The
disciples could not wrap their minds around Jesus’ walking on the water. Their
explanation was a ghost, not the Lord doing a miracle. Their heart (and note
the singular there) was hardened. Why the singular ‘heart’ and why did they assume
it was a ghost? They were an influence on each other; in this case, a bad one.
They shared their opinions until it became
their opinion. That opinion was a lack of faith having not learned the lesson
of the feeding of the multitude. This new world view, this new understanding of
what the universe is like, namely God is here and active, had not rooted it out
and replaced their old world view of superstition and fear. The default setting
of the heart was not yet changed. In the moment that the miracle happened, they
saw and believed they had faith, but away from that moment in a moment of
crisis they reverted back to their hardwired hard-heartedness.
Mark
contrasts the disciples with a people who just a few chapters before asked
Jesus to leave. These people may not have got it perfectly, but they did get it
enough to believe that Jesus was greater than their previous worldview. They didn’t trust Him yet but they saw the
miracle and they knew nothing was the same.
The disciples didn’t get even that yet.
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