Walking on the Waves: Mark 6:45-52

Jesus made them get in the boat. The word Mark uses suggests urgency, even force—he compelled them to leave while he dismissed the crowds. Then he climbed the hillside alone to pray.

Night fell. The boat reached the middle of the lake, and the wind turned against them. The disciples strained at the oars, rowing hard, making almost no progress. The fourth watch of the night came—between 3 and 6 AM—and still they fought the wind, muscles burning, voices hoarse.

Jesus saw them from the mountain. Across the miles, across the darkness, he saw them straining.

And he came to them, walking on the lake.

Let that image settle: the churning waves, the howling wind, and a figure moving across the water as if it were pavement. He was about to pass by them—the phrase echoes Moses on Sinai when God's glory passed by, echoes Elijah in the cave when the LORD passed before him.

They saw him and screamed. "It's a ghost!" Terror ripped through the boat—they had survived the wind only to meet something worse.

"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

Those words: "It is I." In Greek, Ego eimi—the same phrase God used at the burning bush. I AM.

He climbed into the boat, and the wind died. Just like before—instant calm, as if someone had thrown a switch. The chaos that had tormented them for hours simply stopped.

Mark adds a strange note: "They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened."

They had just watched him feed fifteen thousand people from a boy's lunch. They should have understood who was in the boat. But they hadn't connected the dots. Hearts hardened—not by malice but by incomprehension. They had seen miracle after miracle and still could not grasp who walked among them.

He was patient with them. He is patient still.