Launch Out Series

LAUNCH OUT (MARK 4:35-41)

Schroeder was playing his piano oblivious to the watchful and adoring eyes of the feisty but unrequited Lucy before him. Lucy asked Schroeder, who was doing his own thing and ignoring her as usual, what love is. Schroeder than stood up and quoted: “Love: a noun referring to a deep, intense, ineffable feeling toward another person or persons.”

Schroeder then sat down to resume playing the piano as if nothing happened. Lucy looked dreamily into space and moaned about being neglected, “On paper, he’s great.”

The disciples were the most eager learners but they were never tested. They asked a lot of questions and were given answers others weren’t. They heard their share of theology, the law and its interpretation, but all they had were head knowledge, great teaching and doctrinal lessons.

Someone once said, “I used to have a handle on life; then it broke.”

There are two lake crossings in the gospels, one when Jesus was with the disciples and the other when Jesus later joined the disciples. The first one has Jesus sleeping on the boat and the second has him walking on the water. Both lessons served as building trust and faith in the Lord.

When are you most vulnerable to the temptation of distrust and unbelief? How do you react when fear threatens and danger lurks? What are we to do instead?

You Do Not Have to Comprehend Everything – You Are with Company

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. (Mark 4:35-38)

One of the advantages and disadvantages to ministry in Hong Kong is I have to start all over again. I have to adapt and adjust to many different preaching settings after serving in the same church for my last ten years in the States. The changes were small and subtle. First, the audience, the seating, and the platform were different. It did not have the same feel as in my old church. It affected the way I deliver and speak. It began to dawn on me that the difference in height, length and breadth of the church threw me off-balance in the way it affected my body language and speaking manner. For example, my old church has only two columns of seating. In Hong Kong, bigger churches where I serve have four or more columns. I cannot see them out of one eye and I have to turn sideways to see all.

Second I was used to a bilingual church where the speaker stops to allow the interpreter time to interpret my sermon rom English to Mandarin. That few seconds break allowed me in the past to look down and read notes.

Third, there is a change from speaking English and then to Mandarin. I did not have to speak in Cantonese until my third year in Hong Kong. I did OK since it is my mother language, one that I practiced at home but not taught at school. By the end of my fourth year I was invited to join the Mandarin congregation because the two other Mandarin speakers had left, one resigned and another retired. My initiation to Mandarin ministry could not be any stranger. When the Mandarin speaker invited me to preach in Mandarin in December, 2011, shortly upon his arrival, I replied, “Are you sure? I have only spoken publicly twice in my life, once in United States and once in Taiwan. I don’t think you want to take a chance on me!” He said, “OK, I take my chance.” Previously I have only preached in Mandarin three times in more than 25 years of ministry, but now I have to preach once a month.

The gospel of Mark gives us details not in Matthew or Luke’s account. For example, Mark says it is a “furious squall (of wind)” or “big (megas) squall/storm” (2 Peter 2:17) in Greek (v 37), not just a “storm (of) wind” (Luke 8:23). “Broke over” (v 37) is the Greek verb for “beat” and “nearly swamped” (v 37) is not as dramatic as the Greek for “full” (gemizo). Matthew’s account is even more dramatic in Greek: He chooses the words “a great (megas) earthquake (seismos)” (Matt 8:24) and the ship was “covered with the waves.” Luke’s Greek account notes that they “were filled” (sumpleroo) and “were in danger.” (Luke 8:23)

Of course Jesus knew a storm was coming. The parallel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke stress that Jesus was the planner and sender. He organized the trip, booked the time and even arranged the seating. It was instigated, premeditated, calculated. When Jesus said, “Let’s go over to the other side,” he did not mean heaven! Matthew writes, “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake” (Matt 8:18) and Luke records, “One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let's go over to the other side of the lake” (Luke 8:22), both accounts adding “of the lake” to Mark’s account.