The text for this morning’s message comes from the Gospel of Mark, the sixth chapter:
Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side… And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.Thus far the text.
Dear Friends in Christ,
“For they didn’t understand about the loaves???” Did you hear that? “For they didn’t understand about the loaves?” What in the world does that have to do with anything? It’s such an odd statement. What does Mark mean? Why does he include this? It doesn’t make much sense! Or does it?
First, we have to ask, what loaves is Mark talking about? Anyone? Did no one pay attention to the Gospel lesson of last week? What did we read? What is that lesson usually called? The Feeding of the Five Thousand. You see, Mark includes this, he includes this little tidbit of information, that the disciples of Christ didn’t understand about the loaves, because it’s important. But Mark wants YOU to understand this. The disciples, they eventually came to understand just what EVERYTHING meant, everything that Jesus did in their presence, everything He said, everything He taught.
The disciples got to spend 40 uninterrupted days with Jesus after His resurrection from the dead. The crucified and risen Lord sat with them and talked with them and answered their questions. Eventually, the disciples understood. Eventually, the disciples learned what the loaves meant. And then THEY went and taught what the Lord meant in the miracle of the loaves. And they eventually even taught Mark, the writer of the Gospel bearing his name, the disciple of Peter, the one who took everything that Peter taught about Jesus and His ministry and put it down on parchment, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
That means, that if Mark was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to write, “For they didn’t understand about the loaves,” then that phrase is important. But it also means something else. It means that the Holy Spirit is drawings juxtaposition between the disciples and you because He wants YOU to understand this.
And what is to be understood? That the Lord of all creation, the one who came and took on human flesh, cares for human needs but always human need while teaching theTruth about the reality of God and His kingdom. The crowds were hungry, Jesus had compassion on them, so He fed them while teaching His disciples that He Himself is the Bread of Life. The very nourishing bread that the 5,000 ate, came from the very hands of the Bread of Life, and in fact the very God who had formed each kernel of seed to grow that bread, the very God who allowed the processes of the world to work to grow the grain, to bring the kernel to stem, the stem to head, the farmer to reap, the reaper to grind, the grinder to bake, the baker to sell, and the seller to give. God is in control of all these things. And this God was standing directly in the midst of the people who needed bread but who needed the Bread of Life even more.
Fascinatingly, and I do not desire to spend too much more time in the text of last week, but what we have here is a direct corollary to our worship today. For truly, what is necessary for worship? Think about it. We must gather in the name and in the presence of Jesus. Jesus was standing in the midst of the 5000. Jesus stands in our midst even here and now. There is prayer and blessing. What more have we done but announce to you the grace and the mercy of God the Father upon you in the forgiveness of your sins because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ? We must gather around His Word and His teaching. His Word said, “Give them something to eat.” We must gather around the sacraments. The Lord who instituted His last supper, offering forgiveness to all who believe it is His body and blood as He himself promised, gave the bread and fish from His own hands, offering to them real bread and real fish. This was not some spiritualized bread where everyone gets a little crumb, but they say oh, what a whole and hearty meal. No, everyone ate and was satisfied, just as all who come to the altar believing in the very words of Jesus Christ, this is My body, this is My blood, for the forgiveness of your sins, everyone who eats and drinks of Him today will be satisfied to the full in the forgiveness of your sins.
This what Mark means. The disciples did not yet understand this. Even though Jesus tried to explain it to them, their hearts were still too hard to be able to understand Him. Now, where is this explained? Where may we find that Scripture interprets Scripture? In the parallel to our passage in Mark, John shows in his sixth chapter of his Gospel that Jesus explains it to them in this way:
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe…” After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”Jesus is the VERY loaf that Mark says the disciples do not understand. But they will, as do you now. You MUST eat and drink of Jesus if you desire to have life in Him. This is not a negotiable thing. You MUST eat and drink of the flesh, the bread, of Jesus and the blood, the wine, of Jesus. Why? Because Jesus says so! You must understand this! Jesus doesn’t JUST institute His sacrament in the Upper Room before He is betrayed! He is instituting it all through His ministry and life on earth! And He continues to bless it even now! Even as we gather together, Jesus is here. His Word is here. His sacraments are here!
But, lest you just believe I’m proof-texting, I also desire to return to today’s text and PROVE to you that Mark knew exactly what he was saying, Mark knew exactly what Jesus was teaching. Mark knew that the disciples at the time didn’t understand, but his desire is for YOU to understand what Jesus is doing, who Jesus is, and how He can do these marvelous things, not only the miracles, walking on water, calming the wind, making bread and fish be a smorgasbord for so many people, but also how Jesus can tell you that you must eat Him and drink Him to have life. Why is it Him and not just bread and wine that we must eat and drink? It’s because He’s God.
Now, Mark says this in his text. Did you see it? The key, unfortunately for us English speakers, for truly understanding Mark’s writing, is in the Greek. But, despair not, I can help here.
Now, I’m not going to give you an in-depth study of the original languages of Greek and Hebrew up here, but I want you to understand that there are some very interesting movements in the text. Mark is skilled at writing. His Gospel is set up to directly move the reader very quickly across the text. After all, how many times did you read the word "immediately" in today's text? But, what Mark is about to do would blow the Greek-speaker’s mind. Mark is going to slow down enough for the Greek-speaking Israelite to hear about Jesus’ claims to be God.
Mark is going to make three, three, distinct references to Jesus being God. Three, of course, is the number of the Trinity. I don’t believe this is a mistake; I believe the number itself is pointing directly to our Triune God. And Mark is going to point this out by drawing three very clear images from the Old Testament. When God acted in the Old Testament, He always went by the name Yahweh. Yahweh created, Yahweh interacted with His people, Yahweh talked with His people, Yahweh led His people, promised His people, saved His people, showed mercy to His people. And Mark is going to tell the reader in the text that JESUS is Yahweh, the same Yahweh that has always been, currently is, and will always be. So, these three references are used to refer to Christ as the God of the Old Testament, but, with the three references, it is also an allusion to show that Jesus is God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, our Triune God.
The first reference is in verse 48. What is it? Jesus meant, Jesus desired to pass them by. How is this a reference to Yahweh? When did Yahweh pass by? Exodus 12, Yahweh says that anyone who has put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts and lintels of the house, he will be passed over by the Angel of the Lord, Yahweh Himself. Exodus 33, Yahweh puts Moses in the cleft of the rock and desires to pass by Moses so he will only see the backside of God. In Job 9, Job is telling of how great the Lord is and says that he is passed by the Lord, by Yahweh, as Yahweh goes about His own business. Anyone hearing the words “pass by” in the time of Mark would immediately be drawn to these and other remembrances of the Lord passing by in the Old Testament.
As if this isn’t enough, Mark then includes the second passage that does the same thing. In verse 49 of Mark’s Gospel, he says that the disciples see the Lord Jesus “walking about,” walking on the sea. Where is this made reference to Yahweh in the Old Testament? How about all the references in Exodus and Deuteronomy and the Psalms, where we are to walk after the Lord, walk before the Lord, walk in the ways of the Lord? We can only walk where He himself has first walked. The Lord Yahweh must walk. The most poignant example, however, is in Genesis 3, when the man heard Yahweh walking about the Garden after they had sinned. The passage indicates to the reader that God, Yahweh, was in the habit of walking about the Garden in the cool of the day! He loved doing this! Is it any surprise then that Jesus is walking about on the sea with a cool wind in His face? Anyone who heard that Jesus was walking about would be immediately taken to the Garden.
And the third reference, the third pointing to Jesus as Yahweh, is the most obvious of all. Unfortunately, I have to say, it is badly translated into our own English. In verse 50, where we hear Jesus say, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid,” in the Greek it says, Θαρσεῖτε ἐγώ εἰμι μὴ φοβεῖσθε. Tharsaytay ego eimi may phobeisthey Does anyone know what this literally means? I do. And so would the readers of the Greek of Mark. “Be courageous, I AM. Fear not.” I AM. Yahweh! Anyone who hears Jesus say I AM knows that He is here claiming for Himself the very name of God, the very name given to Moses to identify God. Who will know who sent me? What is your name? Tell them I AM has sent you. I AM.
Jesus is claiming to be the very God who spoke to Moses, who spoke to Pharaoh, who spoke to Israel, who spoke to all the Israelites, who loved David, who gave wisdom to Solomon, who saved Daniel from the lion’s den, who stood with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, who wrestled with Jacob, who walked with Adam and Eve, who prophesied through Isaiah and Ezekiel and Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah and Micah and, yes, even John the Baptist. I AM speaks to His people, is with His people always, is near His people, is leading His people, is saving His people, HAS saved His people. I AM, Yahweh, the Lord, Jesus, Jesus is here, even now.
This is what Mark is saying. The disciples didn’t understand that by the very miracle of Jesus giving the loaves and the fish to his followers, Jesus is showing Himself to be I AM. So Mark makes it clear for you, the reader. Jesus is the very I AM that has been active and involved with His creation from the very beginning. The one who has been since before time, since before eternity, lasting until eternity. They didn’t understand about the loaves, because they didn’t yet understand that Jesus is I AM, Jesus is Yahweh.
What is Yahweh limited by? Nothing! He is God and can do whatever He wishes. He can walk on water. He can command the waves. He can watch over you, all of you, all the time and allow you to receive His mercy. He gives you breath, He gives you life, He gives you work, He gives you friends, He gives you family. And Mark tells us, too, that Jesus went on to heal all who came to Him, even those who just touched the hem of His robe. If Jesus can do all these things, all these miracles, who is able to say that Jesus is not present in His holy meal? Who is able to limit God to say that we cannot eat His flesh and drink His blood? Who is able to say that Jesus can’t be both present in heaven and on earth simultaneously, that we are able to trust that Jesus is God in heaven and on earth, even as He is placed into our mouths and into our bodies?
The only person who can say these things is a liar, and one who does not believe the very words of Jesus and described for us in Mark and in John. My friends, do not let people lie to you about Jesus. Do not believe lies about Jesus. Understand the loaves. Understand that the miracle of the loaves means that Jesus is God, that He cares for you, and that though it is a hard saying that you MUST eat His flesh and drink His blood if you desire to have eternal life, it is a TRUE saying. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia!
Depend on your faith, that faith in Jesus Christ, created by the Father, given to you by the Holy Spirit in your baptisms and strengthened even today in the Lord’s Supper, that your faith will see you through, to raise you up on the last day, and to look your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Yahweh, the Great I AM, in the face, and to say to Him, Lord, I believe! Now I fully understand the loaves. You are God, and you keep your promises to feed us and make us whole and satisfied! In Jesus’ name, the name of I AM, the name of Yahweh, Amen.
Now may the peace that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
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