Episode Details

Mark chapter 6, as we continue on through the life of Jesus, through the lens of Mark's gospel.

Last week, we looked at the feeding of the 5,000.

And I want you, as we start here this morning, to imagine yourself in the place specifically of Peter.

They started off that day exhausted.

They had gone on this mission trip, as it were, into the cities and the villages around Galilee, proclaiming the gospel.

Jesus had sent them out two by two.

They were preaching and people were responding to the preaching.

They were given power to heal and to cast out demons.

And they come back and they're telling Jesus all about this.

They're excited.

All of the disciples are, and they are, Jesus can see, quite exhausted.

And so he says, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.

However, as they are going along in the boat, people see them and somehow know where they are going to.

And so when they come to shore in this deserted place, 5,000 men show up, plus who knows how many women and children, and a massive, massive crowd assembles.

And as the day goes on and Jesus sees this crowd there,

harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, the text tells us.

And Jesus has compassion on them.

And so Jesus spends all day teaching them, ministering to them through the word.

And as the day grows late, the apostles, the disciples say, Jesus, you need to send these people away.

We don't have anything to feed them with.

You need to go get them out of here, get them into the villages, the cities, the countryside to go find food.

And the disciples,

are making a reasonable request here on a human level.

And Jesus says, how about you guys give them something to eat?

And they said, we don't have anything to give them to eat.

We don't have, I mean, two thirds of a year's wages wouldn't buy enough food for all these people.

And Jesus says, well, what do you have?

They come up with five loaves and two fish and Jesus

takes the five loaves and the two fish, and he feeds the multitude.

And so the disciples, and we're thinking here specifically of Peter, he's gone from exhaustion to frustration that, oh, this crowd showed up when we're supposed to be resting, to disbelief that Jesus would be able to handle the needs of this crowd to an amazement.

And now I'm going to read through verses 45 to 52, but I'm going to change the pronouns so that they are in the first person, as if this is Peter speaking.

Immediately he made us get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.

And after he took his leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

And when evening came, our boat was out on the sea, and Jesus was alone on the land.

And he saw that we were making headway painfully, for the wind was against us.

And about the fourth watch of the night, between three and six in the morning,

He came to us walking on the sea and he meant to walk past us But when we saw him walking on the sea, we thought he was a ghost and so we cried out And we all saw him and were terrified But immediately he spoke to us and said take heart.

It is I Do not be afraid And he got into the boat with us and the wind ceased And we were utterly astounded For we did not understand about the loaves, but our hearts were hardened

A tradition tells us that Mark's gospel is largely taken from the eyewitness of Peter.

Mark is a close associate of Peter later in Peter's life, and he's probably writing down mostly Peter's memories.

He's probably doing some research on his own, especially when we get to summary statements of things that happened.

A paragraph like that, when you switch it into the first person, it just beats with that eyewitness feel.

Like, here's what it was like to be th