⁴⁵ Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. ⁴⁶After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. ⁴⁷ Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. ⁴⁸ He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, ⁴⁹ but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, ⁵⁰ because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” ⁵¹ Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, ⁵² for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

–Mark 6.45-52 (NIV)

In this day and age of Enlightenment hangover where many dismiss stories like this as myth and fantasy, it is easy to miss one of Mark’s major themes–the debilitating effect of our hard human hearts. Jesus had just fed the 5,000 and retired by himself to pray. John tells us that after feeding the 5,000 the crowd wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king, but that Jesus slipped away so that they could not. So clearly this was a crisis moment for Jesus because he went into prayer, a consistent motif in Mark’s gospel.

In feeding the 5,000 Jesus demonstrated that he was indeed Lord over all creation and the promised shepherd who would (and could) feed God’s tired and bedraggled sheep–in this case, literally. But the 12 disciples did not get it. They saw what Jesus had done with the 5,000 but it didn’t register. Now they see him walking on water and they are terrified. They apparently could not fathom the idea that Jesus really was (and is) Lord over all creation and mistake him for a ghost instead. When we mistake Jesus for a ghost it is a convenient way to keep him at arm’s length and dismiss him as irrelevant to our modern lives.

Yet with typical patience, our Lord tells his not-too-perceptive followers to not be afraid. He does likewise for us in the midst of our storms if we will let him. And then Mark says the most remarkable thing. He tells us the disciples did not understand because their hearts were hardened.

Things apparently haven’t changed much from Jesus’ day to ours. We still deny Jesus his lordship even though there are many “signs” offered us, both in Scripture and among his people. Sure, we are much more sophisticated about our hard hearts today. We claim our Enlightenment heritage with its paradigm of reason as arbiter of all and its baseless faith in the inevitable progress of humanity (think Star Trek if you don’t understand this notion). But when unspeakable evil rears its ugly head as it did most recently in Norway, the proponents of the Enlightenment paradigm are left without an answer (or they will actually try to blame Christianity as some are doing with the case of the Norwegian mass murderer).

But this begs the real issue. If human progress is so inevitable, why do we still have evil in the world? Why are things not getting better on that front?

And this gets us back to Mark’s point about hard hearts. When we harden our hearts with our pride and hubris and false paradigms, the natural consequence is to blind us to the reality of things. We think we are too suave, too sophisticated, too knowledgeable for God’s Gospel. But then disaster strikes us and we are reminded that in the final analysis, we are essentially powerless to control our lives and the events surrounding us. Jesus asked, “Who can add a single minute to his life by worrying?” Indeed.

Neither will it do to fall back on the old Romantic notion that we should act “authentically” or follow our hearts. Why? Because as Jesus reminded us, it is not what we put into our bodies that is the problem. It is what comes out of us, out of our hearts (our entire being) that is the problem.

Of course, if our hearts are hardened we will scoff at this and ask who is Jesus that we should defer to his authority? Fair enough. But if he is who he claims he is, then only a fool or one with a hardened heart that blinds him or her to Jesus’ authority will ignore what Jesus has to say about the human condition and about what constitutes real life and living.

That is our challenge. Our hard hearts have alienated us from our very life Source. Our hard hearts make us proud and want to be gods when in fact we are nothing but badly broken mortals. But there is hope, real hope. His name is Jesus, God become human, and he offers us real life if we will but humble (deny) ourselves (i.e., acknowledge we have hard hearts and no good answers to fix them), take up our cross each day, and follow him. Doing so will not be easy but then again taking our medicine when we are physically ill is sometimes unpleasant.

But we won’t have to do this alone because Jesus has promised to come and live in us in the person of his Spirit to help us and with the Spirit’s help, our hearts can become hearts of flesh, real human hearts, and we can become the humans God created us to be, his very image-bearers in this world to bring his healing love to his fallen creatures and creation.

As you think on these things, consider how you have reacted to what I just wrote. If the concept irritates you, chances are you are dealing with a hard heart that doesn’t want to acknowledge God is God and you are not. It may be an affront to your “self-made person” image and that never feels good.

But if you acknowledge that the human condition is not fixable by self-help, you are well on your way to learning what it is to have a real relationship with God through Jesus. Yeah, your heart may always be hardened but nothing is too difficult for God to overcome. After all, he raised Jesus from the dead so he surely can fix your hardened heart. You will know he has done so when you give him thanks for the gift of life he has offered you in Jesus and this will make you want to love and serve him by going out into his world and bringing his great love to bear on others to the extent you are able. As you do, you will be amazed at just how great it is to have a truly human heart, a heart powered and led by the Spirit of the one who fed the 5,000 and walked on the Sea of Galilee, and who continues to capture the hearts and minds people everywhere today, our hard hearts notwithstanding.