This sounds so much like a great quote to help us learn the lesson of how to have greater faith.
As you all know I certainly do watch movies, and honestly I do like the Indiana Jones movie series. In the last of this trilogy Indiana is searching for the holy grail used by Jesus at His last supper. Indiana is to follow the ‘clues’ in order to work his way back into the room where the holy grail is protected by an ancient Knight. (If you are not familiar with the movie, I may have lost you by now — but bear with me!). The last part before Indiana Jones arrives to enter the sacred room he quotes a clue that says he must take a step of faith across an area that looks like is a giant drop off. Of course, he finally takes that giant step of faith, and there is a hidden bridge that suddenly appears. He does it! It makes for a great and suspenseful movie scene. I have heard some teaching from our Bible story that we will be studying this week that makes it sound like a scene from the Indiana Jones movies. “Take a giant leap of faith!” “Get out of the Boat!”
So, is there a problem with this kind of thinking? If we are not careful, the answer is yes. We can easily follow the human tendency to read Bible stories with us as the centerpiece point. It is ‘natural’ to put ourselves in the middle of the story, and somehow in a warped way we even become the hero of the story. We have a very bad habit of not connecting the dots to the big picture or the center of the story. Be aware of this fact; when we do this there is a strong tendency to believe far off the mark even to the point of heresy if we are not careful.
This Sunday I will be teaching from the story of Jesus walking on water. It is found in Mark 6:45-52, but it is also found in Matthew 14:22-33. As you prepare to come to worship with the Church family this Sunday, I encourage you to take the time to read both accounts of this story. In the Matthew story he includes the part where Peter asked Jesus if he could step out of the boat and join Him out on the water. This is where we get the expressions (1) “DON’T LOOK DOWN”… or… (2) “GET OUT OF THE BOAT!” Even though there is some measure of truth to these points, I don’t believe that really is the point of this very popular story. We are not the center of this story, Jesus is. The major point of the story is not just what they saw, but WHO THEY SAW out on the water. If you should keep in mind the encounter that Moses had with God at the burning bush, it runs parallel to this.
With this in mind backdrop in mind, take some time to read slowly through this story in Mark 6 and Matthew 14. Jesus is very much still revealing Himself as the Messiah to His Disciples. Having greater faith is a biblical command for His disciples (like you and I). But who we have faith in and who we really say that Jesus is, is really the point.
See you Sunday morning as we walk through this great story in our study of the book of Mark.
