Calming the Storm (Mark 4:35-41)

Summary

In this sermon, the speaker delves into Mark 4:35-41, highlighting the dual nature of Jesus as both man and God. Through the story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, the speaker illustrates Jesus' humanity in his exhaustion and sleep, and his divinity in his command over the natural elements. The sermon emphasizes Jesus' power as the Creator and sustainer of the universe, encouraging faith and trust in Him, even in the most daunting circumstances. The narrative also underscores the disciples' growing understanding of Jesus' divine identity.

Takeaways

• 📖 The Gospel of Mark aims to demonstrate that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine.
• 💡 Mark 4:35-41 showcases Jesus' power over nature, emphasizing His divine authority.
• 🌊 The passage describes a fierce storm on the Sea of Galilee, which Jesus calms with a command.
• 😴 Despite the severity of the storm, Jesus is depicted as sleeping peacefully, showing His humanity.
• 🌀 The disciples panic and wake Jesus, questioning His concern for their safety.
• 🗣️ Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves, instantly calming the storm, demonstrating His divine power.
• 😨 The disciples react with awe and fear, realizing the divine nature of Jesus.
• 🌍 The sermon references various Bible passages (John 1, Hebrews 1, Colossians 1, Psalms) to underline Jesus' role as Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
• 🙏 The key lesson for the disciples is to have faith in Jesus' power and protection.
• 🌟 The story underscores the dual nature of Jesus as both fully human (exhausted and sleeping) and fully divine (commanding the elements).

Q & A

What is the main purpose of Mark's gospel according to the script?

Mark's purpose in writing the gospel is to make it unmistakably clear that Jesus is both God and man, the God-Man.

What significant event is described in Mark 4:35-41?

The event describes Jesus calming a fierce storm while He and His disciples were on the Sea of Galilee.

How does the script describe Jesus' humanity in this passage?

The script highlights Jesus' humanity by describing how He was exhausted from a long day of teaching and fell asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat.

What does Jesus' action of calming the storm demonstrate about His divinity?

Jesus' action of rebuking the wind and calming the sea demonstrates His divine power and control over nature, affirming that He is God.

What natural features of the Sea of Galilee make it prone to sudden storms?

The Sea of Galilee is prone to sudden storms due to its unique location, 682 feet below sea level, surrounded by mountains that funnel winds into the basin, causing violent turbulence.

What was the disciples' reaction during the storm, and what did they ask Jesus?

The disciples panicked and woke Jesus, asking, 'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?' They were terrified and felt they were in imminent danger.

How did Jesus respond to the storm and the disciples' fear?

Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush, be still.' The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He then questioned the disciples about their fear and lack of faith.

What does the script suggest about the disciples' faith after Jesus calmed the storm?

The script suggests that the disciples' faith was still weak as they reacted with great fear, questioning, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?'

What Old Testament passages does the script reference to emphasize God's power over nature?

The script references Psalm 65:5-7, Psalm 89:9, and Psalm 107:23-29, which speak of God's power to still the roaring seas and calm the waves.

What theological point does the script make about the control of the planet and nature?

The script emphasizes that God, not humans, controls the planet and nature. It argues that the Creator is the sustainer and consummator of His creation, dismissing human efforts to control the planet's future as nonsense.

Outlines

00:00

📖 Introduction to Mark 4:35-41

This paragraph introduces the passage Mark 4:35-41, emphasizing the purpose of Mark's gospel to demonstrate Jesus as both God and man. It sets the scene for the forthcoming display of Jesus's humanity and divinity through the narrative of calming the storm.

05:02

🌊 Demonstration of Jesus's Power

This paragraph explains the significance of Jesus's miracles, particularly highlighting His control over nature, disease, and demons. It describes the unique properties of the Sea of Galilee and its suitability for demonstrating Jesus's divine power over creation.

10:05

⚡ The Sea of Galilee's Unique Properties

This paragraph delves into the geographical and meteorological aspects of the Sea of Galilee, explaining why it is prone to sudden and severe storms. It provides historical context and scientific details about the lake, emphasizing its strategic importance and the challenges it presents.

15:09

⛵ Journey Across the Sea

This paragraph describes Jesus's decision to cross the Sea of Galilee after a long day of teaching. It sets the stage for the upcoming storm, detailing the calm conditions and Jesus's exhaustion, leading Him to fall asleep on a cushion in the boat.

20:12

💤 Jesus Asleep During the Storm

This paragraph highlights Jesus's humanity through His exhaustion and sleep during the storm. It contrasts His calmness with the disciples' panic as the storm intensifies, emphasizing their fear and lack of faith in Jesus's power to save them.

25:14

🌪️ The Fierce Storm

This paragraph vividly describes the sudden and violent storm that threatens the boat and the disciples' lives. It details their panic and desperate plea to Jesus, illustrating their limited faith and understanding of His divine authority.

30:16

🛏️ Jesus Calms the Storm

This paragraph narrates Jesus's miraculous calming of the storm with His words, demonstrating His divine power. It emphasizes the immediate and total calm that followed His command, reinforcing His identity as the Creator with authority over nature.

35:23

😨 The Disciples' Fear

This paragraph explores the disciples' reaction to the miracle, highlighting their increased fear and awe of Jesus. It underscores their recognition of His divine power and the realization of His true identity, leading to a deeper understanding of His deity.

40:26

🙏 Realizing Jesus's Divinity

This paragraph reflects on the disciples' growing understanding of Jesus's divine nature. It draws parallels with Old Testament references to God's control over nature, reinforcing the theological implications of the miracle for the disciples' faith.

45:29

📜 Conclusion and Prayer

This paragraph concludes with a prayer, reflecting on the insights gained from the passage about Jesus's dual nature as fully God and fully man. It calls for a deeper faith in Jesus and an acknowledgment of His divine authority and care for His followers.

Keywords

💡Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament that details the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this video, the Gospel of Mark serves as the primary source for the narrative being explored, particularly focusing on chapter 4, verses 35 through 41.

💡Son of God

The term 'Son of God' refers to Jesus Christ's divine nature, affirming that He is both fully God and fully man. The video emphasizes that Mark's gospel seeks to make it unmistakably clear that Jesus is the Son of God, a central theme in Christian theology.

💡Deity

Deity in this context refers to the divine status and nature of Jesus Christ. The video illustrates Jesus' deity through His miraculous control over natural elements, such as calming the storm, demonstrating His divine authority and power.

💡Humanity

Humanity in this context refers to Jesus Christ's human nature. The video presents a beautiful portrait of Jesus' humanity by describing His exhaustion and need for sleep, highlighting that He experienced physical limitations like any other human.

💡Miracle

A miracle is an extraordinary event that surpasses natural laws, attributed to divine intervention. The video narrates the miracle of Jesus calming the storm, which showcases His divine power over nature and reinforces His identity as the Son of God.

💡Faith

Faith is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In the video, Jesus rebukes His disciples for their lack of faith during the storm, teaching them a lesson about trusting in His divine power and protection.

💡Sea of Galilee

The Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake in Israel where many events of Jesus' ministry took place. The video describes its unique properties and significance, setting the scene for the miraculous event of Jesus calming the storm on this lake.

💡Calm

Calm refers to the state of tranquility and peace. The video discusses the calm before the storm, the calm during the storm where Jesus is asleep, and the calm after Jesus stills the storm, illustrating the contrast between natural chaos and divine peace.

💡Storm

A storm is a violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow. In the video, the storm on the Sea of Galilee serves as the backdrop for demonstrating Jesus' divine power as He calms it with a command.

💡Creator

The Creator is a title for God, who made everything in existence. The video underscores that Jesus, as the Word, is the Creator of all things, and His ability to control the wind and waves is a testament to His divine authority over creation.

Highlights

Mark's purpose in writing the gospel is to make it clear that Jesus is both God and man, the God-Man.

Jesus demonstrates His deity through the miracle of calming the storm, showing His power over nature.

The Sea of Galilee, where the miracle occurred, is known for its unique and severe wind patterns.

The lake is subject to severe winds, both in summer and winter, making it a dangerous place for boats.

Jesus falls asleep in the boat, showing His humanity and exhaustion after a long day of teaching.

A fierce gale of wind arises, creating a storm that terrifies the disciples, who fear for their lives.

The disciples wake Jesus, asking if He cares that they are perishing, demonstrating their fear and lack of faith.

Jesus rebukes the wind and commands the sea to be still, instantly calming the storm.

The disciples are even more afraid after the storm is calmed, realizing they are in the presence of God.

The miracle highlights Jesus' creative power, as He can control the natural world He created.

Jesus uses the miracle to teach the disciples about faith and trust in His divine power.

The calm after the storm is described as a supreme calm, with the lake becoming perfectly still.

The disciples' reaction to the miracle is one of terror, as they realize they are in the presence of the Creator.

The story demonstrates the dual nature of Jesus, fully human and fully divine.

The miracle serves as a lesson in faith, showing that Jesus can be trusted in the most threatening circumstances.

Transcripts

Open your Bible, if you will, to the fourth chapter of the gospel of Mark and we come

to the final paragraph in this fourth chapter, verses 35 through 41...verses 35 through 41.

Now remember that Mark's purpose in writing the gospel is stated in chapter 1 verse 1,

"The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

Mark, like all the other writers, Matthew, Luke and John, has as his goal and his objective

to make it clear, unmistakably clear that Jesus is none other than God, that He is man,

to be sure, but that He is God as well, the God-Man.

That will be demonstrated magnificently, unforgettably in the passage that is before us.

We will see a beautiful portrait of His humanity and we will see a staggering demonstration

of His deity.

Let's look at the story, starting in verse 35.

"On that day when evening came, He said to them, 'Let us go over to the other side.'

Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat just as He was.

And other boats were with Him.

And there arose a fierce gale of wind and the waves were breaking over the boat so much

that the boat was already filling up.

Jesus Himself was in the stern asleep on the cushion and they awoke Him and said to Him,

'Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?'

And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush, be still.'

And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

And He said to them, 'Why are you afraid?

How is it that you have no faith?'

They became very much afraid and said to one another, 'Who then is this that even the wind

and the sea obey Him?'"

Well the simple answer to that question is, "He is God because only God has such power

over wind and waves."

We shouldn't be surprised about that since we hear the testimony of John in John 1:1,

"In the beginning was the Word," meaning Christ, "and the Word was with God, the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that

has come into being."

That is to say that Christ, the Word, is the Creator of everything that exists.

If He has the power to create it, He has the power to control it.

In Hebrews chapter 1 it speaks of God's Son who is appointed heir of all things, verse

2, "Through whom also He made the world."

And then in verse 3 He upholds all things by the Word of His power.

Here we are told that God made the world through the agency of Christ and Christ sustains it

by His power.

In Colossians chapter 1, there is a similar testimony from the Apostle Paul where it tells

us in verse 16, "By Him," that is by Christ, "all things were created both in the heavens

and on earth, visible and invisible.

All things have been created through Him and for Him.

He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.

He is the Creator and the sustainer of the creation."

That is the testimony of Scripture.

And those are only samples of the kind of testimony that is repeated in the New Testament

regarding Christ.

Another one is 1 Corinthians 8 which tells us similarly that He is the one who has made

everything that has been made.

"There is but one God, one Father from whom are all things.

We exist for Him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we exist through

Him."

He is the Creator of the universe, all things exist because He made them and all things

are sustained because He sustains them.

So that when we come to an occasion like this, what we are seeing anecdotally, what we are

seeing in the incident that happens is this creative power.

Creative power is demonstrated in every healing miracle.

Whenever Jesus healed someone, it was a creative miracle.

He had to give the person new limbs, or new organs--that's creation.

But here on a grand scale, He demonstrates His power over the inanimate world, the wind

and the waves.

He has displayed His power over demons, He can control the spiritual world.

He has displayed His power over disease, He can control the human world even in its physicality.

And here He has power over the natural creation.

This demonstration is really unique in the New Testament.

There are some other physical miracles, like the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding

of the four thousand where He creates food virtually out of nothing, speaks it into existence.

Clearly an indication of His creating power.

But this is on a grander, if you will, and more powerful scale.

And the Lord couldn't have picked a better place to demonstrate His power over His creation.

This lake that is in view here is the very familiar Sea of Galilee.

It isn't mentioned here, but it doesn't need to be because we know the context.

Jesus' ministry is being carried on in Galilee.

His basic headquarters is in Capernaum at the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee.

He has been moving in that area and teaching in the villages and towns of Galilee.

On this particular day He has spent the whole day in that area on the edge of the sea.

If you go back to chapter 4 verse 1, "He began to teach again by the sea," that's the Sea

of Galilee, "such a very large crowd gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea

and sat down and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land and He was teaching them many

things."

The scene was repeated on a number of occasions.

The crowd was so massive that they pressed Him all the way to the water's edge and the

only way He could get some space between Himself and the crowd and say what He wanted to say

would be to get in a boat and get off the shore into the water a little bit.

The water would act as a little bit of a reflection of His voice and the hillsides surround could

create very much of an amphitheater and so it would be easy for Him to be heard in that

way.

So, in the very familiar territory of the Sea of Galilee which isn't really a sea, it's

a fresh water lake and today it's known as Lake Kinneret in Israel, but it's to us called

the Sea of Galilee.

It is the lowest fresh water lake on the planet.

It is 682 feet below sea level.

It isn't as low as the Dead Sea but the Dead Sea is not fresh water, it is highly mineralized

content and the salt in the Dead Sea is so thick that you can float on the top of it

rather easily.

But this is the lowest fresh water lake in the world.

And as a result of that, it has been much studied for its unique properties.

It has a stratification of water.

There literally three stratifications of the water that go down a hundred and fifty feet

and those stratifications have a lot to do with the surface of the lake at various times

of the year.

They have a lot to do with the content of algae which has a lot to do with the content

of fish.

In 1896, one fishing boat alone brought in 92 hundred pounds of fish.

It is a prolific lake for the production of fish and having that kind of water and that

kind of resource in Galilee was a great blessing to the people who live there.

It is surrounded by mountains, essentially on the west and the northwest, the mountains

rise to 1500 feet.

On the northeast and the east, they rise to three thousand feet, to the Golan Heights

which runs 42 miles in length and the lake is only thirteen miles.

So it goes far pass the lake.

The lake is 13 by 8.

So it sits in a bowl and the water that comes into the lake comes partly from some hot springs

but primarily from the Jordan River which flows out of Mount Herman.

Mount Herman is up in the north on the Lebanon border at 92 hundred feet.

So the water flows about ten thousand feet down to fill up this lake in this bowl.

It is such pristine fresh water that it provides even today about fifty percent of the water

for the nation Israel.

So it was a tremendous resource to them for water, as well as for fish.

Now that's why so many of the disciples were fishermen, up to seven of them.

We know James and John, Peter and Andrew, and there may have been three more who were

also fishermen on that lake.

Because of its unique location, because it's only 30 miles from the Mediterranean and it

sinks so low, it has very special properties because it is surrounded by these mountains,

that adds to the uniqueness of the lake.

And as a result, scientists have done research on this lake through the years to study it.

It is different than all other bodies of water in the world.

And what particularly makes it unique is the fact that it is subject to very, very severe

winds.

And both in the summer and the warm part of the year and in the winter in the cold part

of the year, it experiences these kinds of winds.

The winds that come in the summer are the Sirocco winds from the east.

They'd be like our Santa Ana winds, only they typically come every day from noon to six

o'clock..

They're pretty predictable.

The wind comes down hard off the Golan Heights and a little north of that and it comes down

and it turns the lake in to a boiling caldron and it's pretty much the routine every day

during the summer.

These make it a very treacherous place to be in a boat at the wrong time.

The winter is even worse because the winter winds are cold winds that come from the north

and the northwest.

And when the cold air comes down and it hits the warm air that naturally sits in the bowl,

it creates a turmoil.

The cold air goes through the warm air and causes tremendous turmoil on the lake.

So whether you're in the summer or the winter, it is subject to this.

I have been there on a number of occasions and I have seen these kinds of winds come

out of nowhere.

I remember one time we got in this metal boat and we were going to go across the Sea of

Galilee and we were up in the bow standing on the bow and enjoying the ride and all of

a sudden out of nowhere the lake began to foam and the waves began to rise and pretty

soon we had to run to the stern to avoid the water splashing over the bow only to be drenched

by the water that went over the wheelhouse and hit us all the way in the stern.

So it can be a very troublesome place if you're there at the wrong time.

Between, I guess, November and April, that is the most dangerous, treacherous time.

And in very unexpected ways those winds can come, those cold winds and the waves can get

anywhere from five to ten feet and that just doesn't happen on a lake, but it happens there

and it can be a very terrifying experience.

In fact, one historian gives the record of the fact that on one occasion they were in

Tiberias on the western shore of the lake and the waters...the waves were coming to

high that they were coming two hundred yards into the city of Tiberias off this little

lake.

All of this is the basic product of the wind.

So that's the place where this happens.

And so it couldn't have been a better place for the Lord to demonstrate His power over

nature.

And that's exactly what He does here.

Let's start with a calm before the storm.

We'll call it the calm before the storm, then we'll look at the calm during the storm, and

then we'll look at the calm after the storm, and then we'll look at the storm after the

calm.

Okay?

We'll work our way through the whole deal here.

All right, the calm before the storm, verse 35.

"On that day when evening was come."

That day means a very specific day.

What day?

The very day that started in verse 1.

"When the Lord went down by the Sea of Galilee and began to teach and a huge massive crowd,

as always, came and He had to get in a little boat.

And when He taught on the soils and then pulled the disciples aside and explained the meaning

of the parables to them while not explaining to the crowd."

And then He told the parable, as you remember, of the lamp and the basket.

And then He told the parable of the seed, planted at night that grows, the farmer knows

not how.

And then He told the parable of the mustard seed.

And it's been a long day.

And those are only representative of the parables that He gave.

He most likely gave many more parables than just these and there was a full day of teaching.

We can assume as well that people had brought the sick and the needy to Him and there was

healing going on as well.

We would assume then that it was a typically exhausting day for the Lord, teaching itself

can be very, very exhausting.

And He did it day after day, after day, after day with tremendous demands being made on

Him.

So we can assume that He's somewhere on the northwest edge of the Sea of Galilee, off

in the little boat, near the town of Capernaum.

Evening comes, dusk.

The people will kind of dissipate now and go to their homes.

"He said to them," that would be to His disciples who are referred to in verse 34, His own disciples.

He said to them, 'Let us go over to the other side."

Now we might assume that He was going over to the other side just to get a bit of a rest

and that would be to one degree or another reasonable, to get away.

There were many occasions when He did that, when He tried to escape the crushing crowd.

We could assume that because there were no large cities on the eastern shore of the Sea

of Galilee, all the large cities and towns were on the western shore, that maybe He was

just going over there to get away from things where He could get a bit of a break and a

little bit of rest.

But if you understand what comes next in the book of Mark, you know that that was not the

point because in chapter 5 verse 1, "When they came to the other side of the sea into

the country of the Gerasenes.

When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit

met Him."

He comes to an encounter which has been ordained by His Father with the Gerasene maniac who

is full of demons and He ends up sending those demons into a herd of pigs who take a dive

off the hill and end up in the sea itself.

So while it may have been assumed that this is a way to get away and get a bit of a break,

it turns out to bring Jesus into one of the most formidable, one of the most dramatic

encounters of His entire life with this demonized maniac on the other side.

Jesus always operated on a divine appointment.

Rest was perhaps somewhat incidental to Him.

But nonetheless at the end of a long, long day, it would be good to get a calm ride in

the boat to the other side and perhaps a few hours break.

So, verse 36 says, "Leaving the crowd," and remember, He's in a boat already, "teaching,"

because it says they took Him along with them in the boat.

That boat perhaps belonged to Peter or John, or Andrew or James, one of those fishermen.

And they took Him just as He was, which indicates that He didn't go anywhere, He didn't go to

change, didn't go to eat, they just took Him the way He was and headed off in the water.

"And then other boats were with Him."

The word "boat," by the way, ploion, doesn't tell you anything about the size of a boat,

it's a very generic word.

It doesn't say whether it was a large boat or a small boat, but we know it was a relatively

small boat because the kind of boats that were used for fishing on the Sea of Galilee

were relatively small boats.

In the last month, you may have seen it, they have discovered one of them which they were

able to dig up from the bottom of the lake, and they have sort of the rib cage of that

boat still remains.

And from what I could tell from looking at it, it would probably hold comfortably fifteen

to twenty people.

Well that wasn't going to transport all the Apostles and all the disciples who were following

Him across, so there were other boats.

Everybody else who had a boat and was a follower of Jesus, joined and you had this little flotilla

going across the north end of the Sea of Galilee, headed to the other side.

Other boats were with Him.

Luke tells us they were sailing along.

And Luke uses a very specific verb, the verb is pleo and it means to sail, not elauno,

which means to row.

You row when there's no wind.

You sail when there's wind.

So it was an ideal situation.

The water was calm.

They were sailing along.

Those boats had the capability of being rowed.

They had oars but they also had a mast and a sail.

And when the breeze came up, they would sail.

They launched from the shore and they were sailing along with a gentle breeze in the

calm waters of dusk, pushed toward that eastern shore.

Off they go.

At this point we check in with Luke and Luke says, "As the boat began to sail, Jesus fell

asleep....He fell asleep."

Mark 4:38 says, "He was asleep on the cushion."

Literally the pillow.

It contains the word...that word for cushion contains the word kephale which is the word

for "head."

Something to put your head on.

So that's the kind of cushion it was, it was a pillow for His head.

Some kind of pillow that sailors used when they needed to lie down and get a bit of a

rest.

So He lay down in the boat and immediately fell asleep.

This is a beautiful picture of the truly human Jesus who is exhausted, who is weary.

He is the very one who created the water.

He is the very one who created the sky.

He created the wood the boat was made of.

He even created sleep and now He employs these things for His own benefit.

And He goes to sleep in the boat.

Trailing along behind that boat are all those who were followers of His.

It turns out they're not all true followers.

Some of them are rocky soil, some of them are weedy soil as we saw in the parable earlier

in the chapter, because John 6:66 which comes later says that many of His disciples walked

no more with Him.

So they're not all going to be the real deal, but they were at least for now following Him.

And this is what we'll call the calm before the storm.

A beautiful picture of Christ, totally exhausted and asleep in a comfortable place.

Well the calm before the storm leads to the calm during the storm because the storm breaks

out, according to verse 37.

"And there arose a fierce gale of wind and the waves were breaking over the boat so much

that the boat was already filling up."

A fierce gale of wind.

Fierce gale is a term for hurricane.

We're talking about...we're talking about a huge wind.

We could be talking about a 70 mile an hour wind.

The word for wind is just that.

What kind of wind was it?

A fierce gale kind of wind, a wind that could be classified as a hurricane.

Very descriptive language, very strong language.

And Luke says it descended on the lake, katabaino, it came down on the lake.

It just came racing down the slopes.

The language is very, very strong.

The best calculations would put this likely in the winter of the years 29 A.D.

This would be the time of the worst winds.

Cold air furiously funneling down the ravines and the slopes, gaining speed as it descended,

colliding with the warm air in the low basin of the lake creating violent turbulence that

began to whip and swirl the water, turning it into foam and very, very high waves.

And because the lake is so small, thirteen by eight, once those waves hit the shore,

they just explode back and collide again and again and again and again, wreaking havoc.

They were all familiar with storms on the lake.

They lived around the lake and they were in one now that was over the top.

Here was a God-ordained storm.

We could assume that these were especially chosen winds to accomplish this miracle, to

put our Lord in the position to demonstrate that He is in fact the one who controls His

creation.

This is to be a lesson.

What's it supposed to teach?

Look at verse 40, "Why are you afraid?

How is it you have no faith?"

This is a faith lesson.

This is a faith lesson.

The point here is that our Lord wants to teach His disciples that He can be trusted in the

most threatening of circumstances.

Now Matthew in his account in Matthew 8, this account repeats in Matthew 8 and Luke 8 as

well as here in Mark 4.

In Matthew 8:24 what happens is described as seismos megas.

Seismos we understand, a seismos event of mega proportions.

That's really basically the word for earthquake, seismos.

So this is massive proportions, like a violent shaking of the earth, a violent shaking of

the water generated by hurricane force winds.

And it's so severe, verse 37 says, "That the waves were breaking over the boat so much

that the boat was already filling up."

Luke 8:23 puts it this way, "They began to be swamped and to be in danger."

They can't get the water thrown out, bailed as fast as it's pouring in.

Matthew 8:16 says, "It's now night."

So they're in the dark, just to add to the terror.

Matthew says the boat was covered with the waves.

They're just literally swamping this little boat.

They're breaking so fast that they can't deal with them.

Matthew says "That in spite of the storm, Jesus remains asleep."

Now does that give you some idea of His true humanness?

He sleeps through the

storm.

That's how weary He was.

Verse 38, "Jesus Himself was in the stern asleep on the cushion."

Have you ever been that tired?

Man, that is really tired.

I can think back to a few times in my life, I can think back to one trip I took to Russia

and they had me speaking, I don't know, eight hours a day for two weeks, I think.

And it was exhausting.

And I remember getting on a plane in Moscow and having someone wake me up to get off the

thing when it landed in New York, and not remembering anything between.

And I remember then getting on the next plane in New York and not waking up till the wheels

hit in L.A.

I think some of us have experienced that in ways that we would identify as a very human

response to being exhausted, worn out.

And that's exactly what our Lord experienced.

Again we see the truth of His humanity, don't we?

He's a real man, a real human being.

He understands weariness.

And He's so tired that He sleeps with water smashing over the boat.

Sound asleep, peacefully asleep.

I call that the calm during the storm.

Fatigued, totally calm in the stern with His head on a pillow, He is the calm one in the

midst of the storm, like the eye of the hurricane.

Nobody else was calm.

Verse 38 says, "They woke Him aware of the danger and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not

care that we are perishing?"

How can You just sleep when we're going through this?

Don't You care that we're perishing?

The word "to be destroyed."

They understood this was...this was inevitable death.

They would not survive this.

There would be on that boat perhaps His Apostles were together on that boat, perhaps there

were men and women in the little flotilla and they were all in the same situation.

They were very clear as to the severity of the danger.

They knew the situation they were in.

They panicked, panic was a normal human response to that kind of circumstance.

They knew Jesus had power over demons.

They knew He had power over disease.

They knew that He had power over the natural world as well as the supernatural world.

Could He save them in this circumstance?

Could He deliver them from a storm?

I don't think it entered their mind that He could stop the storm.

But it probably entered their mind that if they were going to be spared death, He was

going to have to be the one that would come through to make some kind of miraculous exit

possible.

They had nowhere else to turn.

It's pandemonium, by the way.

It's panic.

They're yelling over the loud wind and the crashing water, "Teacher, do You not care

that we are perishing?"

Luke says they said, "Master, Master."

Matthew says, and that's a word epistates which means commander.

Then Matthew says, "Lord."

So He's Master in one thing, Lord in another, and teacher in another.

Somebody says, "Well, that's scriptural inconsistency."

No it's not.

Listen, this was not a one-time statement, this is panic and pandemonium.

They used all the words they could come up with.

They were firing at Him from every angle.

Teacher, Master, Lord,...this is not an organized speech, this is the cries of terrified people.

And Matthew 8:26 says, "They were terrified."

Of course, they were going to die.

That was...that was inevitable if something didn't happen.

It's a dark day, you know, when the sailors call on the carpenter to get them out of the

storm.

Nazareth is a long way from the sea.

Jesus wasn't raised on the sea.

So they...they're not looking for a carpenter's solution to a sailor's dilemma, they're looking

for a divine solution.

By now they know He has connections with God.

And they know that they're going to have to have some divine intervention.

That's their only hope.

They know that.

Maybe the one who has divine power over illness, the one who has divine power over demons,

maybe God will dispense to Him something that will get them out of this.

And, you know, they were, after all, raised on the Old Testament, very familiar with the

Psalms.

So they would have known things like this, Psalm 65 verses 5 to 7, "O God of our salvation,

You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea, who establishes

the mountains by His strength, being girded with might who stills the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of the waves."

The Psalmist had said that God has power to still the roaring sea and the roaring waves.

Or they might have remember Psalm 89:9, "You rule the swelling of the sea.

When its waves rise, you still them."

Or perhaps they remember that very familiar and beloved 107th Psalm in verse 23, says

this, "Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they've seen

the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep, for He spoke and raised up a stormy

wind which lifted up the waves of the sea.

They rose up to the heavens.

They went down to the depths.

Their soul melted away in their misery.

They reeled and staggered like a drunken man and were at their wits end.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and He brought them out of their distresses.

He caused the storm to be still so that the waves of the sea were hushed."

Maybe they remembered Psalm 107 that God is the one who has the power to still the storm

and hush the waves.

We don't know what they were thinking about but they knew that there was no human solution.

They knew that Jesus had access to God.

They knew that He had access to divine power.

They had never seen anything like this.

They had never seen Him act in any situation like this.

Of all the miracles that He had done, none of them was to deliver them from danger.

There had not yet been any miracle in which Jesus had delivered His own from danger and

death.

But where else are they going to turn?

They go to the one that they know has connections with God and some of them even knew that He

was God.

And so they apply their simple, humble, weak, little faith, as it's called also, to this

plea.

Which then leads to the calm after the storm.

Verse 39, "And He got up," got up off His bench in the stern, up off the pillow that

was under His head, "and rebuked the wind.

He rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Hush, be still.'"

Wow!

They broke in on Jesus' sleep, typical of people in distress, in desperation.

Maybe they were thinking of Psalm 10:1, "Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?

Why do You hide Yourself in the midst of trouble?"

Or Psalm 44, "Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O Lord, why do You hide Your face."

And the Lord heard their desperate cries, and He got up and He rebuked the wind and

then He said to the sea, "Hush, be still."

No theatrics.

No effort.

He spoke to the wind and the wind stopped instantaneously.

He spoke to the water and the water stopped instantaneously.

The water and the wind recognized the voice of their Creator, just as He would tell death

to release Lazarus, He tells the wind and the waves to obey His will.

Both stopped.

And Mark says it became perfectly calm.

Perfectly is really probably not an accurate translation, although I understand what the

translators meant, it's megalei, mega, something mega is great.

Megalei is the greatest calm, the whole lake was as placid as a pond.

The wind stopped immediately, and the waves flattened out.

That wouldn't happen if the wind stopped, the waves would still go, hit the shore, bounce

back, collide.

That would go on for quite a long time after the winds had stopped.

But He stopped the winds and at the same time stopped the water simply by speaking.

These men had seen the winds come up and they had seen the water whipped up and they had

seen the winds die down and the water continue to boil.

But here the wind and the water stops and there is a perfect supreme calm.

The supernatural power of Jesus is such that with a word, millions of horse power, of wind

force is halted.

Millions of gallons of water are stopped and made placid.

And what is Mark telling us by this?

That we're looking at the Creator here.

This is the Son of God, He is the Son of God proven by His birth, proven by His victory

over Satan, proven by His teaching, proven by His miracle power and proven by His tremendous

control of creation.

Yes He can bring the new creation.

Yes He can restore the earth to Eden-like characteristics.

Yes He can make the desert blossom like a rose.

Yes He can open a river in Jerusalem that flows out into the desert, turns it into a

garden.

Yes He can change nature so the lion lies down with the lamb and a child can play in

a snake pit.

Yes He has the power over His creation to change life span so that in the Kingdom somebody

who dies at a hundred, dies like an infant.

Yes He has that power.

He has complete power over nature and He controls it.

He created it.

He sustains it.

And He'll bring it to its recreation in the Millennial Kingdom in the future and He will

one day eliminate it in an uncreation where it will melt with a fervent heat.

It will have an atomic implosion and be replaced by a new heaven and a new earth.

I just wish the people in our world who think they can control the future of the planet

understood what the Bible says.

They're not in charge of the planet, none of them are and they aren't collectably and

they're not going to make this planet last one split second longer than the Creator has

designed for it to last.

They have nothing to do with it.

All of that is nonsense, absolute nonsense.

First of all, it's nonsense scientifically.

But even more so, it's nonsense theologically.

The Creator is the sustainer and the consummator of His creation.

This miraculous demonstration of His power would seem to be enough to convince me who

I'm dealing with and it was a lesson in faith for them.

So He said to them, "Why are you afraid?

How is it that you have no faith?"

I'm looking at your panic and your fear, how is it that you have no faith.

Or in the words of Matthew, "Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?"

And again He stops the storm and points out the weakness of their faith.

You didn't have enough faith to believe that I could care for you.

You didn't need to be in a panic.

You didn't need to be terrified.

So there they sit in the placid silence and the calm after the storm and Jesus says, "Why

such fear?

Why such lack of faith?

Haven't I proven that you can trust Me already?"

Well their faith must have received a big boost that day, must have.

But their reaction really doesn't demonstrate that.

We'd like to have them say, "Lord, we'll never...we will never fear again, as long as You're around.

Hey, we're not going to worry about anything.

We've seen enough.

We're convinced."

But that's not their reaction.

Their reaction is predictable.

Verse 41, it's the last point.

This is the storm after the calm.

"They became very much afraid."

Please notice verse 40, "They were afraid during the storm, now they're very much afraid."

Why?

Well what's worse than having a storm outside your boat is having God in your boat.

That's enough to panic you.

They knew what they were dealing with.

The living God was in their boat, the Creator, the controller of His creation.

Terror set in.

Panic set in.

You remember on another occasion on the sea when Peter couldn't catch any fish?

Luke 5, and Jesus said, "Try this side of the boat."

Peter threw his net over there and they had so many fish they couldn't bring them in.

And what was Peter's response?

"Lord, depart from me for I am a sinful man."

What kind of reaction is that?

That's the reaction of somebody who knows that the Creator controls all of the living

animals, all the fish in the sea and they go where He tells them to go.

That's frightening.

Because if you see God, then God sees you.

You see His glory, He sees your sin.

That's a very normal response through Scripture.

Abraham, Genesis 18:27, had the same reaction, a sort of immediate panic when he had an encounter

with God and realized the kind of man He was.

And Manoah, the father of Samson, came home and said to his wife, "We're going to die.

Write the will, we're done."

And she said, "Why?"

"I saw the Lord and if I saw Him, He saw me.

And if He saw me, we're dead."

Job had the same experience.

Isaiah, Isaiah 6:5 pronounced a curse upon himself, "I'm a man of unclean lips."

He cursed himself.

Ezekiel had the same experience in the vision of chapter 1.

Daniel had the same experience in chapter 10.

John the Apostle in Revelation 1 when he saw the first vision of Christ says he fell over

like a dead person.

It's a terrifying thing to realize that you are in the presence of God...the presence

of God.

They...they...there was no other explanation, they knew this was supernatural.

And they said to one another, "Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him?"

That's a rhetorical question, it doesn't have to have an answer.

Mark doesn't even give an answer.

Where is this person from?

Not from around here.

This is an alien person.

This is a foreign person from another place."

With that kind of power, and, of course, the implication is that they were talking about

one who had come from heaven.

Matthew 14 is another occasion of Jesus on the water and this time He walked on the water,

remember that?

And when He got in the boat, it says, after walking on the water he says, "O ye of little

faith."

Same thing, "Why do you doubt?"

Here we go again.

"The wind stopped and those that were in the boat worshiped Him and said, 'You are certainly

the Son of God.'"

The second time that they saw an incident on the water in which He controlled the water,

walked on the water, stopped the storm, they answered the rhetorical question.

Here they say, "He's not from here."

Next time they say, "He's the Son of God."

I think that's what was in their minds here as well.

There's no reason for Mark to answer that rhetorical question.

There's only one possibility.

Only God controls the elements and He does it at His own discretion.

And in this case, for the protection of His own disciples and Apostles.

They needed to know that the Lord not only was God but that the Lord was their protector.

Psalm 55:22, "Cast your burden on the Lord and He'll sustain you."

Or 1 Peter 5:7, as Peter puts it, "Cast your care on Him because He cares for you."

So the Lord is communicating two things here.

He's communicating His deity in the expression of power and He's communicating His sympathy,

His compassion and His care for his own in protecting them from premature death.

Does that mean that Christians don't die?

No.

But they don't until their time has come.

And until that time, the Lord protects and cares for and preserves His own as He did

here.

This is a story that has no explanation apart from the deity of Jesus Christ.

There is no explanation humanly for this.

Even if you could suggest that the wind stopped on their own, there's no explanation for the

water flattening out.

And if they thought it was coincidental, they would never have responded in terror because

they knew divine power was present, nor would they have suggested that this was a divine

person, not someone from around their neighborhood.

And they also said, "The wind and the sea obey Him," which means that the stopping of

the wind and the stopping of the water was directly connected to His words.

Well it was an interesting trip to get to the other side and it was equally interesting

when they arrived, as we will see next time.

Let's pray.

Your Word is always so fresh to us, Lord.

And so encouraging and inviting and that's because it presents You in all Your majesty

and glory and particularly when we look at the incidents regarding the life of Christ,

the majesty of His person, the wonder of who He is both as man and as God.

And we see that brought together in such a beautiful way here.

So weary that He can sleep in a storm, so powerful that He can stop the storm in its

tracks.

This is our Christ, fully God and fully man, so that He can provide the infinite sacrifice

for sin and die in the place of man.

Thank you again, Lord, for Your Word.

We are always enriched by it, we're always thrilled at its glorious truth and consistency.

And may it be that we have come to know this Christ in the true sense beyond those of little

faith or no faith, beyond those that are still asking the questions about who He is.

Bring us to the full conviction that Jesus is the God/Man, the Christ, Your Son the Messiah

and the Savior.

And may He become the object of our faith, a true and saving faith.

We pray for Your glory and our own eternal blessing.

Amen.