Mark 6:45-52

Jesus’ Credentials – “I Am”

Jesus had given what was possibly his most significant practical illustration of the nature and possibility of the Kingdom, though the significance was lost on the disciples, as Mark would soon remind the reader. The disciples, and the readers, still had much to learn.

Mark 6:45-52 – Jesus Walks on Water

Bethsaida was situated on the northeastern shore of the sea of Galilee in non-Jewish territory, the ominous other side. Given their experience with the Gerasene demoniac, not surprisingly the disciples were reluctant to go. The word translated as constrained was accurate.  Neither Jesus, nor Mark, indicated how Jesus was to catch up with them. Were they meant to go alone, with no explicit mission, to people so different from themselves?

Jesus went up the unidentified hills to pray. Hills and mountains were traditional places of encounter with God. There God communicated with Moses, and again with Elijah.

Perhaps Jesus needed to pray, to take quiet time alone with his Father, to centre and still himself to better hear the prompting of the Spirit within. The feeding of the five thousand was a highlight in his ministry to date. How did he move on from there?

The issues raised earlier about Jesus’ stilling the storm at sea are equally relevant here. Was Mark recounting what he believed was an actual event, or was he writing in “apocalyptic” style to open for his readers a further “window” into the mystery of Jesus? However the question be answered, Mark certainly intended to leave no doubt that the Jesus who fed his people in the wilderness was the revelation of Yahweh and that the Kingdom preached by Jesus was indeed the fulfillment of Yahweh’s liberating dream for Israel.

The God who “Passed By”

Mark commented that Jesus “intended to pass them by”. The phrase “to pass by” was used in the tradition of the action of God in his appearances to both Moses and Elijah.

And to Elijah God had said:

Mark then continued the narrative:

The response of Jesus confirmed the imagery noted above. The phrase It is I equally translated the name spoken by God to Moses at the Burning Bush (Exodus 3.14) and again in the quotation cited above.

The language Mark used deliberately associated the actions and self-definition of Jesus with the actions and self-definition of Yahweh. Mark did not explore further the nature of this association, but he had undoubtedly moved the question Who is this? to a far deeper and mysterious level.

Mark seemed at a loss to describe the lack of insight on the part of the disciples. They thought Jesus was an apparition. They were terrified. Whether they became aware of his reference to himself as I am was not clear. If they had been, it was certainly beyond their capacity to absorb it.

Understanding The Loaves

Mark attributed their astonishment to their inability to understand the previous incident of the loaves and the five thousand. What sort of understanding did Mark have in mind? He obviously saw the incident as being highly revelatory, though it was not seen as such by the disciples.

The familiar experience of the enough and the abundance illustrated that the Kingdom of God was not only possible but also real. God was moving in the world, and Jesus was the one through whom God’s action was patently at work.

Mark levelled at the disciples the accusation of the same disbelief that Isaiah had lamented, and that Jesus had made about people generally on the occasion of his parabolic discourse on the mystery of the Kingdom.

Jesus Present to the Markan Community

As already noted, Mark constructed his narrative, selecting and ordering events, for the purpose of instructing his readers. He had already clearly stated his own faith in the opening lines of his story: Jesus was Christ, and Son of God. Through this event he had clearly cast Jesus in the mould of the one who revealed the face of God, who in some way was not different from the Yahweh (= I am) of the Jewish scriptural tradition. Why did he choose to reassert his faith in Jesus at this stage of the narrative?

He had been constantly raising the question “Who is this?” because insight into the mystery of Jesus was closely tied with the credibility of his behaviour and his teaching. He raised the question for the sake of his own readers, his own Christian community, whose struggle with faith was his concern.

In the narrative he had closely connected the self-revelation of Jesus with 

• the journey into the unfamiliar territory of the Gentiles, 
• the meaning of the loaves
• and the action of the Eucharist, (the meal par excellence of the Christian community, which in its turn would be the climax of the self-revelation of Jesus, as would become evident later in the narrative).

Mark’s community apparently needed reassurance that their journey beyond their comfort zones, their wrestle with the unfamiliar encountered in the differing cultural, ethnic and religious attitudes of Gentile converts, should not be source of distress. Their God was consistently the God of enough, of abundance. Yet, though they were called to cooperate always with God, they were not to see their own labour and gifts as their source of hope and confidence, but their faith in the protecting company of Jesus, the revelation of God, present in the community.

What Mark’s community stood in constant need of was the contemplative attitude, reflected so clearly in Jesus’ own need to pray, that would make them sensitive to the presence, in the midst of life with its struggles and uncertainties, of the God authentically revealed in Jesus. They had to learn to see beyond the surface and its distractions to be in touch with real.

Next >> Mark 6:53-56