Daily Devotion for Lent 2015, Day 16

Daily Devotion for Lent

Saturday, March 7, 2015, Day 16

Mark 6:45-56 (NRSV)

"The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water"
by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1907.

This is the second and more powerful of the miracles in Mark where Jesus shows mastery over the sea.  In this account, we have him walking on water and then calming the storms.

Mark doesn't tell anything about Peter seeking to join Jesus on the stormy waters.

Instead, we are left with the clue that the disciples' hearts were hardened.

As Jesus begins to expand on his catalog of miracles, wouldn't it make sense for his disciples to grow in their trust of him?

The miracle of the loaves may have reminded them of Elisha or possibly manna from heaven.

The mastery over the sea may have reminded them of the parting of the waters by Moses.

But the Moses references also remind us of another whose heart was hardened and that was Pharaoh.

With the influence of the Enlightenment, the miracles are often broken down, explained or dismissed.  With post-modernism, we might be able to look at them and say, "What would it be like to experience this as an observer?"

How would it have impacted me?

As they landed in Gennesaret on the northwestern shores of the Sea of Galilee, we see the sick being healed as they touch the fringes of his cloak.  The Messiah was thought to have healing in his wings from Malachi 4:2.  The word "wings" could also be translated as corner or fringe and it was thought that one could touch the fringe on the prayer shawl of the Messiah and be healed.

Evidently, the hearts of these people were not hardened.

I wonder what I'm missing today?


Prayer (from an early Scottish unknown author):

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you, for ever.



Picture by Henry Ossawa Tanner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons