He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them (Mark 6:48)
We live in
an environment where the “wind is against us”. We strain and try to cut through
the wind, and we just don’t get very far.
In this scene, the 12 disciples are straining, fighting to row against
the wind for most of the night. Jesus,
after staying back on shore for the first 9 hours of the night, set out walking
on the water seemingly effortlessly. In fact, He’s about to stroll on by while
they’re wrestling with the oars, barely having made any headway. When the
disciples see him, they’re terrified until He reassures them and climbs into
the boat. Once in the boat with the disciples, the wind ceases. No more
contrary wind, no more struggle, smooth sailing from then on.
Perhaps the
wind remembers the rebuke of the Lord from a previous encounter as described
earlier in this Gospel account, and behaves as soon as He is in their midst,
but it is noteworthy that the word “wind” is so often used to describe the
spiritual world. Not knowing from whence
it comes, or where it blows, but it stirs up the physical realm. The invisible wind causes the sea to
violently respond. The contrary wind
opposes the plans and agendas of the followers of Jesus. Yet, they struggle and fight against it,
exhausting themselves, while Jesus who spent the time in prayer, strolls
effortlessly by on top of the sea, unhindered and unaffected by the wind. It is as though the winds parted, and the sea
was restful wherever He planted His next step.
What if the
disciples decided earlier on to drop anchor and wait for Jesus. What if they
turned around back to where Jesus was and said “Lord, without You, we are
struggling against a contrary wind. We
have seen how the wind and waves obey You, and how compassionate You were to
all those You sent away, feeding every single one of them. We have seen You accomplish great things in a
short time, and how we are not able to do this without You. Therefore we’ve come back to ask You to get
into the boat with us.” Maybe this is
why Jesus waited on shore for so long. Perhaps He was wondering when it might
occur to them that they were powerless without Him. By the forth watch, it would appear that they were going to
continue their fruitless struggle against the contrary wind, not asking for help,
nor even praying for it, just fighting and struggling against the elements of
the invisible world in the weakness of their flesh.
One can
almost picture Jesus rolling His eyes, shaking His head as He decides He’s let
them struggle long enough and since they hadn’t called out to God to help them,
He was about to stroll on by, past them, onto the other side. Perhaps to emphasize the calm surrounding
Jesus, one might also imagine Him whistling a tune to Himself as He walked on
by. In the same way we watch a toddler
struggle to do an impossible task as He pushes our hands off insisting and saying
“I can do it myself!”, while we sigh, sit back and wait until He finally asks
for help, or gives up trying, we see Jesus taking the same approach. It wasn’t
cruelty that Jesus allowed them to exhaust themselves against a contrary wind,
it was an object lesson. We must come to
the end of ourselves sooner or later.
We can do
nothing in our own strength. There is an
invisible contrary wind blowing against us, stirring up the physical world with
its circumstances and interruptions. We
can fight against it in our strength, but it is a fruitless struggle and all
that we accomplish is exhaustion.
The Lord had commissioned them earlier to go
out two by two, proclaiming the gospel, healing the sick, and casting out
demons. He had to demonstrate to them
their utter helplessness without Jesus.
Their power depended upon Jesus.
In this stormy scene, the Scripture states that “their heart was hardened”
(Mark 6:52). Whenever we think that we did something amazing, pride rears its
ugly head and hardens our hearts. God
resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Pride must not be allowed to
enter into the work of the Gospel because it is a lie. Pride is the sin that caused Lucifer’s fall,
and it is the greatest disease to afflict mankind.
The remedy
is death, therefore we must all die and be reckoned dead to the flesh, where
pride proliferates, but alive in Christ.
We must be entirely dependent upon Jesus, living in union with Him,
abiding in Him. He must be in our boat
at all times if we are to get to the other side and if He isn’t, we must wait
and find out why that is. Jesus would never leave us, nor forsake us, but He would, for our own good, let us struggle without Him until we cry out to Him. We must seek
Him and ask Him if He is indeed sending us out, or is He calling us to “come
aside by ourselves to a deserted place to rest a while”. It is imperative that we are abiding and
sensitive to His will in this moment. We
cannot have an agenda of our own. Ours
is to surrender our agenda, and wait upon God.
