“I’m confused”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, January 27, 2023
Mark 6:47-56 (Forward, p. 90) CEV p. 1035
I find Mark’s account of today’s event to be somewhat puzzling. Jesus made His disciples get into their boat to start back across the lake to Bethsaida, while He stayed behind to pray. They were making very little headway in doing so, as they were rowing against the wind. Towards morning, Jesus left His place of prayer and came towards them, walking on the water, but seeming to pass by the boat.
The disciples were terrified, thinking that it was a ghost, as might well be expected, with limited visibility in those pre-dawn hours. But then He quelled their fears, by reassuring them that it was indeed Him and by joining them in to boat. When He did so, the winds immediately died down.
But here’s where it gets confusing, for me at least. Mark then relates, “the disciples were completely confused. Their minds were closed, and they could not understand the true meaning of the loaves of bread” (verses 51b-52). I would have thought that their confusion had to do with either Jesus’ ability to walk on the water or quell the furious winds, but that seems not to be the case. Other translations put the record straight:
“And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (NRSV);
“The disciples were completely amazed, because they had not understood the real meaning of the feeding of the five thousand; their minds could not grasp it” (Good News Bible).
However, even if this clears up the source of the confusion, it does not at all address the issue of why the matter of the feeding of the five thousand came up at this point in time. It still is pretty confusing as far as I am concerned!
However, here some of the learned authorities proved to be helpful. They suggest that these comments about the disciples and their state of mind are an editorial conjecture. Plummer suggests that the disciples didn’t really understand Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fishes, which was clearly outside of their field of experience, and even less so, with Jesus’ walking on the water etc. The properties of water and such like were fully part of their knowledge and experience and so Jesus’ actions were even more incomprehensible. They could appreciate them, most certainly, but they were still more than they could ‘wrap their heads around’.
Vincent Taylor suggests that had they fully understood Jesus’ miracle of the loaves and fishes, with His demonstrated superiority over the natural world, they wouldn’t have been quite so astounded by His walking on the water. And Schweizer has this to say about it:
“The inbreaking of God, which shattered all customary standards, causes utter confusion. This is a sign of how little man actually believes in the reality of God. This very thing is what Mark calls the ‘stubborn heart’ (translated: ‘their minds could not grasp it’). In so doing Mark has put the disciples on a level with the Pharisees of 3:5” [Mark’s account of Jesus healing the man with the crippled hand].
What this says to me is that we mere mortals often have a great deal of trouble actually believing in the power and ability of Almighty God. I have seen how some physicians are clearly uncomfortable with any story of spiritual healing, but they are not alone in this. Even with us ‘ordinary folk’ (folk without any precise professional expertise), any story of some supposedly ‘divine’ intervention has us casting around for some other explanation. “Oh”, we say to ourselves, “that timely cheque just happened to come in the mail on the very day that it was needed”, or “the passerby just happened to come along the highway when the car went into the ditch”. That they happened at the very same time as a prayer was offered is written off as a ‘mere coincidence.’
And so, in some ways, we are not very different than either the disciples or the Pharisees. We too have trouble believing. Our minds are hardened, we are confused, and we have trouble ‘getting our minds around it.’ And so, my prayer is this: “Lord, help us believe. And, even more so, help us to put our trust in you, even when we are confused and find that our minds ‘can’t get around it’. Amen.”
Forward notes: “But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’” (verse 50b).
“In the midst of a storm, the disciples do not recognize Jesus. Their first thought is that the figure walking toward them on the water is a ghost. There are accounts in the gospels of Jesus’s friends not recognizing him after his resurrection. Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus for the gardener until he calls her by name. Cleopas and his companion do not recognize Jesus on their walk to Emmaus until Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them.
“Where might you be overlooking Jesus in your life? Saint Benedict reminds us to welcome every stranger as Christ himself. At every turn, it is a small intimate action that only Jesus would know that reveals God to us: the breaking of bread with our community, the quiet reassurance to take heart even in times of trouble, the quiet whisper of our own name.”
Moving Forward: “Where do you recognize Jesus in your life?