As I said, this is a very well-known story, is it not? The story of Jesus walking on water is very well-known. And it's set up very interestingly here in the Gospel of Mark because he has just fed the 5000. There's a crowd all around him and Jesus sends the disciples out. You guys get away, but what does Jesus do? He does what he often does. He goes off by himself to pray. Well, the disciples can't get across the sea. Jesus sees them having a little bit of trouble. And then the interesting part of the story happens. Jesus walks on the water, and I get the biggest kick out of what it says here in verse 48 at the end. He meant to pass them by.

A little while back in Mark, we saw Jesus send out the 12 disciples. And so, these disciples went out and now they are returning to Jesus. Remember, he sent them two by two to preach and to heal. Well, they come back and Jesus can clearly see that they are probably a little worn out. So, he has them go away to a desolate place and rest a while. And so, they leave and they get in a boat. But the people see them. And Jesus is so popular. What this ministry that they are doing has caught like wildfire. And so, the people ran ahead on foot to where they are going.

Well, of all the stories that we have looked at so far in Mark, this is probably the most interesting. But there is a purpose for it. There's a reason Mark put it in his Gospel. And the idea that's being conveyed to us here as it starts out is that King Herod has been hearing about Jesus. It is not just the people in the backwater regions of Galilee who are hearing about Jesus and seeing his authority to teach. All that we've seen so far in the Gospel of Mark, it is getting all the way to the king. It's gone all the way to Herod.

So, we arrived today in a short little interesting passage, a little bit different than some of the other ones that we have been looking at lately. Here Jesus sends out the 12 apostles. These are the 12 guys that he is entrusting his ministry to, the people that he is closest with, the people that he is teaching most closely. And so, what do we have happening here? Well, we see some interesting stuff. Now for us, we see here that he sends out His disciples two by two.

So far in the Gospel of Mark, what have we seen? That Jesus is powerful, that Jesus has authority. And it's been building up, hasn't it? To the point where on Wednesday, we saw that Jesus was able to heal someone without her actually touching him instead, or him touching her even. She touched his garment and she had faith and she was healed. And then we saw Jesus able to raise the dead. So, we're seeing the pinnacle of his ability. This is the real deal. Jesus can do miracles.

As I said, these are two stories that we know relatively well, and they are two stories that I believe we are naturally drawn into. We all know someone who maybe has a long-term health issue, and we also have all dealt with death in some capacity. We can relate to these situations. And here we see that Jesus has power over both of those things. And the story, it feels very familiar from what we've seen in Mark, right? Jesus is trying to avoid the crowds. He's come back from the Decapolis, and now all these people, all these Hebrew people that he's been around doing the healing with are wanting to be near him again.

Alright, so we have landed here in chapter five with this detailed story. As you saw when I was reading it, this is long for the Gospel of Mark. That's a lot of verses here for this story. And there's a lot of important details in here that we need to catch. Now, remember, the previous story was Jesus calming the sea. And so they have been on the boat and now they're coming to the other side and they end up in this area near the Decapolis. Now, the Decapolis was 10 independent Greek cities. The idea here is that they're going to someplace that is not filled with mostly Jewish people.

This is a story that you know. This is one that we have all learned in Sunday school. Very familiar story. The plot is very interesting, but very simple. They have the crowds following them, like we've read about all through Mark so far. And what happens? Well, they need to get away. Well, what better getaway vehicle in the first century than a boat? Not everybody that's with them is going to have a boat. Not everybody, not many people are going to be able to fit into a boat in a crowd.

Okay, as we land here in verse 30, we're seeing a continuation of the basic theme that we've seen for the last several verses, right? Jesus is teaching in parables, and what does he use as a parable? Well, it's like a grain of mustard seed. We've been hearing a lot about seeds in the last, what, maybe 20, 30 verses? And Jesus is continuing that idea.

Alright, so what we're seeing and what we've read for today is actually a continuation of the thoughts that were prior to this in regards to the parables, the stuff that we saw last week, and particularly the idea that what Jesus is teaching is hidden. Remember, He was saying that those who have ears to hear are going to understand the parables, but those who don't aren't going to get it. And basically, the idea is that the Pharisees are going to be confused because they don't have the Spirit at work in them to help them to understand. And so, he's speaking in these parables to keep his message hidden.

As you have seen, as we read here, this is a continuation of what we read on Wednesday. This is an explanation of the parable. Now, I thought about grouping all of this together into one big group of texts. It's not that terrible long, but when I thought about it, I wanted to spend some time on the beginning part of this. We've already talked about what the parable means and this is great because this parable is explained to us by Jesus, so we know exactly what it means.

Today we land in the parable of the Sower. Now that's kind of an interesting title that's not in the text that is added later on. It doesn't have those headings, as you know, above the scripture to tell us that this is a parable of the sower. But that's what we know it as. And that's really kind of an interesting title when we stop and think about it though, isn't it?

As we come to this story that we see in verses 31 through 35, I'm reminded of the way that stories are told in movies and television shows. You know how it goes. The stories are sort of layered. You start out with something here and something is said and then you might even forget about a little bit. And then we come back to it and you think, ah, that's why that was mentioned earlier on in the story.

As I said when I started, this is an interesting passage. We come to this, and I'm actually going to start at the end. Usually we say, Let's start at the beginning. It's a very good place to start. But today we are going to start at the end because it's the most obvious thing that we are curious about. I believe we are always very naturally curious about this statement that whoever blaspheme against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness because we don't want to do it. We are very concerned about this passage. It's for that very reason. So, what does that mean?

Alright, so, as we land in verse 13 here, we're seeing a little bit different passage that we're looking at here today. But what do we have? We have a continuing of a particular theme that is that Jesus is the one with authority and now he is going to give that authority to his disciples. And we also see that Jesus has a huge following. This is a continuing, overriding, repetitious theme that's coming out of the text as we read through Mark.