Baptized into the Ark

A Sermon on Mark 6:45-54 for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, 2021

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In our Gospel lesson this morning, the disciples are once again on a boat in the midst of a storm. After their last episode, I’m actually a little surprised that they were in one at all. The last time, Jesus was there with in the boat. Jesus was there to calm the storm. Jesus made it all okay. I wouldn’t bee getting back into any boat without Jesus if I were them. 

And yet it is Jesus who told them to get in the boat and leave in the first place. This night would be the first night on he sea apart from the one who commands the sea. But if Jesus told them to go, surely they’d be okay, right? Surely another storm wasn’t just waiting for the the first chance it got without the Son of God there to stand in its way. 

However, by the fourth watch of the night, there they struggled. The wind blew so hard, they could not land. The waves grew once again, threatening to sink them to the bottom of the sea. They were fighting for their lives once more. Jesus wasn’t in the boat, but he wasn’t far away. He came walking out to them. But Mark adds a detail that isn’t in Matthew’s account: Jesus intended to pass them by. 

That one little detail worries us. It is the thing that we fear most. Because we put a lot of faith in Jesus’ promise at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Lo, I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Is Jesus with us? Or is He just watching? Because there is a big difference between those two things. And we want Jesus right there in thee middle of our lives to take all those storms away.

But there is something we need to understand. Jesus is not a helicopter parent. We know from experience that keeping children away from anything challenging prevents them from learning how to face challenges. And our world is filled with those. Parents that cannot let their child fail sets them up for a life of failure, and an inability to move past them. Children grow up. They become adults. They need prepared for when Mom or Dad aren’t there to fix it for them. Children need to learn resiliency.

Things are a little different with Christ and the disciples though. There are things they, and we cannot handle, no matter how much we learn. No matter how much resiliency we have. But Jesus does need to prepare His disciples. They need to learn resiliency for another reason. And that reason is the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Jesus knows that He isn’t going to be around in this way for them when He goes to the Father. That doesn’t mean He’s not there. But do you see Jesus like they did during His earthly ministry? I don’t. And neither did they when the cloud hid Him from their sight. 

Jesus had to prepare them for that moment, and all the earthly ones beyond. They had to get back in the boat and face the storm. He didn’t leave them alone. He didn’t abandon them. In fact, He was right there. But He wasn’t in the boat. And He wasn’t in there for their sake. For their resilience. He intended to pass them by to give them what they needed in order know that no matter what happened in the boat, they didn’t have to have a descended Jesus in order to get through. 

After all, it wasn’t about this boat, or this storm. Jesus had an entire ark being prepared for them. A boat to hold all with faith in Christ, carried through a flood of waters, and storms that would overwhelm the world. Or, as Peter would later say, “God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you….” Corresponds is not the best word here. The Greek calls Noah’s flood the symbol that points forward, and Baptism the reality it points forward to. 

Not that the flood is merely symbolic, as if it didn’t exist. Over my last few weeks of traveling by car, you can see exactly what the flood did to the entire landscape From the deserts of Nevada, to the salt flats of Utah, to the hills of California. Those are the erosion marks of the flood that covered the entire world. The event is real. But it is not the full reality. It points forward to something more real, more important. It points us to Baptism, the entrance into the ark of the Church. In which, the whole number of believers are being saved. 

In this ark, we endure the storm of the world. We are being trained by wind and rain and wave. We undergo all these things in our lives, because how can we, as children of God, be ready for the world’s persecution if we have never suffered anything of our own? The less you have endured, the less you’re able to endure. They’re like muscles that grow stronger when used. And Jesus is strengthening you. Because the church has, is, and will go through difficult times. And Jesus doesn’t want you to just have a nice life, He wants you to endure unto all eternity. He descended once, in order to do the work of saving you. He died on that cross. He was buried in that grave. He rose from the dead. And He ascended with His humanity into heaven. All of it for you. 

He does not redescend until the last day. But, just like the disciples that stormy night in our Gospel lesson, He doesn’t leave you alone either. He has baptized you. He has placed a promise on you. He saves you. He puts you in this ark right here. He gives you the experience of enduring, so that you may endure no matter what washes over the boat.

So that you will endure even through dying. Through the one process we have no control over at all. We may think we can dictate the terms of dying, either by paper, or sheer force of will. But no one of us has any control over dying and death. And Satan waits for that moment most of all. But that’s the very moment that Jesus prepares you for now. Because in baptism, we have already died once with Christ. And as one monk centuries ago graffitied on his wall, “If you die before you die, then you won’t die when you die.” Or as Jesus put it, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” 

Therefore hold fast to the promise of your Baptism today. For Jesus has prepared you by this life to hold onto His promise of salvation, even in the face of death itself. Jesus does not leave you alone to face these things. He has put you into His boat. And He walks along side it, walks along side of you, the times we need Him the most. 

Let us pray. Almighty Father, Your Son prepared the disciples for the day when He went You. Prepare us also to endure the storms of life by holding fast to His promises, and remaining in the ark that You have provided for us, Your Church. Keep us safe through our dying day, and raise us to eternal life for the sake of Your Son’s death and resurrection. Through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.