The Boat Trip To Bethsaida. A Trip To Remember

8.4.24 Mark 6:45–52 (EHV)

45 Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he himself dismissed the crowd. 46 After he had sent them off, he went up the mountain to pray. 47 When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and Jesus was alone on the land. 48 He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he went to them, walking on the sea. He was ready to pass by them. 49 When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought he was a ghost, and they cried out. 50 They all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke with them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.” 51 Then he climbed up into the boat with them, and the wind stopped. They were completely amazed, 52 because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened.

The Boat Trip to Bethsaida, A Journey to Remember

Some of you may be familiar with the old TV show Gilligan’s Island back in the 1980’s. The Skipper and Gilligan were supposed to give their customers a three hour tour on their boat. The weather started getting rough, and they ended up shipwrecked and getting stranded on an island for years on end.

The boat trip that the disciples went on wasn’t meant to be a luxury three hour tour. Why go? Jesus had just miraculously fed 5,000 men with a few loaves of bread, and the people, perhaps also the disciples, wanted to make Him their bread King. So Jesus promptly acted, shoved them off, and went up on the mountain to pray. It was a simple journey they’d probably done hundreds of times before as fishermen, to cross the Sea of Galilee. It’s only a few miles wide. Jesus said, “Go to Bethsaida.” Easy peezy, lemon squeezy. But this ended up being anything BUT easy. A furious storm came up out of nowhere. The wind was directly against them. They knew how to row a boat, but this was no easy storm.

It’s kind of a microcosm of life, isn’t it? You expect some portions of your life to be nice little trips across a beautiful lake, a nice little three hour tour. But it doesn’t turn out that way. Every goal that you have has headwinds against you. I know of a young man who was a very good athlete, hoping to make it to the pros as a wide receiver. He had some great stats at SVSU. But he basically lost a year due to COVID. He also ended up breaking his toe and needing hip surgery as well. He got through the surgeries well, but he had one other weakness. He couldn’t jump very high. So he never got to even try out for the pros. Now he’s working for a distribution company. He did everything he could to try and achieve his goal, but his body and his circumstances said “no.”

How many times is life like that with MUCH SIMPLER goals? I just want to own a house. I just want to meet a nice Christian person to marry. I just want to have children. I just want to get a decent job. I just want to be able to pay the bills. The simplest of things, even good things that can be God pleasing, aren’t usually easy. You get married, have children, but then you struggle paying the bills. Your spouse works too much, or has postpartum depression. You have health problems. One thing after another gets in your way, and you’re in the middle of the lake rowing as hard as you can, but you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. And you wonder, “Why does this have to be so hard? I’m just trying to live a basic life.”

It gets even more troubling after listening to what Mark says. What is Jesus doing while they are struggling in the middle of the lake? He’s up on the mountain praying! And that’s not all. He saw them straining at the oars. It might seem like a little detail, but it could be a big thing too. Jesus, with His divine vision, SAW THEM straining at the oars. This was at the FOURTH watch, which would mean that it was 3:00 in the morning! I just got back from Wyoming after sitting in a car for two hours, in an airport for five hours, on a plane for 4 hours, and in a car for 2 more hours. We didn’t get home until 1:00 in the morning, and we were tired from just sitting all day. Could you imagine straining at the oars of a boat for maybe six hours, in the wind and the rain, and not getting anywhere in the middle of a lake? You have to admire them for their persistence. They didn’t just give up and go back to shore. They knew where they were supposed to be. But they were just having a hard time getting there. I would have been exhausted. And what was more? Jesus was just sitting there watching them! Shouldn’t he have gotten up earlier and gone down to help them? Were His prayers really that important at the time?