25. Mark 6:47-56: Mark’s Signature Christology
Jesus Walks on Water (6:47-52) Mark ties this story with the feeding by mentioning the disciples’ failure to “understand about the loaves” (v.52). Likely, then, the two stories make the same point. There the point was Jesus’ royal messianic identity and authority as leader and agent of God’s New Exodus. We must look for the meaning of this story along those lines as well. Mark began his gospel by calling Jesus “Son of God” (1:1). And he ends it similarly with the centurion crying, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (15:39). All the teachings, stories, and events in between fill out what this term means. It is just this that is at issue in the feeding and walking on water stories. And it is just this that Jesus’ disciples (then and now) struggle to embrace. Misunderstandings we have of the phrase “Son of God” don’t help. In the Old Testament it meant the king who was to rule the people as YHWH would (see Ps.72). For many of us today it means a divine figure, the second person ...