When God Passes You By
Lutheran Service Book 3 Year Lectionary • Sermon • Submitted
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Text: “And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 50 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.’”—Mark 6:48b-50
There are a couple of parts to this event from Mark’s Gospel that strike us modern readers as rather odd. The one that I’d like to focus on specifically this morning is Mark’s description that Jesus “meant to pass by them.” To us, that sounds like neglect or indifference. It sounds like He’s leaving them to fend for themselves. But, for Mark’s readers at the time, it would have had a much different meaning. They would have heard that phrase much differently than you and I do. And that is the meaning that we need to grasp in order to properly understand God’s Word today. So let’s go back to a couple of Old Testament references. Let’s go back to them and try to hear this passage the way that a first century Jew would have heard it. In the process, you’ll discover that Marks’ words communicate anything but neglect, anything but indifference. Bear with me for a moment while we take a close look at a couple of Old Testament references because, in the process, you and I will discover the beauty and comfort of a God who “passes by.”
The Old Testament, too, talks about God “passing by.” One example involved Moses, at the very beginning of their time in the wilderness. There at Mount Sinai, Moses is being prepared to lead the people to the Promised Land. It is a time of great anticipation. But it is also, as you can imagine, a time of great anxiety for Moses. He was never thrilled about leading them. Now he feels the full weight of this covenant on his shoulders. So he makes a request of God:
Exodus 33:18–23 (ESV)
18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
But it doesn’t stop there. He wasn’t the only one that God “passed by.”
Exodus 34:4-9 (ESV)
...4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
God passing by is not a sign of indifference or neglect. It is a revelation. It is in order to proclaim His glory, His mercy, His grace, His power, His justice.
And the fact that Jesus is passing by on the water only highlights that point. Job describes God this way:
Job 9:5–11 (ESV)
5 he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,
6 who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
7 who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
8 who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;
9 who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10 who does great things beyond searching out,
and marvelous things beyond number.
11 Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
Isaiah draws on the same image of God walking on the water. He uses it to comfort God’s people.
Isaiah 51:9–12 (ESV)
9 Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the Lord;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the dragon?
10 Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to pass over?
11 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12 “I, I am he who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
There are others that we might look at, but these should suffice. The fact that Jesus intended to “pass by” was not a sign of neglect.
“This is Jesus’ way of indicating His divine identity. He is saying, ‘I am Yahweh. I am the Lord, God of Israel.’ So ‘I am the One of whom Isaiah is speaking. I am the One that’s being talked about in the book of Job. I am the One who appeared to Moses when I put Him in the cleft of the rock.’ Jesus is saying that ‘Just as I revealed the back side of my glory to Moses and just as I’m the One that Job talked about, now I am walking on, I’m trampling on the sea like Job talks about. I’m the One who’s crossing the sea— just like I crossed the sea with the Israelites in days of old— and I am Yahweh. Jesus is claiming the divine identity, saying that ‘I’m the One who appeared to Moses in the burning bush. I’m the One who led the Israelites out of Egypt. I’m the One who tramples the waves of the sea, I put the constellations in the sky. I am none other than Yahweh in the flesh.’ And He goes to His disciples in order to reveal Himself to them. He means to pass them by in the sense that He’s about to reveal exactly who He is. And, of course, the disciples are astonished when they realize what Jesus has done. He gets in the boat and what happens after that? There’s a great calm.
Now the disciples, they still don’t get it. They didn’t learn exactly who Jesus was from the feeding of the 5,000 and they still are grappling with who He is. Of course, in the gospels, nobody really ‘gets’ who Jesus is until after the Resurrection and the coming of Pentecost. Now, as we read through these stories in light of everything that we know— from His crucifixion, His Resurrection, His ascension, and Pentecost— we see that what’s happening on the sea of Galilee is that Jesus is revealing to His disciples— and, of course, still to us, His Church— who, exactly He is. He’s not a creature; He’s God. He’s Yahweh come in the flesh to be with His people. And now He’s… redoing the crossing of the Red Sea as He crosses the Sea of Galilee with His disciples. And, just like He brought His own people safely to the other side in Exodus 14, now He’s going to bring His own disciples safely to the other side in Mark 6.
…[All of these images] provide this rich, layered backdrop to what’s happening in Mark 6 as Yahweh, now come in the flesh, He steps on to the waves of the sea in order to bring His disciples, bring His people now to the other side like He did in days of old, revealing that He has come to bring about for all of us a new Exodus, a new creation, all the gifts that the Father desires us to have. (Bird, Chad. “Why Did Jesus Walk on Water? The Old Testament Answer.” YouTube.com, July 19, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR1BCIynBuqsKWTjzzaZyHBRpHZKK6V2vCpl39HKz2IiYAiA9KXrIHbPpOc&v=yVf3rSeaTWE&feature=youtu.be)
There are many times that you and I go through this life like those disciples on the Sea of Galilee that day with the wind against them. Mark, as he writes his Gospel, would have you know that, from up on high, your savior sees that you’re making headway painfully, even torturously. So He has come to you, meaning to pass by. He has come to you with a demonstration of His power, His glory, and His mercy. He has come to you revealing that He is Yahweh, He is the One who set the constellations in place, who has to power to overturn mountains, who dries up the sea so that His people can pass through in safety.
He has come to suffer for you. To bear the guilt of all the sins that cause the act of making your way through this world to be a torturous thing— bearing not only your sins but the sins others commit against you. He walked an even harder road than this invisible path across the water. He walked the road to the cross. The One who passed by in order to proclaim the first covenant with His people at Sinai now passes by you in order to establish a New Covenant in His blood. He, Himself, now leads you through the wilderness of this world, across the Jordan, and into the Promised Land.
He is the One who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over so that the ransomed of the Lord might return and come to Zion with singing, everlasting joy upon their heads, obtaining gladness and joy, sorrow and sighing fleeing away.
So that He might be the One who comforts you.
“And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 50 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.’”
His mercies are new every single morning. He comes to gather you into His boat— the Holy Ark of the Christian Church— and assures you, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”