1 CALMING THE STORMS Mark 4:35-41 First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown, Texas Dr. Michael A. Roberts February 25, 2018 Mark 4:35-41 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us go across to the other side. 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace! Be still! Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? Sometimes you can see them coming. Sometimes they come upon you suddenly. Sometimes they are very brief and sometimes they last longer. The storms of life. Very few people escape the storms. They affect almost everybody. Life can seem calm and tranquil and then all of a sudden the winds pick up, the rain begins to pour, the water beats against the boat, and we begin taking on water. Storms sometimes begin suddenly. We discover a lump. Someone walks out on us. We re called into the boss office. Our mind is pierced with severe doubt. Or sometimes the storms take a long time to get up to full power. A lifetime of uncertainty produces a windstorm of anxiety and worry. A family history of depression overwhelms us in adulthood. A generation of unhealthy dynamics in the family produce raging seas around us. Sometimes storms are brief- they last a week or a month. Other times the storms of our lives last longer- a year or a decade or even more. Think this morning of the storms in your life. Very few make it through life without any storms at all. Maybe you ve just survived a tremendous storm. You re hanging on to a fragment of the boat, bobbing in the water, exhausted and out of breath. But you survived! Or maybe you re right smack in the middle of the storm as I speak today. The wind is reaching hurricane force, the rain is coming in sideways, the sky looks green. You wonder if you ll make it through. Or maybe, you see the storm coming off on the
2 horizon. Perhaps this fall, for example, will bring a significant change in your family s living situation, or the company you work for is going to reorganize again, or you face a series of ominous tests. Sometimes you can see it coming. Sometimes it just comes upon you suddenly. Sometimes they re brief and sometimes not. The storms of life. Whenever Christians have faced the storms, they have often turned to this story of Jesus in Mark 4. This story has provided comfort to individual Christians as they face their personal storms and the story also has provided comfort to the church as they face their storms together as the body of Christ. The story takes place in the early days of Jesus ministry, during the Galilean phase. It made a tremendous impact on the church as you might guess. It occurs not only in Mark 4 but also in Matthew 8:23-27 and Luke 8:22-25. The author is influenced by an eyewitness of this event. Someone was actually there. The details of the story like the other boats, that the boat was filling with water, the precise location of Jesus, and the panic in the disciples voices all indicate that this was a personal remembrance. Jesus had just finished a full and exhausting day of teaching. It was his idea to get away from the crowd by going to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He needed space, some perspective. He needed some rest. In 1986 the hull of a fishing boat was recovered from the mud on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, about five miles south of Capernaum. The boat- 26 ½ feet long, 7 ½ feet wide, and 4 ¼ feet high-corresponds in design to a first-century mosaic of a Galilean boat preserved a mile from the discovery site. Carbon 14 technology dates the boat between 120 B. C. and A.D. 40. Both fore and aft sections of the boat appear to have been covered with a deck, providing space on which to sit or lie. The boat was propelled by four rowers (two per side) and has a total capacity of about fifteen persons. The Galilee boat corresponds to the particulars of the boat described in this story and to depictions in various ancient artistic renderings. A similar boat accommodated Jesus and his disciples on their crossings of the Sea of Galilee (James Edwards p. 148). Mark s gospel is the only one to tell us that there were other, probably smaller boats. Some have thought that these boats were lost in the storm; most think these boats were beneficiaries of God s wider mercy in Jesus miracle.
3 Verse 37: A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. This was a common experience on the Sea of Galilee. The sea, surrounded by mountains, is like a basin. Violent winds often enter from the southwest and create a situation in which stormy seas and calm seas succeed each other in rapid succession. Since the wind is nearly always stronger in the afternoon than in the morning or evening, fishing was done at night or very early in the morning. But when a storm arose in the evening, as seems to be the case in this story, it was all the more dangerous. Sometimes you can see a storm coming; sometimes a storm comes upon you suddenly. This severe storm struck suddenly, waves crashing over the sides of the boat, the boat filling with water. An open fishing boat with low sides such as the one discovered in 1986 would be vulnerable to high waves (R.T. France p. 223). We know this storm was severe because of the reaction of the disciples. Remember, these people had experience with the sea and storms. At least four of Jesus disciples were experienced fishermen, always out on this lake. Yet, their reaction is panic. They believed that the boat was going to capsize and they were going to drown. What started out as a tranquil, restful trip across the lake was going to end with their deaths. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep. The disciples are scrambling around, yelling to each other, trying to find a bucket to bail out the boat. And Jesus is asleep! The church has always loved this story because of what it says about Jesus. It says Jesus is God, because only God can calm the waters. But it also says he was human. Jesus was tired. He had been on his feet all-day, teaching and ministering to the people. He was not a teaching robot who could just keep going and going like the energizer bunny. He needed to rest. He needed to sleep. And since Jesus wasn t anxious about anything, he went right to sleep. Evidently, he fell into a heavy sleep for the storm did not wake him. This is the only time in the gospels, by the way, where Jesus is depicted as sleeping. Ironically, the only place in the gospels that we hear of Jesus sleeping is during a storm. The contrast between the raging storm, the panicky disciples, and the sleeping, peaceful Jesus is quite dramatic. The disciples can stand it no longer. They shake him awake. Jesus is in a deep sleep. You know how it is when you are awakened in such a situation. Then, he hears the words Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Do you not care? We re taking on water here. We re sinking. We re going under. We re drowning here, Jesus. Don t you care about us?
4 This is often the way we react in the midst of life s storms. We wonder where God is when the wind is howling and the waves are crashing hard on our life. Is God even aware of my plight?, we think. Is God indifferent to what I m going through? Does God even care that I m going under? Panic is normal in the midst of the storm. Panic is normal for the people of God. Our anxiety shoots through the roof and we wonder whether God is sleeping while we re going through the storm. So, we get a little desperate and a little rude. Notice, though, that Jesus doesn t get caught up in their panic. When we are in the midst of the storm we usually want others to catch and share our panic. They should be just as upset as we are about our distress. Jesus is calm even when they are panicked. What is important, of course, is the way Jesus responds to disciples in the midst of their panic. I like the way Dale Bruner expresses this: Even when our faith is excessively fearful, cowardly, weak, and worthy of rebuke, Jesus hears our cry, gets up, rebukes wind and sea, and creates great calm. Jesus did not say, as he might have, Come back later when your faith is stronger and less fearful, and then I will help you. He takes us as we come; and if we come with hardly any faith at all, he cannot pretend that he is flattered, but he does go immediately to work. What really matters in the final analysis is that Jesus helps us however we come to him, even with little faith (The Christbook p. 319). He woke up, it says in verse 39, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace! Be still! Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. Now, that is a miracle I would have loved to see! The interesting but not very fruitful question is- how did he do that? That s really a very modern question, which we really don t know the answer to. Better to concentrate on the why- the meaning of the story. To understand the significance of the story, you have to consider the broader biblical context. The Old Testament understood God to be the creator and ruler of nature. Since God created nature and the rules of nature, God could also at times change the normal course of nature. One of the most significant miracles of the Old Testament comes to mind. When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they crossed the Red Sea. Exodus 14:21-22 tells us: Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
5 The Israelites believed that God ruled the wind and sea. Another example is when Jonah was trying to escape from God and this time God sent a storm that threatened to break up his ship. Jonah is also fast asleep, the experienced sailors in that story are also terrified. The storm stops when Jonah is tossed overboard. You can read all about it in Jonah 1. Psalm 107:28-30 expresses thanksgiving for those who travel by sea in these words: Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. These texts are very much in the minds of the disciples and the gospel-writer. Here was Jesus doing what only God could do. This was a very rare miracle. To our knowledge Jesus never does this again. To our knowledge the calming of an actual sea is very, very rare. Perhaps it never occurred again. But this miracle certainly made an impression on those disciples. The disciples were full of awe and declared, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? The answer in the context of Mark s gospel is that this Jesus is the Son of the living God, for only God could calm the storm. What was true of the God of Israel, is true for him. He is the Lord of wind and sea. We are singing the Navy Hymn Eternal Father, Strong to Save today. The text was written by William Whiting for a student who was about to set sail for America in 1860. It is known as the Navy Hymn in America because it is sung at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. This was the favorite hymn of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was sung at his funeral in 1945. It was also played in 1963 when John F. Kennedy s body was carried up the steps of the Capitol building to lie in state. The second verse affirms Jesus uniqueness in this way: O Savior, whose almighty word The wind and waves submissive heard, Who walked upon the foaming deep, And calm amid its rage did sleep; O hear us when we cry to Thee For those in peril on the sea. After the sea is completely calm, Jesus then asks his disciples a challenging question: Why are you afraid, have you no faith? We all fear things but evidently their fear was excessive.
6 John Calvin back in the 16 th century understood this and expresses it this way: he does not simply rebuke them for being afraid, but for being men of fear they were afraid beyond limit in contrasting faith with their fear, He shows that He is speaking of an excessive upset, which is not just stirring their faith, but in fact knocking it clean out of their minds. Fear, in the ordinary sense, is not opposed to faith fear which arouses faith is not a vicious thing in itself, until it goes beyond the limit. Fear is common when we encounter the storms of life. Calvin counsels us about excessive fear which wipes out faith. Faith is really the key question. The disciples asked Jesus don t you care about us? Jesus asks the disciples don t you trust me? Jesus says, I have been with you all along. I have never let you down before. You have seen me work wonders. You know me; you know what I can do. Don t you trust me? I know there are storms out there but I am in the boat with you. I am with you always. The first readers of this gospel understood the calming of the storm in a different way. You see, the original readers of Mark s gospel were being persecuted; they were suffering for their faith. They were in a different kind of storm. There were times when they thought God was indifferent to their hardship and suffering (James Edwards p. 152). The presence of Jesus calmed their spirits and gave them hope during difficult days. The kind of faith the story calls for, however, is not only that Jesus could save them from the storm, but that if he is with them-literally in the same boat-he can save them even if he and they go under, a faith in the Lord of the storm who can save beyond death. Mark s readers know that God did not deliver Jesus from death, but raised him from the dead, and already look back on the martyrdoms of Peter, Paul, and other Christians. This story calls them to a faith in the God who saves through and beyond death, not necessarily from death (Eugene Boring p. 146). In early Christian art, the church was depicted as a boat. The storms are raging about the boat. But Jesus was piloting the boat, peacefully and calmly while the disciples look frightened and panicked. In the second century, the ark became the symbol of the church in which the redeemed are delivered from divine judgment, and the mast of sailboats was seen as symbolizing the cross. In the third century theologian Origen could declare, as many as are in the bark of the holy church will voyage with the Lord across this wave-tossed life (Eugene Boring p. 145).
7 In the dark days of World War II when the storm was huge and looming the predecessor to the World Council of Churches adopted a symbol of a boat tossed about by the waters with a cross on the mast. Jesus calming of the storm did not just happen once on the Sea of Galilee. Again and again, this story has reassured the church and Christians who face storms that whenever Jesus is present there is calm and peace. This includes our storms. Are the storms raging outside or raging inside your life? Jesus is not only the Son of God; he is also our close companion, our fellow traveler on the sea. He is in the boat with us. His presence alone gives peace. And he speaks peace to us. Jesus sees our storms and says Peace! Be still! Then, as another translation (NIV) says the wind died down and it was completely calm. May it be so for the storms that you face in your life. Amen. Prayers of the People Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Savior. We are grateful that you calmed the storm. You bring peace and calm to those who follow you. A peace that the world does not understand and a calm that we cannot comprehend. Thank you for being there for your people, for us. Thank you for your constant presence. We pray, Dear Jesus, that you would calm the storms of our lives. Bring healing to those who suffer. Give strength to those who are weak in mind or body. Offer patience to those who are frustrated. Give comfort to those at the end of their life. Quiet those who have raging storms within. Speak your word, Peace! Be Still! May the winds die down and the calm be complete.