Jesus calms the storm

Welcome brotherse and sisters, this month is advent, the celebration of anticipation of Jesus Christ. As we move towards Christmas, we want to remind us all the best gift on this world is Jesus Christ. We celebrate he came 2000 years ago for you and me, but also anticipate him to come once again. This month we want to remind that Jesus not only came to this world, but left us his actions, his words that changed the world. It is also a time actually to invite your friends to come as well. So maybe if you haven’t today, we invite you to invite them next week or the week afterwards, to celebrate Christmas, and thee main character of Christmas = Jesus. Today, I want to walk you through a story that will be familiar to many of us, if you have been a part of a church, and if it’s a new story, we’re glad that you can learn it for the first time. And it’s the story of Jesus calming the storm. The text can be found in the Gospel according to Mark, so that’s in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

And rather than read it at the beginning, I though perhaps we could simply walk our way through, verse by verse, and see what God has for us here. Trying to understand the text and also understand what word God has for us this morning, this day, in this moment.

So look, and I hope you have a Bible open, We’re going to work through verse by verse, Mark chapter 4.

Verse 35: “On that day, when evening had come, He,” that’s Jesus, “said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him.”

So this is coming at the end of chapter 4, which covers Jesus teaching for the day a number of kingdom-related parables, and then there’s a break in the narrative, beginning at verse 10 as we see the purpose of the parables and some explanation of it, and then from Capernaum to the eastern shore, from Jewish Galilee over to Gentile Decapolis, Jesus came to preach and He has throughout Mark’s gospel seen it as His aim that He might go from one town to the next to preach.

And so they are taking Him here to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They kept Him in the boat just as He was, set off for the other side. There would have been a larger group of disciples, perhaps just the 12 were in that one boat, we don’t know for sure, but a larger group of disciples who are traveling in the entourage with Jesus to the other side of the boat.

Just try to imagine what sort of boat this was. We know that scholars tell us in recent years the hull of a fishing boat was discovered about 5 miles south of Capernaum, and it was carbon dated to right around the time of Jesus The boat that these scientists found measured 26-1/2 feet long, made of cedar and oak. It could hold about 15 people, so perhaps it was Jesus and the 12 disciples.

It’s evening, and you picture the sun is probably setting and there are other boats with them, and after a long day of teaching and crowds and activity, they are no doubt looking forward to a quiet night across the lake. They had in their minds what the future would hold and yet as we will find out, the future held something very different for them, and it turned out to be a night that they would never forget, and 2000 years later, we are still talking about.

Verse 37, go back to your Bibles, verse 37: “And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.”

So the Sea of Galilee is situated below sea level, surrounded by hills and mountains, and cool mountain air would often mix with warm sea air and storms could arise on the sea very quickly. This is a big lake, 13 miles long, 8 miles wide, 140 feet deep. So this isn’t a lake that you just think you’re going to go and have an afternoon swim across. And this must have been a big storm, because remember the disciples, many of them, were seasoned fishermen. This is what they did for a living. This was their heritage. And here they are panicking. They had seen some stuff, they had been around the lake many times, and yet this storm felt different. The waves crashing in, the boat filling with water, in the dead of night, no light to guide their way, far from shore we imagine. This is not a good situation. And, to make matters worse, the one person that they believe could really help them in this seems oblivious to the whole thing.

Look at verse 38: “But He,” Jesus, “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?'”

In Matthew’s Gospel, they say, “Save us, Lord, we are perishing.” In Luke’s account, “Master, Master, we are perishing.” In those accounts, it sounds like more of a cry, and certainly it was a cry for help. But here in Mark you get the sense that it was also a rebuke. “Teacher, rabbi, what are you doing? Don’t you see that the world is crashing in around us? Don’t you care? Aren’t you concerned? Why don’t you do something?”

The disciples are frightened by the storm, upset with Jesus apparent lack of concern for their well-being. “Can’t you, can’t you see what’s happening, Jesus?”

So they go and they wake up the one man who they believe might be able to do something here. You know, “hey, Mr. Sandman, Mr. Sleepy-eyed Jesus, could you at least grab a bucket? Make yourself useful? Can you see that we’re in a bit of a panic here and you have the audacity to sleep?” And this is the guy that they’ve seen do miracles, that they figure maybe He could do something to help us. T

How in the world was Jesus sleeping in the first place? It’s hard to sleep in a boat, hard to sleep cramped up with 12 other men in the boat, hard to sleep during a thunderstorm, but Jesus managed to do all three things at the same time. Only once in the Gospels do we hear of Jesus sleeping. I don’t want to make too much of this, but it is interesting that earlier in Mark’s gospel, in chapter 1, everyone else is asleep and He’s awake, praying, while here everyone else is frantically awake and He’s sleeping. Perhaps there’s something of a lesson for us here as Christians, that at times we’re called to spend time with God in prayer, even when the whole world may be frantic, and at other times when the world is frantic and in panic, we perhaps can sleep because we know that God is in charge.

Look what happens in verse 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.”

This is strange. But imagine how strange it must have been to hear your teacher, to hear your rabbi, yell at the weather. Can you imagine you’re driving to the beach for spring break and you’re so looking forward to the warm weather and to have this trip that you’ve planned, except that it’s raining and it looks like it’s going to continue raining and what a dismal experience for your trip, and then your dad turns around in the car and he says to all of you, “No problem, I’ll take care of it.” He opens the window, he sticks out his head, he looks up at the rain clouds and yells, “Enough! Stop already! It’s time for the sun to come out.” You would think dad has lost it. And then you would be terrified if it actually worked.

The storm rages, Jesus speaks, it stops. It just does.

Jesus speaks a word and the storm ceases. He treats the storm like an animate object. He uses the same language here that He uses elsewhere for exorcism. Jesus, in Mark chapter 1, will rebuke and say “Be silent! Come out of him.” Now I don’t think we’re supposed to understand that the weather was inhabited by a demon, but the point is Jesus has the same personal authority over the weather, over the clouds, over the storm, over disease, that He has over sin and sickness and unclean spirits.

And He rebukes whatever powers try to undermine His mission. That’s the point. He only has to say a word and the powers of nature or disease or the devil or death itself are turned back.

Verse 40: “He said to them,” the disciples, “‘Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?'”

They rebuke Jesus, Jesus rebukes the storm, and now Jesus gives the disciples something of a rebuke. The disciples, at least the first four that He had called, had been with Him when He healed the unclean man in the synagogue, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, when He healed the masses that came to Him at Capernaum, and they knew He cleansed a leper, He healed a paralytic, He healed the man with the withered hand, and no doubt this is only a small sampling so far in the first few chapters of Mark of all the miracles that Jesus did. They should have had confidence that Jesus was in control and Jesus was at their side.

See, real faith is always future faith. Yes, faith has to do with the past, that you believe, you recognize, yes, God has done these things in the past. Yes, faith is not just in the past, it’s more than that. It’s believing in a kind of theoretical sense that God is good, that He exists, that He is powerful. So all of that is true. There’s a faith in the present. But real faith, in addition to all of that, must always be future faith, to believe that God can do something now and later.See, the disciples had eyes, they had seen what He had done. But Jesus wanted them to know what He could do. Not just in the past, but in the present, and in the future. You see, it’s not enough to be thankful for how God has taken care of you if we don’t also trust that He will take care of us. All of us who are Christians can look back and we can trace God’s hand, sometimes faintly, sometimes very explicitly, His care of us, His concern for us.

And we take comfort in that, but we take comfort not just because He did it, but because we know that that same God will do it, for us.

See, Jesus has been teaching about the power of the Word, and now He’s going to demonstrate the power of the Word. It’s Jesus’ way here in the boat of saying, “You think I was just telling nice stories? You think I just like farming and seeds and soils? No, this is to reinforce to you My Word is powerful.”

He’s giving a real-life illustration of the truthfulness of all the parables that He’s just told. They’re on a boat, a storm comes, they almost sink, they wake up, He calms the storms, the disciples learn a lesson, and you might think that that’s then end of the story, but that’s not quite the end of the story. Because the story finishes with another question.

Verse 41: “And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who this is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?'”

Now notice their reaction. When they come face-to-face with the divine, omnipotence of the Lord Jesus Christ, they do not run up and give Jesus a big hug. Now there’s a time for that, but we’re not in those times. They don’t say to one another, “Wow! That was really sweet. What a crazy, great Messiah we have.” They are filled in that moment with an awe and a fear that is even greater in many respects than the fear they just had from the storm. It’s one thing to fear the storm, it’s another to meet the maker of the storm.

The word in Greek is “megan,” mega, a great storm, a mega storm, and then a great calm, which fills them then with a great fear, verse 41. You see this repetition of the word, this mega storm which leads to a mega calm and now has produced in verse 41 in the disciples a mega fear. In their minds, the only thing more frightening than being in a small boat in the middle of a big storm is being in a small boat with a man who shouts at big storms and gets His way. If they knew their Bibles, and they would have, as good Jews, they surely would have been thinking about Jonah, and maybe already piecing together that there is one here with us who is greater than Jonah, Matthew’s gospel makes that clear. Jesus refers to Himself as one greater than Jonah.

Think about the comparison. Jonah was also asleep on a boat in the middle of a raging storm. That storm was sent by God to keep Jonah from running away. The storm in Galilee was threatening to keep Jesus from running ahead.

Jonah was awakened so he might pray to his God; Jesus is awakened so that He can prove that He is God.

Jonah was thrown overboard to calm the sea; Jesus merely throws out a word and the sea is still.

Yes, Jesus is greater than Jonah.

So remember what the sailors say in Jonah. It says they feared the Lord exceedingly. That’s what the pagan sailors did after they saw that the storm was calmed by throwing Jonah overboard. They feared the Lord exceedingly in the moment of the storm.

How much more then ought we to expect the disciples to be filled with fear?

One of the famous atheist Singmund Fred once said, he said as human beings, we are frail. We are alwyas in danger of having our lives terminated, or succumbed to fatal illness, or killed in hurricances, earthquicks, fires. So Frued said nature is hostil to use and is a treat of our suvival. So to cope with all these fear, we use religion to remove the malevolence of nonhuman entities. We personalize the impersonal forces of nature and hten sacralize them. So god’s are like a crutch we use to adapt to threats and fear. But it breaks down here, because in all their inventive creativity, the one thing human beings have never done is to invent a God who is even more terrifying than the force they want to tame. Above all, human beings do not want a personal god who is holy, for nothing threatens sinful humanity more than the presnece of holy.

Because Jesus is more than a greater Jonah. He is the One who sent the storm to Jonah, and He is the One who can calm all other storms. He’s the fulfillment of Psalm 107, “Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters. They say the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For He commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight.”

Perhaps that describes some of us, courage melting away.

“They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.”

The Lord is in direct fulfillment of that prophetic word from Psalm 107.

And so the disciples were right to ask the question, “What sort of man is this who puts His head asleep on the pillow in one minute, and instructs the wind in the next? Who is it that owns no home, but can command the sea? Who is this man whose word can make the harvest grow up and the storm calm down?”

Now, it would be nice, wouldn’t it, at the end of this message here to reassure you all that the application of Mark chapter 4 is that Jesus will wipe out the Corona virus, jesus would calm all storms. Yes one day, maybe not now. But we do not have a promise in God’s Word that Jesus is going to just speak a word and we’ll wake up tomorrow and the storm will be calm. We know that from the Word and from experience that you just can’t pray hard enough and long enough and you never get sick. No, we have the book of Job. We have Paul’s thorn in the flesh. We have the Lord Jesus Himself who died a perfect man. We understand faith doesn’t work that way, and Jesus doesn’t work that say.

And so what is the good news here? Well, the good news is that in so far as you belong to God by the Spirit through faith, we have confidence that Jesus is in the back of the boat. And better than that, He’s with us by His Spirit and He’s not asleep. You may wonder at times, does Jesus know what’s going on? Does Jesus care? Just like the disciples did. But rest assured, He sees, He knows, He loves, He cares, He is, Hebrews telling us, upholding the universe by the word of His power.

You could list ten thousand things we don’t know about in the next three days, three weeks, three months. If you think hard enough, there is always something to fear. No one wants suffering. No one hopes for more suffering. It’s natural that we would be nervous not knowing what will happen, that we would have times and moments of anxiety in the weeks and months ahead. But we never really know what’s going to happen. We give ourselves the illusion that we can plan and prepare and ensure and we sort of have the world under control, but we never do, we never have, we never will.

It’s as true today as it will be true a hundred years from now, as true as it was two weeks ago, that we do not know what the future holds. But we do know the One who holds the future, and that makes all the difference.

Why are you afraid, Jesus says. Have you still no faith? No fear or virus can change the number of days that God has written in His book for you and for me. No virus can make the Word of God untrue. No virus can undo the work of Christ on the cross. No virus can change the fact that through Jesus you have a Father in heaven who loves you. And no virus can separate you from the love of God that is yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord.