Title: Take Courage! Text: Mark 6:45-52
The context is important here.
Immediately before this section of Mark 6 we have verses 30-44
which record the time when Jesus fed 5000 men with only 5 loaves and 2 fish.
The disciples had witnessed a great miracle,
so why were they terrified and amazed by Jesus’ ability to walk on water?
Why did the Gospel writer Mark, who was not there in the boat,
and who would have learned about this even from Simon Peter (Cephas);
why did he describe the disciples as having hard hearts?
Could it be because, as Jesus Himself put it in Matthew 26:41
so often ‘the spirit / our spirit’ is strong
but ‘the flesh’ / ‘our flesh’ is weak
and ‘religion’ is only for an hour or so per week,
and not relevant to ‘the real world’ we live and work in.
We have to remember that the disciples were ordinary people,
although they were chosen by an extraordinary man
to do extraordinary things.
What would OUR reaction be if we were in a boat, in the middle of a lake,
without a lifejacket,
and it was evening, so it would be getting dark,
and the wind was blowing against us.
We would probably be cold, tired and afraid.
Then, what would our reaction be if we saw what we thought was a ghost
walking on the surface of the water, and about to pass us by.
The Gospel says they cried out because they were terrified.
Probably we would cry out too, as the disciples did; but would we cry out
‘Oh my God!’ in despair; or ‘Oh my God, please help me’?
Whichever way the words were uttered, the point is
that Jesus responded or reacted IMMEDIATELY, in spite of their hard hearts,
telling them to ‘take courage’ and stop being afraid.
Nice words, good advice,
but until Jesus climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down,
as human beings, they would probably still fear drowning.
My dictionary describes ‘Courage’ as
‘the power or quality of dealing with or facing danger, fear or pain’
and lists the following words which have similar meanings:
‘bravery, boldness, bottle, daring, heroism, nerve, pluck’.
In face of the danger of drowning,
Jesus was not telling the disciples to be brave with natural heroism,
as displayed by those who are awarded the Victoria Cross, which comes from within,
or face death with boldness as Daniel was prepared to do in the lion’s den
and countless Christians showed before they were martyred.
Jesus was not asking them to look INSIDE themselves
for some good quality that would help them in a time of testing,
but to look OUTSIDE themselves
to a Source of strength greater than any human being could display.
Christian covenantal baptism gives the assurance that the sins of all
who are prepared to look OUTSIDE of themselves and trust in Christ
are washed away because of God’s New Covenant of grace.
No one is saved and assured of eternal sin just by baptism;
that would mean salvation just because of a ritual they were involved in passively.
Martin Luther sparked off the Protestant Reformation by reminding people
of the Biblical doctrine of Justification by Faith, not by rituals and works.
Coming through the water of baptism is an important step in our life journey
but salvation does not depend on a few drops of water alone
and baptism counts for nothing if there is no faith, no trust in Jesus as Saviour.
When someone dies and appears at the Judgement Seat
their sins will be counted as washed away when they were baptised
IF they have displayed faith and trust,
but no one can expect to enter Heaven if they admit they had no faith
but say ‘but I was baptised!’
If baptism alone saved, without faith,
we could just line up everyone in the country and spray them with a hosepipe
and then close the churches down for a generation
and repeat the ritual every ten years or so.
So in today’s Gospel story, Jesus was asking the disciples to look to Him,
have faith in Him, and rely on Him to save them, which He duly did,
and the message to us in times of need and difficulty
or when burdened by our sins, exactly the same;
that we are to live by faith and trust in Him.
As Paul put it in Ephesians 3:17:
everyone who wants their sins forgiven and the assurance of eternal life
must ask Christ to dwell in their hearts through faith,
and grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God.
So, if Jesus was asking the disciples to have faith, take courage from Him
and if He also asks us to have faith, the next question is: ‘What is Faith?’
Someone once said:
Faith is the radar that guides the ship into port when the pilot cannot see.
Faith is described this way by one person:
Faith is the trusting commitment of one person to another, particularly of a person to God.
Faith is the central doctrine of Christianity.
According to Martin Luther, sinners are justified, or saved, or made right by God,
because of their faith in Jesus Christ,
which means someone can only be called a Christian if they have faith,
so, how does a person get faith and how do we grow in faith?
Someone wrote: “I prayed for faith and thought that some day it would come down
and strike me like lightning. But faith didn’t seem to come.
Then, one day I read in Romans that
“faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”
I had up to this time never opened a Bible but had only prayed for faith.
Now I opened my Bible and began to study it, and faith has been growing ever since.”
In our Gospel text this morning Jesus shows us the lack of faith
the fearful disciples initially had in Him,
and it’s because of their lack of faith that Jesus said to them:
‘Take Courage it is I, don’t be afraid.’
This shows us one thing about faith, that where there is no faith there is fear.
I take it that none of us here has any fear about where we will spend eternity,
not because of OUR merits, but because we trust God to look after us.
Notice, that when Jesus spoke and said ‘take courage’,
both the disciples and the storm became calm.
Did the disciples become calm BEFORE the wind died down,
or BECAUSE the wind died down?
Can we trust Jesus BEFORE the storms in life die down
or do we only trust Him AFTER some problem has gone away?.
It is most certainly true that Jesus tests our faith,
and usually more than we would want Him to.
He allows circumstances in our lives to test us
to see what we are made out of,
to see if we will persevere, or give up,
just as He tested the Israelites when they left Egypt.
God brought them to the Red Sea and split it open,
only to let them go into the wilderness, and undergo a very testing time.
It should only have been an 11 day journey to their destination,
but it took them over 40 years, why?
because they did not have faith in God,
at least not consistent faith.
As they came to the Israelites, trials will come to us,
but when we exercise – put into practice – live by - faith in God,
we will get through our particular wilderness experience or storm
faster than we ever could on our own.
By faith, we believe that Jesus is always near us.
When the 3 Jewish men went into the fiery furnace, in Daniel 3:16-18,
God came and delivered them.
Unless we believe this is JUST A STORY
the next time we are going through a testing time,
our response needs to be the same as that of the 3 young Jews,
to trust God to see us through it.
I read a story of a Preacher who asked a boy about the presence of God.
The Preacher said to him, "Son, I will give you an apple
if you can tell me where God is".
The boy looked at the Preacher, then he looked at the apple, then he said,
" Mr Preacher, I will give you a barrel of apples
if you can tell me where God isn’t."
In verse 48 it says, Jesus saw them straining at their oars.
Often in life we strain at our particular oars and try to fix the problem ourselves,
rather then trust in God.
I am not saying that the disciples should not have done anything for themselves,
but the word straining tells us that they were putting their faith or trust
in their own human effort, which is carnal.
By faith we believe that Jesus is always watching our life, our family, our job,
our money, our marriage, our health, our circumstances,
and when the storms hit, He WILL come out to us.
Sometimes the answer is not what we want,
and sometimes the solution to our problem does not come as fast as we would like it,
but I believe, and I hope you do too, that He will and does help us,
if we put our trust and faith in Him.
On June 18 1999 Gary and Gloria Sloan, 2 American missionaries,
who had been serving God in Mexico for only six months,
were enjoying a birthday celebration for their daughter, Carla,
at a popular swimming spot on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
With them were two other young missionaries, Joy Murphy and John Weems.
Due to a strong undercurrent, Carla began to be pulled out to sea.
Her dad, Gary Sloan, and the other two missionaries rushed to save her,
but were overcome and drowned, as was the girl.
When Carla’s body was brought to shore,
her mother Gloria doubled over in agony, unable to breathe,
but later said that it was then that she felt the physical presence of Jesus.
Gloria said, "I felt such a strength and power and control.
I looked down at my daughter, and I had such a sense of God’s peace".
A large group of people gathered to watch this unfolding tragedy,
and saw four bodies lying on the sand.
But what happened next is truly amazing.
Gloria stood over the bodies of her dead loved ones,
and told the people, "The pain I feel because of the loss of my husband and daughter
and our two friends, was not as much as the pain as I feel for the lostness
of those standing around me".
Gloria Sloan then told the people that her daughter and husband
were standing in the presence of God,
and she asked them, "What if you were the ones laying here?
Would you know you would be in God’s presence?"
Gloria’s husband and daughter were buried in Mexico.
After their funerals, she went home to Texas to heal,
but after six months she packed up her remaining three children
and went back to Mexico to finish the work that she and her husband had begun.
Jesus is the One that calmed the wind in Mark 6,
and that’s the message for us when we are afraid and crying out.
Money can’t do it, the government can’t do it, our friends can’t do it;
only Jesus getting into the boat with us can make a difference,
because when we invite Jesus into our boat;
the boat being our life, our situation and our heart,
God’s power and peace will result,
and later, when it’s all over, like the disciples we will be ‘completely amazed’.
The enemies we face in life are strong, but God is stronger.
The Devil is no match for God,
and God will deliver any person, every person, including you and me,
who calls on the name of the Lord, and set them free.
Whatever our fear, the message of the Gospel today is let it go; give it to the Lord.
Allow the Lord to come into the boat with you
and let Him calm the wind that is blowing against you and making your journey so hard.
May we never be so hard of heart
that we imagine or fear
that God is unable or unwilling to help us.
With Jesus in the boat alongside us,
we will get to the other side, that is a promise from God,
so let us do what Jesus says, and take courage this morning,
fearing nothing that the world and the flesh and the devil might throw at us,
because Jesus is in our boat.
Amen and the peace of God ..........................
