This new series considers encounters with Jesus by the sea of Galilee found in the Gospel of Mark.

Much of the New Testament narrative of Jesus’ ministry takes place “by the sea”, or “in a boat” – specifically by the Sea of Galilee.

The Gospel of Mark especially has some of the most significant and astounding encounters in Jesus’ ministry centred on or by the Sea of Galilee. In the Gospel of Mark the sea is a bed, a classroom, a viewing platform, and a retreat.

It was a warm-water lake about 11 klms wide and 21 klms long, about 200 metres below sea level.

Mark introduces his subject – ‘the gospel of Jesus Christ’ – and grounds it in the Old Testament – Malachi 3:1, Isaiah 40:3 – and brings to front of stage an adult Jesus Christ on the threshold of His ministry years:

1:1  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

The Gospel accounts show that the Lord spent most of the three years of His ministry along the shore of this freshwater lake.

Erasmus, a contemporary of Martin Luther, says in the preface of his Greek Testament: “These holy pages will summon up the living image of [the mind of Christ]. They will give you Christ Himself, talking, healing, dying, rising, the whole Christ in a word; they will give Him to you in an intimacy so close that He would be less visible to you if He stood before your eyes.”[quoted in Wuest]

In this opening message Rev Tony Ling considers the calling of the disciples to follow Jesus and fulfill His mission, and how that equates to believer’s lives today.

Along the way we will discover what is meant by ‘follow Me, and I will make you fishers of people’.

There is the parable of the sower and the seed.

There’s Jesus in the midst of the storm.

There’s a father with a dying child, and a woman who has lived with shame through ‘a discharge of blood for twelve years’.

And there’s Jesus telling His disciples to do the impossible.

And it’s all by the sea.