What are you made of?

In Mark 6:30-56, we have two episodes from the life of Christ which are very familiar to Christians, namely, Jesus feeding the 5000 (actually more like 10000) and Jesus walking on water. I have preached from and taught about these narratives many times, but this time I was especially moved by one phrase: In verse 51, we are informed that the disciples were completely amazed that Jesus could walk on water and easily calm a raging storm and this was so because “they had not understood (the miracle) about the loaves (i.e. feeding the 5000); their hearts were hardened.” (Parenthesis my own). It’s that word “hardened” that got to me. Later in Chapter 8, Jesus challenges his inner circle of apostles regarding another feeding miracle by rhetorically asking: “Do you still not see nor understand? Are your hearts hardened?” (8:17). There’s that word again! Hardened.

Why didn’t Jesus say that the apostles were “spiritually immature”, or still learning howbeit ever so slowly? I really meditated on that and researched that “hard” word in the “Dictionary of New Testament Theology, edited by Colin Brown (Zondervan,1979, vol.2, pp. 152-156). There I found that there are three Greek words that are used metaphorically to describe hardening. They are skleros, poroo, and pachyno. You may recognize the last one as resembling the word for certain thick skinned animals called “pachyderms.” But all the words though not identical in meaning, collectively mean hard like a rock, calloused, stiff-necked, obstinate, or insensitive. Now these are collectively descriptive of people in the Bible both in the Old (e.g. Isaiah 6:9,10) and New Testament who persistently rejected the words of the prophets as well as the good news of the gospel from Jesus and his followers (e.g. Acts 7:51-53). The Pharisees who opposed Jesus were prime examples of this. So was Judas Iscariot. OK, so you say what is my point?

 Well, we know that the disciples of Jesus left everything to follow Jesus and even went out during Jesus’ lifetime and “preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” (Mark 6:12). (Even Judas did this) They (also) had authority over demons. So how could they be labeled “hardened?” How could they be afflicted with the same condition as the unbelieving, stiff necked scribes and pharisees? Were they in or were they out? May I suggest that they were surely in Christ and part of the people of God, but they did indeed need to grow out of their “business as usual” habits of coping with the storms of life, the challenges of “making ends meet,” and dealing with the seemingly impossible. They needed to accept at the deepest level that God was on the throne, that Jesus was God’s personal revelation to man and that the will of God transcends all personal agendas. It was critical that they address head on all lingering resistance to the very gospel they were preaching. And how were they to finally shake off their propensity to be thick-headed and spiritually myopic? They stayed with Jesus. They ate with Jesus. They walked with Jesus. The Pharisees did not. Judas Iscariot remained hardened; he was with Jesus but not really. What a sobering thought. Unlike Peter who survived his betrayal of Christ and became Peter the rock, Judas, the other betrayer, hung himself and thus missed the Resurrection followed by the Day of Pentecost which together were the turning point in the apostle’s lives. So what are you made of? Are you like Peter who persevered although he did have a close call, or are you like Judas who shared in almost all the ministry of Christ, but died a hardened man?