Caught in a Storm

Mark 4:35-41                                      Caught in a Storm

2/22/15            D. Marion Clark

Introduction

In the story of Jonah, there is a sea storm that threatened the sinking of a ship. The mariners feared the storm and the sinking, but of special note was their reaction to the calming of the sea that took place after Jonah’s toss overboard. We are told that they feared God. We come to a similar story of a storm-tossed boat, in which the disciples of Jesus fear their boat’s sinking. And, like the Jonah story, it was the calming of the storm that led to an unexpected response.

Text

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him.

Jesus has spent the day teaching “a very large crowd” (v. 1) on the side of a lake (Sea of Galilee). The crowd was so large that Jesus taught from a boat on the water’s edge. As the day is coming to an end, he has the disciples push off from shore to travel across the lake and to another town. This is no difficult task for the disciples, as at least four of them are experienced fishermen on that lake. But sometime later something goes wrong.

³⁷ And a great windstorm arose,

The Sea of Galilee could be dangerous in a windstorm. It is mostly surrounded by high hills, and is itself more than 600 feet below sea level.  In a couple of places there are gaps between the hills that create a funnel for winds and intensify their strength.  These winds can come on suddenly, as in this case, and catch boaters off guard, so that even seasoned boat handlers, such as John and Peter and their two brothers, are losing control of the situation.

and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Let’s get a clear picture of what is happening. The exclamation of the disciples to Jesus make it clear that the boat is not merely in peril; the sinking of the boat has begun. Water is pouring in and filling the boat. Soon it will be below the waterline. There is nothing more that they can do. The storm shows no sign of letting up. The disciples’ nerves and bodies are stretched to the breaking point. They face death. And…their rabbi is sleeping.

This all sounds familiar. We read of a similar story in Jonah. The mariners are at their wits’ end, trying to save the ship. They have no hope other than to call on their gods. Meanwhile, Jonah sleeps down in the inner part of the ship.

But here we have a small boat, not a ship, that likely is holding more than the approved limit of passengers. And, whereas Jonah’s ship was in danger of sinking, this boat has begun to fill up with water. More incredible is Jesus’ sleeping. Jonah may have slept in a sea-tossed ship, but he was dry and out of the wind. Jesus must be soaking and the wind blowing all about him.

Imagine the astonishment and the utter frustration of the disciples. Their teacher is sleeping! He is not sharing in their trial. He is not praying. He is not offering encouragement. He is not showing leadership or sympathy. He is sleeping!

“Do you not care?” It is one thing to be tired, but this is ridiculous. And let’s put Jesus into perspective. He is a man of God, a teacher, even a prophet from God. He has proven himself to be from God by miraculous healings and casting out demons. The signs are even pointing to him being the long-awaited Messiah. Drowning is not part of the script! Not for him and not for his devoted disciples.

“We are perishing.” The disciples know about trials. They know that prophets of God face persecution. But this is not persecution. Their boat is sinking into the water. They are going under, and Jesus is oblivious to the danger. There is no “Be calm, men; have faith; God will see us through.” He is sleeping!

Did I mention that Jesus is sleeping? Somehow they get him awake.

³⁹ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

What a gloriously terrifying, dramatic, hilarious scene! Jesus wakes up. The wind is howling and the boat tossing in the water. A wave comes over and splashes in his face. And then, like a dad who is woken up by the kids running and screaming around the room, he tells the storm to cut it out. And it does!

And then Jesus’ next statement takes the cake. “What were you so worried about?” The Greek word translated “afraid” has the connotation of fainthearted or cowardly. It is what I feel when I come across a snake or a lightning storm passes over. It is the feeling of danger. Jesus is asking why they were scared of the storm. Why did they feel danger? And, as if that was not enough, he adds the comment, “Have you still no faith?”

There are times when it is hard to have sympathy for the disciples. I think of how Jesus miraculously feeds a few thousand people, and then another time under the exact same circumstances the disciples wonder how Jesus could provide food. Come on, guys. Let’s get real. But here, you have got to feel for the disciples. I would want to say Jesus, “Really? You really don’t know why we would be afraid? Have you not noticed that the boat is half-filled with water? And no faith? You were sleeping!”

So how do the disciples reply? Do they object to his scolding? Or do they thank him for saving them? Do some high-fives, give a big cheer for being their hero? “We knew you could do it! You were just fooling with us all along!”

 ⁴¹ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

“They were filled with great fear.” Literally it reads, “They were terrified with great fear.” Phobos is the word for fear, and phobeo is the root word for terrified. Mark is using the strongest language he can come up with to express the fear that has gripped the disciples. This is not the same Greek word used for being afraid of the storm. They are not feeling cowardly as one feels with mere danger; you might say that they are unnerved.

C. S. Lewis describes the sensation in The Problem of Pain:

Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told 'There is a ghost in the next room', and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is 'uncanny' rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply 'There is a mighty spirit in the room', and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking.

Lewis is describing what is meant by the term “numinous.” You know that you are in the presence of someone who is not merely greater than you, but of a different being altogether. It is the fear that human characters feel in the Bible when they are visited by angels, who must always say, “Do not fear.” Remember the reaction of the shepherds to the angel announcing Jesus’ birth. The same Greek terms are used of them: “They were filled with great fear.”

Why are the disciples possessed with such fear? They say why: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The key word is “obey.” They are not saying, “Who is this that possesses such power or such skill?” You and I witness great feats of exceptional people. They may be in sports or some other physical activity, and we are wowed by their physical ability. Or we might be amazed by their mental ability or other feat of ingenuity. I am more amazed to know that magicians cannot really perform magic but are simply able to create the illusion of magic. How do they do that?

But, again, this is not what has unnerved the disciples. They fearfully marvel the authority of Jesus. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Jesus did not stand up and wave his hands about; he did not speak an incantation; he did not even pray. He simply commands the wind to cease and the sea to be calm, and he was obeyed.

A Roman military officer explained it best. Jesus offered to come to his house to heal a servant, but the centurion replied this way:

“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:8-9).

Even Jesus marveled at this man’s faith, not because he had great faith but because he had knowledgeable faith. He understood that Jesus healed, not by power but by authority. Creation had to obey the Creator.

The disciples probably did not catch on then, but they are face to face with it now. Their teacher is…well, he is more than a teacher, more than a godly man, more than a man from God, even more than their understanding of the Anointed One who was to come. Who is this who acts as the Creator?

Lessons

We leave the disciples in their terrifying fear and turn now to ourselves.

1. The Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps.

There is a psalm I often read in hospital visits, particularly when one is facing surgery and will be going under sedation. It is Psalm 121. I read it for this comforting thought:

He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep (v. 3-4).

There may be times in which our Lord seems to be asleep precisely in the midst of peril. Know that the Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps. Jesus may have appeared to be oblivious to his disciples peril and that of his own. I cannot claim to know what was happening inwardly in Jesus, if he were actually sleeping or appearing to be. But what I do know is that neither he nor his disciples were perishing, however much the circumstance may have indicated otherwise. The disciples could be in no safer place than in that boat, because Jesus was in that boat with them.

Whether he would have awoken at the nick of time, or his Father would have commanded the wind to stop, however it would have played out, that boat was not going to sink. Our God neither slumbers nor sleeps. And it is our God who keeps us.

But Christians do die; they even drown. They face the same tragedies as unbelievers. They can even be beheaded. Yes, but they cannot perish. No tragedy can befall us; no death can overtake us but that our Lord holds us in his hands, keeps the flame from destroying us, and leads us through the waters onto the eternal shores of his kingdom. He neither slumbers nor sleeps, but rather brings us through the sleep of death into everlasting light.

2. We have wanted to say, "Don't you care?"

Like the disciples, we have wanted to say, “Don’t you care?” “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” “Don’t you care about our pain, our heartache?”

Yes, your Lord cares far more than you can know. God the Father cares so much that he sent his Son for you. You who are fathers and mothers, you know what sacrifice that was. You can only guess what compassion could so move the Father to pay such a cost. Who among us would do the same? God the Son cares so much that he would let nothing keep him from the cross. He knew of the storm that would break upon him and of the drowning that he would experience upon the cross. He knew of his baptism of water to come. He would undergo such a storm because his disciples and many more like them were as sleeping men and women oblivious to the storm about them.

There are more storms about us than we know. Even as waves crash over us and our boats fill with water, we move about as in a dream thinking that all is well because our bank accounts are full and our physical health seems good. We planned right, and life is going according to our plan. Then something happens to put our safety and happiness in peril, and we ask God, “Don’t you care?” Sometimes it is precisely because he cares that he upsets our boats. We were in danger of forgetting that it is God, not us, who is in control of storms and of clear skies. We forget to give glory to God for both good and trouble. We forget that the good and the trouble serve to test our faith and to make it pure.

3. What is it to fear the Lord?

We now come to the primary lessons of this passage, which I present in two questions. The first is: What is it to fear the Lord? We already touched on this in the story itself, and I used the quote from C. S. Lewis to try and capture it. We had considered the subject when considering the reaction of Jonah’s mariners. It is a subject difficult for us to get a grasp of, though it would not have been for the people of Israel, nor for that matter to anyone in the ancient world.

The Old Testament speaks of fearing God much more often than loving God, not because the people did not love God but because fearing God encompasses love, all the while honoring God for being God the Creator and King. To fear God is to acknowledge that God is not like us. It is to regard God, not as the Old Man Upstairs, but as the great Ruler who has complete claim on us, and we are to come into his presence as subjects would come before their King.

It is hard for us to grasp the idea for a couple of reasons. One is that we are Americans, and we bow to no ruler. We are no one’s subjects. The authorities over us work for us, and they possess no power but that which we allot to them. And so, even when we come into the presence of dignitaries, we might be excited to meet them, but we are not in reverential awe of them. The other reason is one is a growing feature of our culture which we bring right into the sanctuary. The casual has pushed formality almost out of existence. There is no formal occasion. Every occasion is informal.

And that has carried over into the worship of God. Worship is but another informal activity of celebration, like a spiritual birthday party. Of primary importance is making everybody feel comfortable and cheerful so that we all go away having had a good time. Surely the gospel is worth celebrating, and because of our Brother Jesus Christ, we know God as our Father. But can we ever reclaim, ever experience again a God in whose presence we fear like the disciples before Jesus in that boat or the mariners before God on their ship or the shepherds before the angels in the sky? Are we not missing something because of having made God so comfortable to be around? Can we understand what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29). It is worth thinking about.

4. Mark asks the question of us: Who is this?

And then comes the question that Mark asks of all his readers throughout his gospel. Who is this Jesus? Who is he to us who profess him as Savior and Lord? How well do you really know him? The disciples thought they knew him, until he commanded the wind and the sea. We are thankful to Jesus for saving us. When we look at the cross, has it occurred to us to ever fear him, fear him in that sense of realizing that here is one who, however meaningful and wonderful it is that he became like us, nevertheless is not like us – that on the cross hangs the God who created us?

And to any here who may regard Jesus as a good man, maybe even the best man ever to live, will you stop there? Will you not acknowledge him to be who he presented himself to be? Will you hold back, try to play it safe and not give yourself over to him? Then understand that you are not playing it safe. You are keeping back from submitting to your Creator, who is King and Judge over men’s hearts.

Who is this? It is the most important question you will ever answer (and a non-answer is an answer). It is the one with the greatest consequences, eternal consequences. Don’t keep putting the question off. Your Creator awaits an answer.