It really is the watershed question: who is God anyway? It really is the question of the passage that we're going to look at briefly this evening. It's right for us to think about this question in the middle of this service of celebration and worship where we remember who God is, remember what He has done. We remember the grace of His Son because you would recognize it is surely easier to answer that question tonight than it will be maybe on Tuesday afternoon or on Wednesday when you face something unthinkable.
Who Is God in Difficulty?
How do you answer that question in moments of difficulty when God is responding in ways that are unexpected, where it seems like He's not there, where it seems like He doesn't care, where it seems like He doesn't hear? Is there a disconnect between your celebration this evening and the low-level anxiety that you will feel sometime this week, or maybe the drop-dead panic that you will experience in some unthinkable moment? You can turn there in your Order of Worship to Mark 4, and we find ourselves in one of the most familiar of Biblical stories where Jesus calms the storm.
It's been a long day of ministry; Jesus is probably wanting to get away from the crowd as He always would, and He is asking His disciples to take him by boat across The Galilee. The Galilee is a shallow lake known for violent storms. I get that; I was raised on the shores of Lake Erie, a very violent lake. My dad used the tell us if we were ever fishing on Lake Erie to make sure that if the sky got dark and the wind began to blow, to get to the shore quickly because this lake turned violent very quickly.
That's the scene. And as the storm is getting bigger, and the boat is tossing and filling with water, and even the fishermen are thinking, "We're in big trouble!" Jesus is asleep on a pillow in the stern. What an amazing scene. The disciples are dealing with two things: they're first dealing with the terror of the storm and being confronted with their inability. What you do in this moment? They have no power to change their circumstances whatsoever, none! Now maybe they can bail fast, hope that the boat will not take enough water to sink.
But they're not only dealing with that; they're dealing with this unexpected response of the Messiah. How could He be sleeping at this moment? What kind of response is this? These are the men who have forsaken all to follow Christ; you'd think in this moment of difficulty, He'd be paying attention. What an amazing scene. And the disciples ask this question as they awaken the Messiah, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Now you have to understand this: that fear is, by its very nature, an interpretation of life.
Fear is not always an evil thing. If you're standing at the bottom of the steps, and your little child has just fallen down the steps, and they're lying there immobile and that thing that happens in your heart that spurs you into spontaneous action, that's a good thing. But fear is an interpretation. Here's the equation in these kinds of moments, particularly for us who say that we believe in God: it's situation, plus self, plus God, equals fear. I look at the size of the situation; I look at my ability or inability; I add to that who I think God is, and what I think He's doing, and the result is either hope and courage or fear.
Perhaps we would have to say, "Absolutely, this moment reveals to us much more about the hearts of the men in the boat than it does about the heart of the Messiah!" What do you do in those situations? How does your equation work out? Situation, plus self, plus God, equals what in your life? Hope, courage, rest, peace? Maybe it's not panic like this; maybe though, you are a person, your life is characterized by way more worry than any believer should ever have. Given your confessions, even this evening, that worry doesn't make sense.
Maybe your pattern is to play endlessly the 'what-ifs.' And your 'what-if-ism' is the way that you try to reach peace. If you can figure out how everything is going to work out and happen, maybe you will find rest. Well, Christ's response, in this moment, is a double rebuke. First, he rebukes the elements of nature. Verse 39 says, "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still.'" It is an amazing thing; it's Christ speaking to the elements personally. It has the feel of a Master commanding His servants and that's exactly what's happening.
This is the Ruler of nature; this is Lord Creator; this is Christ. And He literally has the authority to speak to the natural elements and they have to obey. And if you are going to be very, very literal in your translation of 'Peace be still!' it would literally be this, "Be silent, you have been muzzled. I have exercised my power over you. Stop!" You need to let this moment in Scripture roll over your heart. I don't know what else to say but, "This is your Lord; this is His power; this is His glory."
How Foolish Our Fears Seem
And how foolish it makes our fears seem when we say, "This is the Lord; this is the One who has invited us into personal relationship with Him; this is the One who said, "He will never leave us or forsake us." This is the One who said, "I am with you always," this One of this power. And then Jesus turns to the disciples and He says, "Why are you so afraid; have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
There is really a tendency for us to lead with doubt and accusation before we give ourselves to self-examination. It is so easy to question Christ's care. It's so easy to question His love. It's so easy to doubt His wisdom and His goodness rather than examining our own hearts and how we're responding to the situation. And there's a bit of a play on words here; interplay with vocabulary when Jesus says, "Why are you so afraid, have you still no faith?" though the word for fear there is really the word 'dread.' That's it.
When you're in these moments, you just don't fear the moment; you dread what's coming next. What's going to happen? And then the passage says, "And they were filled with great fear." Different word! I don't do this much, but it's the root word from our word for 'phobia.' It is life-shaping alarm; it's awe! And I think there is a significant principle here; it's only fear that has the power to defeat fear. It's only when fear of God, a deep, glorious, Christ-given, grace-driven awe of God is the central principle of my heart, that I will be free from the kinds of fears that so often greet us.
The fact of the matter is life is bigger than us. We will be in many situations that are beyond our strength and beyond our wisdom. And it's only in those moments that our heart will have rest if we fear God above all else; if we are taken up by the glory of His power, and His love, and His grace, and His wisdom, and His presence. Only that deep awe of God, only that fear has the power to defeat all those other fears that would stop you and paralyze you. What is faith? Faith is carrying with you such a deeply rooted fear of God that you have hope and courage in situations where you have once been afraid.
Faith is carrying with you such a deeply rooted fear of God that you have hope and courage in situations where you would have once been afraid. And the disciples say that wonderful rhetorical question, "Who then is this, that even the winds and the waves obey Him?" He is the Lord! Do you rest in Him in your moments of difficulty? Do you believe in His power to defeat what you couldn't defeat? Does fear of Him overwhelm any other fear you would have? You see, your greatest difficulty doesn't exist outside of you.
Your greatest difficulty exists inside of you. The greatest storm in your life is not a storm of nature; the greatest storm of your life is called sin. It beats; the waves of sin beat at the borders of your heart. And like the disciples in that boat, you have no ability whatsoever to defeat it. It's only awe of the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, a recognition of the sufficiency of His sacrifice on the cross that will give you hope in those moments when you are faced with the reality of your deepest difficulty.
And you're faced with your inability to defeat it. Do you run to the Lord for the peace that only He can give? Let's Pray: Lord, we thank you for this beautiful, encouraging vignette in Mark that confronts us with the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ who is also the Lord of nature, and that confronts us with our fear--that subtle world of doubt and accusation that we often give ourselves to, and points us to the fact that it's only fear of You, that life-dominating awe of You and Your glory that has the power to defeat all other fear that we would experience. May we find rest in You and You alone. In Jesus's name, Amen.
