[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, we want to rejoice today that Jesus is still the one who walks on the water.
We’ll think about that in the sermon, but I think it probably is good to just do a little
preface and a little kind of â I mean, with the Old Testament lesson, a little rainbow
rehabilitation.
Because the Lord gives to us, to Noah and to his family and to all of us, this sign of
His promise and His covenant, the rainbow in the sky, but in our day it’s been co-opted.
The rainbow is, I think, an indication now, at least it’s supposed to be, an indication
of the rejection of God’s gift of husband and wife, God’s gift of father and mother,
now God’s gift of man and woman.
We want to say that something entirely different ought to happen whenever we see a rainbow,
â that the Lord has painted the rainbow in the sky so that we would remember both
His law and His gospel, His wrath and His mercy, His rules and His saving work.
We should remember how it was in the days of Noah, that people were â even though
Noah was preaching for 120 years that the judgment of God is coming on this earth, that
they didn’t heed that preaching. In fact, I wonder what people thought of Noah. For
a hundred and twenty years he preached and the only people who ever came to
church were his wife and his three boys and their wives, a congregation of eight,
and he endured mockery and unbelief of all the people around and the abuse
until at least the rain started falling and the Lord gathered up Noah and his
family and all the animals into the ark, and the rest were left behind and were destroyed
by the flood that came.
I was reading, just as a by the way, an aside to the aside, I was reading the old Lutheran
theologian, Henry Haman, who said that man has such self-destructive tendencies in our
fallen nature that we would destroy ourselves unless the Lord prevented it with things like
the flood and the Tower of Babel, so that the Lord destroys almost everyone to avoid
everyone destroying themselves.
But then as Noah and his family are coming off of the ark, the Lord gives this promise.
I’m putting the bow here, and this rainbow in the sky will remind you always that I will
not destroy the world, at least not with a flood in the same way that it was destroyed
then.
But I think the amazing thing, though, about this rainbow that the Lord puts in the sky
is not just that we would look at it and rejoice that the Lord has put away His anger and is
kind towards us, but that the Lord Himself looks at it.
The text says, the Lord says, I will see the rainbow and I will remember.
Now, this is so phenomenal because I think sometimes we always think, well, how, you
know, how ought we to think of the Lord?
How should we look at God?
How should we rightly confess?
And that’s good for us to be concerned about that, but maybe the more important question
is how does God think of us?
How does He consider us?
What is in His mind when He looks upon us?
And here the rainbow is now a constant reminder to the Lord that He will treat us with kindness.
And in this way, the rainbow is a beautiful picture of the cross, because God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit look at you not according to your sin, but according to His sacrifice.
And so the Lord looks at you and sees not all that you’ve done wrong, and not all the
law that you’ve broken, and not all the wrath that you deserve.
He looks at you through the blood of Jesus and sees you, if you will, through rose-colored
glasses, through blood-colored glasses.
He sees you washed and holy and perfect, and this is the sign also for us and for Him that
His anger is put away.
I was thinking about this yesterday because I don’t know if I ever had noticed this in
the text.
You know, I know the rainbow is a sign for us, but it’s that God makes the rainbow as
a sign for Himself.
And I think this is the⦠it’s an astonishing thing.
And I was remembering back on, I don’t know, some of the old days when I would be traveling
And this is the days before like cell phones and all this kind of stuff.
And I remember if I was gone, I would look up at the moon and I would think to myself,
this isâ¦
Someone should tell Carrie that I’m saying this in the pulpit later when you see her.
I would look up at the moon and say, I wonder if Carrie is looking up and looking at the
same thing I am, that there’s a kind of a walking together when we’re looking at
the same thing.
And this is how every time you see a rainbow, I want you to think this, that I’m looking
up at this rainbow and God is looking down at it.
We’re looking at the same thing.
And God is remembering His promise not to destroy us.
And the same thing is true when we look at the cross of Jesus, that God the Father looks
at that cross and remembers His promise not to destroy us, because in Christ the Lord
turns His smiling face to us to rescue and deliver us.
Now that’s a smiling face that we want to see in Jesus, so we’ll turn our attention
to the Gospel lesson, which is continuing to hear these miracles that the Lord Jesus
is doing in the Gospel of Mark.
And it’s pretty astonishing that one after another after another, the Lord is proving
His power and His wisdom and His mercy, and the disciples are just missing it.
They’re like three miracles behind.
They’re in the middle of the storm, and they’re still trying to figure out the feeding of
the 5,000.
In this particular case, and it’s kind of amazing, this gospel lesson follows immediately
after what we heard last week.
Jesus and the disciples had gone to the other side of the lake to try to get away from the
crowds, but the crowds saw where they were going, and so they went and they found Him.
And Jesus, out of compassion, preaches all day, and then at night they’re hungry, and
So Jesus has the disciples feed them
with five loaves and two fish.
And then it’s amazing, at the beginning of the text,
I don’t know if you caught it,
Jesus says to the disciples,
all right, you guys get away, get on the boat and go,
and I’ll dismiss the crowd.
So Jesus says, I’ll be the usher,
I’ll take care of all these people.
And so he sends out the crowd.
So the crowd’s dispersed, the disciples are in the boat,
and Jesus goes to pray,
which is what he wanted to do anyways.
And as he’s praying, he looks over
and He sees the disciples that are working their way, trying to get across the sea, but
the wind is against them, and the waves are beating them back. Jesus sees it at sunset,
but He waits until the fourth watch of the night. In other words, He keeps praying and
maybe praying for the disciples and watching them struggle all through the night trying
to get to the other side of the sea. They can’t get there. And Jesus then goes â He
wants to meet them on the other side, and so He goes and He starts walking across the
water. It’s an amazing thing. I was thinking about it just in the context of the conference
that we hosted yesterday, the digital catacombs, which has to do with technology and the church.
And it occurs to me that, you know, the disciples had a great sea-crossing technology in the
boat, but it was completely unnecessary for the Lord. He just walks across the water stunningly,
And, but maybe even more surprising than Jesus walking across the water is that He’s not
walking across the water to the disciples, He’s walking past the disciples.
He’s trying to go around them.
The text says He meant to pass them by.
It ought to remind us of the same thing that Jesus does in the road to Emmaus when He means
to go past them.
He says, they’ll be fine.
I prayed for them.
They’ll make it.
It’s no problem.
But they see Him off in the distance and they think it’s a ghost and they’re afraid and
So Jesus says, all right, I gotta go help these guys too.
So he comes over to the boat.
Mark doesn’t tell us about the big drama
with Peter also joining him and sinking
and the Lord Jesus rescues him
and puts him back on the boat
and immediately the water’s calm
and they’re back on the shore and all is well,
which is the point.
I mean, this is the whole big point
is that if Jesus is with us, all is well.
It doesn’t matter what’s the problem.
Sin, death, devil, it doesn’t matter.
All is well, all is peaceful when Jesus is there. But here’s the contrast.
The contrast is the confidence and the power of Christ and the fear
and timidity of the disciples. So that the point of the whole lesson is that the
compassion of Jesus ought to cast out our fear. We’re in the boat, the
winds are against us, the storm is there, we think we’re gonna die, we can’t see how
things are gonna work out, it looks like the future is bleak, it looks like
everything is doomed, it looks like even Jesus himself is a ghost, it doesn’t
matter. The Lord is with us, all is well. And it comes to us, to you and I, it comes
to us in this preaching of Jesus, don’t be afraid. So you have to think to
yourself, what am I afraid of? What causes me to tremble? What wakes me up in the
middle of the night? What false God do I offer to the worship of my own fear? What
am I afraid of? And to hear against that fear this word of Jesus, do not be afraid.
I’ve not authorized you to be afraid of whatever that thing is. Your death, the
death of your loved ones, affliction, the future, political uncertainty, war and violence,
disease, poverty, shame, whatever, you are not authorized to fear that.
Only Christ, who walks on the water, who comes to you, who calms the sea, who’s dead and
raised and sits at the right hand of the Father praying for you now.
So, no matter what the trouble, we are not afraid.
Not because we have strength to row to the other side, but because we have Jesus.
Or maybe better, because Christ has us.
So, dear saints, do not be afraid.
The Lord has set a sign in the heavens.
hands. He looks upon the death of His Son, and He remembers you with kindness and joy,
and He smiles upon you. He’s with you now and to the end. Amen. The peace of God which
passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
