June 25, 2006

Mark 4:35-41

“Facing the Storm”

Rev. Melissa D. Ramos

Living in Kansas has given me a new appreciation for this story. The sudden, violent storms we have here in the mid-West seem to me a lot like the storm that catches the disciples out on the Sea of Galilee. How many times have I looked out the window of my apartment, or the window in my office here at the church, and I’ve seen a sudden downpour just rip across the parking lot. Or when the church office is quiet I can hear the building creak in the heavy gusts of wind. And I always think to myself, “I’m glad I’m not outside in that.”

But the disciples weren’t so lucky. They weren’t looking out the window from inside a warm office building. The storm that comes in over the lake catches them off-guard. Maybe the dark clouds didn’t start gathering until they were halfway across the lake. It seems there wasn’t much warning at all. The text just says, “A great windstorm arose.” No other details are offered, except that the wind was strong enough that the waves were coming over the sides of the boat. Water started filling the vessel, the disciples didn’t know what to do. There was nothing they could do to stop the storm, to stop the boat from sinking.

Sometimes the storms of life come as suddenly; and just like the disciples, we can feel helpless against the storm. A financial crisis, a health crisis, an unexpected and unwelcome change. Sometimes the pressing circumstances of life can feel like watching the dark clouds gather. When the storm comes we feel stranded and exposed and vulnerable, just like the disciples out on small boat in the sea.

The winds of struggle come lashing, the rains of trouble pour down, and as the waters rise we can feel like our boat is going to sink, and there is nothing we can do about it. We worry that our spiritual and emotional resources, maybe our financial resources, may not withstand the storm. But here we are in the storm, and so we must face it.

The disciples did have one resource left, one hope remaining. Jesus was still asleep on the boat, in the stern. The disciples woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” The one resources the disciples had left was to seek the Lord, to ask the Lord Jesus for deliverance.

And in the storms of life, no matter how dire, no matter how grim the circumstances may seem, we always have a resource outside of the things in our control. We always have one hope, and that is to seek the Lord. And as we are reminded in this narrative, our hope in Jesus Christ is not an empty hope; it is a confidence that the Lord has complete authority over the winds and waves of struggle which assail us.

But, when it comes to a passage like this, I think there is a skeptic in each one of us. At least there is in me, and maybe we wonder, “Did this really happen? Is this story real? Is it an exaggeration?” Let’s be honest, how many of us have wondered whether it really happened? God made us to be intelligent people who ask good questions, and it’s okay to ask questions of the Scriptures if we’re willing to follow up to find the answers. In fact, asking questions about the Scriptures sometimes leads us into an even deeper belief, a stronger faith. Because God is more than able to handle our tough questions.

So, let’s explore the question, “Did it really happen? Did this story really take place?” And let’s examine some evidence. First of all, we do know that the Sea of Galilee is where this narrative about the storm takes place. Jesus had been teaching on the lakeshore of Galilee.

If you want to check this out, chapter 3 verse 7 says ‘Jesus departed with the disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him.” And chapter 4 says, “Again he began to teach by the sea.” So when we get to verse 35, the beginning of our text about the storm, the Scripture says, “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” So we have a real, historical location. The disciples and Jesus are in a boat crossing from the west side of the Sea in Galilee to the east side of the sea in Gerasene. The lake is between 5 and 10 miles across, so it’s a fairly large body of water.

We also know from climate and weather observations that the Sea of Galilee is, in fact, subject to sudden and violent storms. The NIV translation of the Bible calls the storm “a furious squall.” The lake is in a basin surrounded by mountains. Cool air from the Mediterranean ocean passes through the depression between the mountains where the lake is, clashes with the hot humid air over the lake and produces powerful storms. So what the Scripture text says took place fits with what meteorologists know about weather patterns on that body of water.

There is also archaeological evidence that supports the historicity of the narrative. In 1986, archaeologists in Israel discovered the remains of an ancient fishing boat in Galilee that was dated to the first century AD, the same time that this story would have taken place. And that first-century Galilean fishing boat would have fit the description exactly of what happens in the story of the storm on the lake. The fishing boat found by archaeologists wasn’t all that large: about 8 feet wide, about 27 feet long, and only 4 feet deep.

This size boat would have fit 13 people – Jesus and twelve disciples – but not much more than that. And if the wind was strong enough, swells of more than three or four feet would have swamped the boat and sunk it fairly quickly.

This Galilean fishing boat found by archaeologists also had a raised portion in the front of the boat, in the stern, which would have been higher than the rest of the structure. Sure enough, the text tells us that’s where Jesus was, and he wouldn’t have felt the water coming in because his sitting position would have been higher up than everyone else’s.

Now is any of this foolproof evidence that the story really happened? No. Some things we accept on faith. But the evidence available to us corroborates the narrative as fully accurate in depicting what took place.

The story goes on to say that Jesus was actually asleep in the stern of the boat as the storm arose and large waves came lapping over the sides. And we wonder, “How could Jesus be sleeping during such a violent storm?” How could the Son of God be sleeping in the midst of all this activity and panic? Well, let’s remember all that took place that same day, according to the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus travels, he walks out to the shore of the lake. There re so many people in the crowd following him that the disciples give him a boat to stand in while Jesus teaches the crowds so he doesn’t get crushed by the throng of people. Jesus then cures all sorts of people of their diseases and evil spirits. Then Jesus goes up to a mountaintop, he appoints the twelve as disciples. He goes home, the crowds gather again, Jesus’ mother and his brothers try to stop him from claiming he is the Messiah and healing people. But Jesus goes back to the lakeshore and teaches the crowds again.

So when evening comes, Jesus is tired. It’s been a long, long day. No wonder he’s asleep on the boat. The crowds, the teaching, the dysfunctional family issues… Jesus is wiped out. Teaching itself is a tiring activity. It takes the stuffing out of you. I’m sure some teachers here could testify to that. I know that when I get a chance to take a nap on Sunday afternoon, I sleep the sleep of the dead. A violent storm probably wouldn’t wake me up either. And Jesus has not only been teaching, but doing miracles.

And Jesus doesn’t get much of a nap, the disciples come and wake him up in the storm. The fact that the Scriptures record Jesus sleeping during the storm also highlights the contrast between the disciples in a complete panic, up to their ankles in water, trying to steer the boat toward the shore, maybe trying to bail the water out – and Jesus is sleeping in the stern. The picture before us is quite a contrast: the disciples in a panic, and Jesus asleep.

The disciples are convinced that they are going to die. They are helpless in the storm; there is nothing they can do, except to seek the Lord. So they wake Jesus up, and they say to him, “Teacher don’t you care that we are perishing?” And sometimes we want to ask God the same question. “Lord, don’t you care about what I’m going through? Lord, if you’re listening, why don’t you do something about this?” The questions which the disciples ask of Jesus are great – the disciples are always brave enough to ask questions that we’re afraid to ask God. “Jesus, don’t you care that we’re dying?”

But if you look carefully, there is tremendous faith in the question the disciples ask: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” The question assumes that Jesus could do something about the storm that the disciples couldn’t do themselves. The question assumes that Jesus can deliver them if he is willing, even though the disciples are powerless against the storm.

But the response of Jesus astonished even the disciples who had been with him all this time. The disciples had heard astounding teachings, they’d seen Jesus heal people of diseases and evil spirits. But what Jesus does in this event is utterly supernatural. Jesus literally controls the forces of nature.

Jesus wakes up and the Scripture says, “he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’” Jesus speaks directly to the wind and the water himself. One Bible commentator puts it this way: Jesus “addresses the lake as if it were an unruly heckler, ‘Be quiet! Shut up!” Jesus takes complete mastery over the storm. He speaks his authoritative command and then suddenly the wind ceased and there was a dead calm. No trace of a breeze. Silence.

The response is immediate and there is a complete transformation of the elements around Jesus. There is no trace of the storm. The disciples are silent. They are speechless in complete astonishment. Jesus is the first one to speak. He says, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Jesus isn’t scolding the disciples. He’s telling them that even in the midst of a violent storm, they don’t need to be afraid. Even when we feel our most helpless; even when we feel desperate and lost in the storms of life, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid. Trust in me.”

Our God is able to overcome the storm. No matter what you are facing. No matter how overwhelming your storm, our God is able. Our God stands with us, our God will rebuke the winds of struggle and our God will quell the waves of despair. And so we do not have to be afraid.

This Scripture tells us that we will encounter storms and struggles that are beyond our control. And so we are called to seek the Lord, and to have faith. We are called to be a people of confidence in the Lord who is sovereign, at whose word the storm subsides.

The Scripture ends with the amazement of the disciples. They stand in awe of this man they eat and drink with, this man who has just commanded the wind and sea to obey him. The text says, “And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’”

The Greek text says they were filled with great fear, with fobos megas – fobos means “fear” and megas means “great.” And the phrasing in Greek implies that the disciples are in greater fear now of Jesus than they ever were in fear of the storm. They have now the fear of the Lord, for they have seen his power and they are saying to themselves, “Who is this man, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

We, too, are called to fear the Lord, to know that the Lord is to be feared far more than the storms of life. The Lord is worthy of our fear, our reverence – and the storms of life are not worthy of our fear, our panic, our anxiety.

For our God is Lord of all creation – Lord of the wind and the sea. Our God is Lord over the storms that we face today and in the days to come. Though it may appear that the Lord is asleep in the stern while the waves crash around us, the Lord will awaken. The Lord will rebuke the wind and the sea that threaten us. The Lord will deliver us, for we are God’s people.