Second Presbyterian Church

Roanoke, Virginia
May 18, 2008

“The Haunted New Testament”

Mark 6:45-52
George C. Anderson

          It took a seminary education to force me to read the Old Testament.  Like many others, I didn’t care much for the Old Testament outside of some of the more colorful stories.  God came across as too harsh and judgmental.  I preferred the stories of Jesus and his love, and the theology of grace that I was told radiated from the pages of the Gospels and the writings of Paul. 
          Notice that I said, “was told.”  My opinions about scripture were not formed primarily by reading or study.  I have many reasons to thank the seminary that trained me, and one of them is that they gave me my Bible.  The Disciple Bible Study Program does the same thing.  I’m not talking about the bibles I received as a child or as a confirmand, but a Living Bible where you have to break in on conversations already going on.  True Bible study sometimes may happen in the quiet of study, but even in the quiet there are a lot of voices speaking at once; voices within the Bible itself, and voices talking about what the a passage is saying.
          I’m still learning.  A few weeks ago, I attended the Sprunt Lectures at Union-PSCE.  Dr. Richard Hays, a New Testament scholar, gave the lectures and talked about those conversations going on within scripture.  He might not like my describing what he said in this way, but I heard him talking about a “haunted New Testament.”  Those who know their Old Testament will hear voices when reading or hearing New Testament stories. 
          As one of many examples, Hays presented the familiar story of Mark 6:35-52.  In the reading of this passage, listen for the voices, and listen for the Word of God.  

45Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
47When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. 48When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. 49But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 51Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

“Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat to go to the other side, and he went up a mountain to pray.” 

          Already, the passage is haunted.  A voice from Exodus is trying to speak to us.  The voice comes from Exodus 19 when in the wilderness of Sinai, Moses is summoned up the mountain.  The mountain consecrated with bounds are set around it, and only he as the chosen mediator is allowed to ascend and approach the Holy God.  And even for him, the voice of God that speaks to him comes as if from the mountain itself.  The majesty of the mountain is a sacramental expression of the majesty of God who speaks from beyond our reach.  Moses goes up this holy mountain to go low.  He goes low to his knees to hear, because he can’t look on God’s face and live. 
          There is no cozy intimacy here.  Just to say “God” is to violate the rules of the wilderness, for God’s name is not to be pronounced.  To know and say one’s name is to have some control over that person.  And so, the name Moses is given is a name of unpronounceable syllables, impossible to say, and even to define.  “I am” later becomes the consensus translation for the people, though other translations, such as, “I am what I will be,” have as much merit.  The idea is that God reveals himself, offers himself, only as much as God sees fit, and it is not much.  Moses only gets glimpses, like a bush that burns without being consumed, or the passing of the hem of God’s robe.   
          The God who saves Hebrew slaves is this unknowable and uncontrollable God.  The God who saves is also the Holy God who intimidates, because none of us are worthy to stand tall in God’s presence.  So, when Jesus goes up the mountain to pray, we realize that he, like Moses, is representing us, the crowd, to Holy God.  He is the one called by God to risk the encounter and voice the pleas of the people.   
If you think I’m being heavy handed with the passage, read on:

“When evening came, Jesus was alone, and the boat suddenly found itself in the midst of a chaotic storm.” 

          Now a voice from Genesis is trying to reach us through this passage.  The chaos of the sea is the chaos of creation, the helter-skelter of crashing waves in the darkness before a voice speaks calling for light to dispel the darkness and for order brought to the surface of the deep.  In Genesis 1, we read of that voice speaking, and then God’s Word going out as a spirit upon the waters, calming them,
          The Markan passage says that when Jesus saw that the disciples were in the boat and were about to be overcome by the chaos, he came down the mountain.  What the voice from Genesis is telling us is that now Jesus is not coming down the mountain as Moses, as the representative of the people.  He is coming down the mountain as God to bring order to the chaos.  God is speaking and Jesus is God’s Word moving over the surface of the deep. 
          Do you think I am still stretching it?  Listen to the exact wording of our passage when it speaks of Jesus coming down the mountain:
“he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by.” 

          Another voice is speaking to us here.  It takes a special biblical clairvoyant to hear this voice speaking for the Old Testament passage is from Job; but not from the original Job.  It is the Greek translation of Job speaking now, not the original Job in the Hebrew language.  The Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the translation read by the Greek speaking people of Jesus’ day such as the author of Mark, is called the Septuagint.  In the Septuagint’s translation of Job 9:4, there are two phrases not found in the original Hebrew but which are alluded to in our Markan passage.  Listen to what Job 9:4 says of God: 
…who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea (that’s the Hebrew)
[LXX: ‘and walks upon the sea as upon dry ground”]
who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
who does great things beyond understanding,
and marvelous things without number.
Look, he passes by me, [LXX “he passes me by”]
and I do not see him;
he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

          Mark tells of Jesus walking upon the sea as upon dry ground, and passing the disciples by as if he does not see them.  Jesus is being presented as the God of Job. 
          Let’s go to Job so we can remember the sort of God we are speaking of now.  Job was the righteous man whose life, for no good reason, was ruined.  He learned of this through an awful cadence of reports:
          Your children, they are dead. 
          Your house,          it is destroyed.  
          Your possessions, all stolen. 
Job has everything except a wife begging him to curse God.  Curse God for having more important things to do than to hear the cries of those in need.  For most of the chapters of Job, the pitiful man is screaming for God’s attention, to notice his plight, to give an accounting for himself and explain why he would allow this to happen. 
          The book of Job again gives us the high and holy God who is beyond our reach, the God we insignificant morals beg to notice us.  It is good to know that Job does come to some sort of peace by the end of the book for God finally answers him.
          Excuse me, I should say, God finally responds to him, for there is no answer forthcoming.  God speaks out of the whirlwind and gives Job glimpses of creation from a divine perspective.  Just glimpses: glimpses of a storehouse where hail is stored, mighty gates that hold back the winds, an amazing animal kingdom where death is a necessary condition for life to continue. 
Job finds comfort in this vision. He finds peace in the knowledge that he is not the center of the universe, and God’s reality is so much larger and so far beyond his comprehension that it is better just to shut up in awe and fall down in worship while he still has knees to bend and voice to praise. 
          We, who read Job, are amazed at God’s grandeur as well.  Still, we wonder if God, who has so much to say blessings over, has the time or inclination to care about us in our troubles.  When chaos suddenly seems poised to overwhelm our lives, sometimes our problem is not that we don’t believe in God.  Sometimes, it seems that the God we believe in is passing us by, that we are too small to notice, and that we don’t factor into God’s master plan. 
          And in our story from Mark, Jesus, like the God of Job, seems to be a manifestation of divine Glory, and seems to be passing the disciples by without noticing them in their plight. 
          And so, like the slaves in Egypt, like Job in distress, the disciples cry out to Jesus.  They want God to hear their cry, notice their plight, and save them. 

And “immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; [better translation: “I am.”] do not be afraid.” 51Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.” 

          Do you hear the voice speaking in the passage now?  It is the voice of God who said to Abraham, “I am” and said to Moses, “I am.”  It is the name that is not a name, the unpronounceable and uncontrollable name.  The holy God who is beyond reach and control makes himself known to the disciples through Jesus.  Jesus gets into the boat and the wind ceases.  Jesus does the work of the Creator God bringing order out of chaos.
          This is a haunted passage, you see.  It is not haunted because the passage is scary, though it is scary enough—darkness, storms, chaos—lives hanging in the balance, a spirit seeming to move over the face of the water . . .”  Yes, the chaos of this passage is meant to be as frightening as the chaos that sometimes threatens our lives; like the chaos of war,
or famine, or illness, or oppression, or of death itself.
          This passage, though, is haunted in the way the Gospel of Mark tells it, with the voices of the writers of Genesis, Exodus and Job speaking from beyond the grave.  They are telling us something we need to understand about Jesus, the one who we can see face to face and live—the one who eats with us, laughs with us, teaches and admonishes us; who in the midst of the crowd hears the cry of the one calling for help, who notices that someone in need has touched his garment, who looks out on the crowd and sees their hunger, and then multiplies the loaves and the bread for them; the one who did not remain distant, but came to us by becoming one among us.
The voices are telling us not to get so cozy with this Jesus that we lose sight of a majestic, demanding, powerful and saving God.  Jesus is yet another way, indeed the definitive way, an uncontrollable God chooses to reveal himself.  In his artful telling of this story, Mark calls on the ancient voices to speak through his story and remind us of the holiness of God even in Jesus.  Jesus, who does come to us in our need, still is a mystery that we can’t define, a God beyond our control, and before whom we must bow in wonder and praise.   
          As a summary, I’ll tell one more story from the Gospels, this one from Luke.  Before Jesus calls Simon, James and John to follow him as disciples, he already knows them.  Right before he gets in their boat to preach to the crowd, he healed Simon’s mother-in-law.  It is likely that they are even friends.
          When he is finished preaching, he asks them to put out to sea and tells them to cast out their nets.  Even though they had fished all night and caught nothing, they do what he says.  Then when the nets become so loaded with fish the boat almost turns over, Simon falls to his knees and begs Jesus to depart from him for he is a sinful man.
          That is not a bad place to start as a disciple, even with the friend we have in Jesus.  We start on our knees, confessing that we are sinners and we are not in control.  Our thoughts are not Jesus’ thoughts, and Jesus is not our servant, he won’t sign on the dotted line of our agendas.  Jesus, the friend and savior, is Lord, and so it is his vision of justice, compassion, and the kingdom of God that we must pursue.  That, in fact, is our salvation.  We are saved from ourselves.