Take Courage! It Is I. Don’t Be Afraid

Mark 6:45-56

Last Sunday we were talking about two banquets: a banquet of life and a banquet of death. On his birthday, Herod gave a big party that became a banquet of death when he killed an innocent man John the Baptist. On the other hand, Jesus had compassion on the people who followed him, and gave them a banquet of life. Very little fish and bread turned into a rich banquet of life, genuine life. Now people were eager to hear from Jesus something about his cousin’s death. They wanted revenge. They were waiting for more.

Now we are in verse 45. “Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on…” Why is Jesus in a hurry? Only twice in the gospels we see Jesus immediately leaving everything and going away. He sends the crowds home, takes his disciples with him to goes away. He has a message to the King Herod and to the crowd.

What is the message?

1. I am the new “Moses”. More than that, I am the divine presence of God.

2. I am the Good Shepherd. I have compassion on my sheep; I allow them to lie down on the green grass; I feed them and protect them.

3. I offer a banquet of life and not death.

4. My movement is not political. I did not come to overthrow your kingdom, Mr. Herod. I had the chance to do it but did not use it. (Remember how the crowd was following Jesus, and they were angry with Herod’s decision of executing John the Baptist.) Why? Because I came to conquer SIN and DEATH. I do not have any political agenda.

I think Herod remembered that Jesus was not a political threat. A few years later, when Pilot sent Jesus to Herod for trial, instead of making a verdict about crucifixion, Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate. Herod saw Jesus differently. Jesus was not planning a political uprising.

This is the first Sunday of Lent. The Armenian Apostolic church calls this Sunday, Ardaksman Giriagi, which means the Sunday of Expulsion. We read in the book of Genesis about the disobedience of Adam and Eve. God expels Adam and Eve out of Paradise. I remember from my school life, that one of my fears of the school was that the school principal would expel any student for some kind of misconduct. In Armenian, to expel is close to Gakhagayoutioun. I was afraid of this word, because I thought it meant they would hang someone, (gakhel)! I was wrong, of course. But what a terrible thing it is to be expelled out of something or someone. The worst is to be expelled by God from Paradise. But the story did not end there. God loved us. He gave us another chance. Jesus gave this second chance to humanity. Jesus told Herod, “I know you are vicious king, but my job on this earth is to work with the root of the problem of all kinds of injustice, SIN. I came to conquer SIN.”

We go back to our passage. Immediately the disciples were in the sea. Evening came and it was dark. The boat was middle of the lake. The disciples were at the oars, working hard to pass; the wind blew against them. Jesus went to them walking on the sea. He did not come to rescue them. He came to pass them to lead them to the shore. Now the disciples were afraid. They thought they are seeing a ghost, as the English translation goes. There are no ghosts in the original text. In Armenian, it says “achki yerevouyt men e”, (a shadow appearing to the eyes). The KJV says, “…they supposed it had been a spirit.” All of them saw Him and were terrified.

I think I too would be terrified to witness such a phenomenon. But what is Jesus doing? Is he trying to teach them something new?

We will continue in English.