpse of His glory.

Again, the disciples attribute His passing as a Ghost and are frightened. It has to be a ghost because it couldn’t possibly be Jesus walking on water… that’s impossible. Not to God though. For some reason they still aren’t fully understanding the deity of Jesus.

However Jesus comforts them and lets them not that it is Him and enters the boat and rides with them the rest of the way.

Application:

How can we doubt the deity of Jesus despite the in inexorable proof that He was God?

These men had proof. They saw Jesus walk on water, and then get into the boat. It could not be passed off as hallucination because He got into the boat with them. They knew He did it but their hearts refused for Him to be God.  Verse 51 and 52 show that they were still reeling from the disbelief of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. So I ask myself how can they doubt His deity after they just had seen Him walk on water?

Lets stop for a moment and realize that these men had only miracles. They saw Jesus do amazing things but we have four biographies of Christ’s life and letters explaining in detail how He is God and how we should respond. We have 2,000 years worth of study and consideration of those letters and biographies. We have universities with professors dedicated to shaping our understanding of who He was and how we should respond. We have pastors and bible study leaders looking to answer our questions. We have the internet with thousands of free sermons.  There is an unfathomable amount of resources available to us that discuss and point towards who Jesus really was – God. So aren’t we more hard-hearted?

Instead of being frustrated with disciples response – lets consider our own. Do we believe Jesus was really God and savior? Do we act like we believe it?