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Mark 4:35-41
Storms are an age-old picture of trouble in
life. Throughout the Bible – the raging waters are a
picture of everything that is threatening in our world. In the Bible, when life gets
really rough, when families fall apart, when loved ones get sick or die,
when friends betray you, when your health goes to pot and you’re facing
death, when you just can’t make ends meet – at those times, people
cry out to God. And they don’t just say ‘God, I’m in trouble’ they say
‘God, I’m drowning!’
King David wrote over a thousand years before
this incident. His family had
fallen apart, he had seen loved ones die, friends were betraying him all
around, he was on the run from an army trying to kill him and he didn’t
know where his next meal was coming from. Here’s how he prays though:
[SLIDE – Psalm 69]
Save
me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. 2 I sink in the miry
depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the
floods engulf me. 3 I
am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking
for my God.
Now David is nowhere near water when he prays
this. In fact, most likely he’s
in a desert. But life has got on
top of him so much, he feels like he’s drowning. Can you relate to that? Do troubles in your life feel like drowning? David’s up to His neck, his foot is
slipping, he is hoarse from crying out for help. His troubles are a deadly storm that
looks like it will swallow him whole.
The Bible is always making this link:
Troubles in life are like storms. And storms are like troubles in
life. And the only One who can
help is God.
We saw that in the video – all those verses
(and there are loads more like them in the Bible) speak of the storms as
the most threatening things in the world. But they also say, again and again, there is One power, and
One power alone, that is greater – the power of the LORD. He is the Storm-Master.
He has always been the Storm Master. Think of how the bible begins.
[SLIDE – Genesis 1]
In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the
earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
These waters are linked to threatening forces
– darkness and the deep. They are
part of this formless, emptiness that needs to be shaped and
moulded. And so the very next
thing that happens is that God speaks His Word and He begins to bring
form and fullness to the creation.
Day One – He says let there be light. Day Two – He separates the waters vertically. Day Three – He separates the wates
horizontally. The Word brings
order out of chaos and directs these threatening waters.
And so where do we humans fit? We live in a space that has been
cleared by the Word of God. And
everywhere we look, on the horizon, is the waters. What will keep you safe from these
threatening powers? Only the Word
of God.
In Job 38, the LORD speaks with Job and tells
him that his job is to say to the sea, “This far you may come and no
further; here is where your proud waves halt.” (Job 38:11).
So whenever you see the tide turn back you’re
witnessing a sign of the LORD’s power over the forces of chaos – this far
and no further. We can’t turn
back the tide, but the LORD does and He does it by the power of His Word.
Mark chapter 4 is all about the power of
Jesus’ Word.
Last week we thought about the Word being
like a seed. It looks weak, in
fact it has an incredible secret power.
It begins internally but it is outgoing in its growth. It works gradually but it multiplies
unstoppably. That was the power
of the word that we saw this work.
Tonight we see that the Word of Jesus can
have an immediate and earth-shattering effect. Last week we saw the Word of Jesus
bringing Christian fruitfulness and growing a kingdom that embraces the
world – over time. This week we
see that this same Word can flatten hurricanes in an instant.
And if you wanted the whole story in a
snapshot this would be it:
[SLIDE – big fish eating
the little ones]
We are like small little fish.
[SLIDE – us]
And the Storms are bigger than we
are.
[SLIDE – Storms]
The good news is that Jesus is bigger
than the storms.
[SLIDE – Jesus]
That’s the big picture. Storms are bigger than us and one day
they will kill us. But Jesus is
bigger still.
Let’s see just how big this storm is. Read with me from verse 35:
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us
go over to the other side." 36 Leaving the crowd behind,
they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other
boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves
broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
Now what the heck is a squall. I looked it up – this word that’s been
translated ‘squall’ can actually be translated hurricane. This is huge.
[SLIDE – Perfect Storm]
Think Perfect Storm huge. The wind is blowing a gale. The waves are mounting up, crashing
over the sides of the boat. It’s as if the whole lake is trying to chew
this boat up in its powerful jaws.
The boat is nearly swamped.
That means they’re taking on so much water they cannot bail fast
enough and they are as good as sunk.
Now remember that many
of the disciples were fishermen who had grown up on this lake. This was not the first storm they’d
ever sailed through, but when this storm blew in they thought it
would be their last. That’s how
big the storm is.
[SLIDE – big fish
etc]
The storm is a much
bigger fish than these disciples and they look at the situation and
reckon they are minutes if not seconds from death.
Well now, let’s look
at the biggest fish of the piece.
What’s Jesus doing? Verse
38:
Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke
him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
We are about to see
Jesus act as the LORD of all creation.
And just before we get an incredible display of Jesus’ power over
Heaven and Earth, verse 38 reminds us – it’s Jesus the Man who IS
Jesus our God. We’ll think at the
end about why we have this detail about Jesus sleeping, but here’s the point
for now: it’s the Jesus who got tired who is the Jesus who commands the
wind and waves. He is fully Man
and fully God.
But how does Jesus
demonstrate His divine power?
Well in verse 39 Jesus proves His divine power very differently to
how Hollywood would show it.
How would v39 run if
Hollywood wrote the story? Well
there’d be a close-up on Jesus’ eyes.
They’d spring open and the music would change. There’d be this insistent beat… Jesus
would jump to His feet and start barking orders at the disciples (Peter,
do this, James and John go there.) Then Jesus would race to the helm,
ducking under a swinging boom and then He’d take the wheel. His muscles would be glistening as His
wet clothes cling to Him. He’d
still be yelling orders to the disciples as He steers the ship bravely
through the waves and out into safety.
That’s how Hollywood would write v39.
But actually that
would be a very weak Jesus. The
real Jesus is far more powerful than that (v39):
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be
still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
Do you know what rebuking is? It’s when you tell someone off. Jesus is treating a hurricane like a
naughty child. He’s saying ‘Now
stop that.’ And the hurricane
basically says ‘Sorry Boss!’
We might shake our fist at the rain clouds
but all that happens is we get wet.
Jesus commands nature, and nature obeys His voice.
Notice something important here: Jesus
doesn’t pray, ‘O God, if you are able please can you stop
this storm.’ He doesn’t
pray. He doesn’t invoke a Higher
Power – He IS the Higher Power.
Jesus is the Storm Master – the LORD of Heaven and Earth. He commands the raging
waters. The raging waters obey,
and all is calm.
In a second the lake is flat as a pancake,
not a puff of breeze. The water
that had been crashing into the boat is now just dripping off the mast,
dripping off the disciples’ drenched hair and noses and ears. These men are soaked through and
breathless, and their jaws are on the decking. Jesus has their attention. Everything is silent as Jesus turns
from the lake and now He addresses His friends: (v40)
40 He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still
have no faith?"
Faith is just another word for trust, for
belief, for reliance, for dependence.
And Jesus says ‘Don’t you trust me??’
The answer is no. They didn’t trust Him.
In verse 38 they had accused Jesus of not caring: “Teacher don’t
you care if we drown??!” The
disciples thought – if there is a storm and Jesus doesn’t immediately
stop it, He doesn’t care. The
disciples cannot imagine that Jesus could love them if He allowed the
storm.
Everyone here knows what it’s like to be the
disciples.
We know what it’s like to hit bad weather and
to think – that’s ok I can handle it.
We get into more trouble and we think – I just need to toughen
up. The waves crash in and we
think – I’ll bail myself out. And
finally when we’re in up to our neck we start to think about the
Lord. And so then we all know
what it’s like to either say or think verse 38. “Lord, I’m drowning here, and you don’t care.” We all know what that’s like.
Maybe you’re in the middle of a storm right
now and your basic assumption is “Jesus doesn’t care because if Jesus
really cared He’d do something.
Jesus doesn’t love me or He would have calmed the storm.”
Jesus turns on His disciples here and says
they’ve got it wrong. He wants to
know why they don’t trust Him.
Because as far as Jesus is concerned He does love us AND He allows
us to go through storms. A lack
of calm does not mean a lack of care.
Storms don’t mean He doesn’t love us. We all need to know this for the storms that we go through
– Jesus does care even when He doesn’t calm.
And so the disciples have a lot to get their
heads around. They’ve just been
delivered from certain death.
They’ve just seen their Teacher speak to a hurricane and the
hurricane obey Him as its Lord and Master. God is in the boat.
But not only that He’s mad at them for their lack of trust. I think if I was a disciple my brain
would have snapped under the weight.
Verse 41:
41
They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the
wind and the waves obey him!"
Terrified!
Notice, they were afraid of the storm according to v40. They are TERRIFIED of Jesus. Of course they’re terrified of Jesus –
He’s the biggest fish! He
flattens hurricanes and He’s in the boat, and He wants to know why you
don’t trust Him.
When the disciples ask the question ‘who is
this?’ – they’re not idiots. They
know the answer. They’re just
getting their heads around it.
Every Jew who’s read their Bible knows that God alone rules
over the waters. Only God
speaks like this to the waters and only God is obeyed by the wind
and the waves. God
is in the boat and His name’s Jesus.
And Jesus proves to be just as unmanageable
as the storm. This is a feature
of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus often
frustrates and disappoints people’s expectations. He doesn’t handle things the way we
think He should.
In Mark 1 from verse 35, people are looking
for Him to do healings but Jesus is off praying and then He says “I’m off
on a preaching tour, that’s why I’ve come”
In Mark 2 a paralytic comes to Jesus for healing
and Jesus’s first move is to forgive him.
In Mark 3, from verse 31, Jesus’ family are
looking for Him and Jesus says it doesn’t matter, His followers are His
family.
In chapter 5 Jesus drives unclean spirits out
of Legion. Legion wants to follow
Jesus. Jesus says no and sends
him back to his family as a missionary.
Again in chapter 5 a man wants Jesus to heal
his daughter, but Jesus delays, spending time with another woman so that
the little girl dies.
Jesus is unmanageable. You can’t negotiate with Jesus any
more than you can negotiate with a storm. He’s much bigger than you.
But He’s very different to the storm because
the storm doesn’t love you. Jesus
does.
How do we know Jesus loves us? Doesn’t the storm disprove His
love? Doesn’t the storm mean that
Jesus doesn’t care after all?
Well Mark writes this story in a way that
deliberately brings to mind another Old Testament story about a
storm. Jonah chapter 1 tells the
story of a disobedient prophet Jonah who runs from the LORD onto a
ship. The LORD hurls a great
storm onto the sea and while Jonah was asleep, the sailors try to save
the ship but they can’t.
Eventually they wake Jonah, he tells them that he’s the cause of
the storm, if they throw him in the storm will stop. And so they do – they throw Jonah into
the storm and there is a great calm.
Jesus Christ often called Himself the true
Jonah – He was one greater than Jonah who would be hurled into the deep
to save His people. (Matt 12:39ff).
And on the cross that’s exactly what happened. On the cross, Jesus is abandoned to
the forces of darkness, chaos and destruction, so that He can bring calm
to us.
When you read in this story that Jesus was
asleep on the cushion you shouldn’t think ‘He doesn’t care’, you should
think ‘He is the true Jonah.’
Jesus is the One who really was hurled into the Ultimate Storm to
save us. In Mark chapter 4 Jesus
shows His Almighty power but at the end of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus shows His
incredible humility. Look to the
cross and there you see Someone who knows about storms.
By the power of His Word Jesus is far above
the storms of this world – easily able to cope. But also, by the wonder of His grace Jesus entered into the
storms of this world – further than you or I can ever imagine.
So please, know this, the storms do not
disprove His love. They do NOT
disprove His presence. The
presence of storms and the presence of Jesus are not incompatible – they
go hand in hand.
And that’s the point I want to finish
with. Storms do NOT mean Jesus
isn’t there. Storms actually show
us who He is. Storms help us to
answer the question of verse 41:
Who
is this??
The storm has revealed to the disciples more
of Jesus’ identity.
Did the disciples know
Jesus before the storm?
Sure. To an extent. Did they know Him afterwards? With fear and amazement they marvel
‘who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him.’
Throughout the Old
Testament there is a line that the LORD uses. He keeps on saying “Then you will know that I am the
LORD.” He acts in decisive saving
ways and then we know that He is the LORD. The storm is like that.
And storms in our lives are like that.
Six years ago I prayed
a prayer to God – a prayer that said I wanted to know Him better. In answer to that prayer, within a
week, the Home Office deported me from England back to Australia. It was completely unexpected. My hopes of jobs over here were
apparenty dashed, I was taken away from very good friends and a long-term
girlfriend who I intended to marry.
She, in this same week, revealed to me that she was losing her
faith and couldn’t be bothered with Christianity any more. I arrived back in Australia with no
job, no plans, living with my parents, who chose this moment to initiate
a very messy divorce. This
was a kind of storm. And of
course you ask WHY?
Well the prayer that I
had prayed the week before I was deported, I didn’t tell you exactly what
the prayer was. It was actually a
verse from the Bible. It said
this ‘I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.’ And God answered my prayer. Jesus set sail immediately for a storm, because how do you
get to know Christ better? You
have fellowship with Him in suffering.
When you’re in the storm, that’s when you really know
Jesus.
And you know Him because of the power of His
word. Please notice how Jesus
deals with this storm. By His
word. It’s what this whole
chapter is about. The word of
Jesus makes us fruitful and grow as Christians, it grows a worldwide
kingdom and it flattens tornados.
In the midst of our storms we need to hear the word of Jesus. Last week we thought of Jesus’ word as
like a seed. This week we think
of it like a safety harness that you wrap around yourself in order to
handle the storm.
Will we, this week, realise that the storms
of life are bigger than we are.
But will we realise that Jesus is bigger still. He is powerful AND He cares. He knows all about storms and even
though I can’t negotiate with Him I can trust Him. And in the midst of the storms, I can
know Jesus better as I cling onto His powerful Word.
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