{"id":32870,"date":"2015-03-17T08:08:49","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T13:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=32870"},"modified":"2015-03-10T18:52:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T23:52:49","slug":"new-testament-gospel-doctrine-lesson-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/03\/new-testament-gospel-doctrine-lesson-12\/","title":{"rendered":"New Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson #12"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"scriptures-resurrection-758817-print\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the plan: each week that the gospels are covered in Sunday School, I will post\u00a0one question from my book along with a brief discussion of the issues that it raises.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why was Jesus planning on passing by the ship (Mark 6:48; compare Exodus 33:19-34:8, Job 9:8-11, and 1 Kings 19:11)?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(adapted from Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Jesus walks on the water and intends to \u201cpass by\u201d his disciples. What\u2019s going on here?<\/span> Well, he\u2019s almost certainly modeling his behavior on an\u00a0Old Testament pattern where\u00a0references to controlling the waters are combined with God \u201cpassing by\u201d the people (see Exodus 33:19-34:8, Job 9:8-11, and 1 Kings 19:11). In other words, he does what God does: he controls the waters and he passes by his people as a way of revealing himself to them. So at the beginning of this story, the audience has every reason to believe that the disciples are about to learn that Jesus is doing what the God of the Bible does.<\/p>\n

But that isn\u2019t what ends up happening. The disciples see Jesus but they do not realize that it is him\u2013they think that they are seeing a ghost. (The KJV translation of \u201cspirit\u201d doesn\u2019t really work here\u2013this isn\u2019t the word that Mark uses for spirits, either holy or unclean. This word means \u201cghost.\u201d) I am pretty sure that anyone listening to the Gospel of Mark for the first time in the ancient world would have laughed out loud at this, and not just because\u00a0the disciples scream in terror. The reason this line is so dang funny is that we have a lot of ghost stories from the ancient world and guess what is the one thing that their ghosts couldn\u2019t do? Walk on water. So the response of the disciples is completely absurd. It\u2019s like finding someone in your kitchen chopping garlic and deciding\u00a0that he must be a vampire. It\u2019s like performing surgery to remove a silver bullet and deciding that your patient must be a werewolf. It\u2019s the one conclusion that just doesn\u2019t make any sense given the facts available to you. You know one thing only about the cook and the patient, but that one thing is the only thing that could make the conclusion preposterous. And that is the conclusion that the disciples reach about the \u201cghost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Jesus\u2019 plan to reveal himself as God obviously can\u2019t happen in the face of these terrified, screeching, completely obtuse disciples. Instead, Jesus says, \u201cHave courage! It\u2019s just me! Don\u2019t be afraid!\u201d Except that isn\u2019t precisely what he says. The \u201cit\u2019s just me\u201d part uses precisely the same words as Exodus 3:14. In that story, Moses asks God what he should say that God\u2019s name is should the people ask. God responds: \u201cTell \u2018em \u2018I am.’\u201d Those words for \u201cI am\u201d (in the Greek translation of Exodus) are exactly the words that Jesus uses. So . . . Jesus ends up revealing his identity to the disciples anyway. It\u2019s, you know, ironic. The disciples don\u2019t get it, but the audience does. (That\u2019s how most of Mark works: the disciples are slow learners, but the repeated lessons give the audience ample opportunity\u00a0to learn.) The revelation of God in Jesus happens, despite the disciples.<\/p>\n

The miracle in this story has precious little\u00a0to do with Jesus\u2019 ability to walk on water. It has everything to do with Jesus\u2019 identity. He plans to reveal his identity to the disciples, but their slow-wittedness derails his plan. Except that it doesn\u2019t. The real miracle in this story is Jesus\u2019 ability to overcome human obstacles to teach what he intends to teach, which is that he is the Son of God.\u00a0Jesus appears to abandon his plans in order to help his ignorant and screaming disciples, but because he is Jesus, he is still able to accomplish those plans, for the benefit of the audience\u00a0if not the disciples.<\/p>\n

(Recycled from this post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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