Who then is this?
Text: Mark 4:35-41
I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the way the disciples are pictured in the gospel of Mark. These are the people whom tradition says would play a major role in the founding of the Christian Faith. Even so, have you noticed that the disciples never seem to get the point? In Mark, they come across as a bunch of lunkheads would couldn’t find a clue if it came up and bit them. Throughout the gospel stories, we find the disciples never quite getting the point, always being a bit slow on the uptake. It’s a miracle in and of itself that Jesus actually put up with them. Yet it is a little too easy to simply dismiss the disciples this way. I can’t help but wonder if the disciples always got the point, Mark would have nothing to write about? For us as listeners of the story, the dullness of the disciples is an aid and a guide. Their dim-witted responses help us learn more about Jesus, and more about the good news that Mark proclaims. Most importantly, it helps us learn something about our own faith.
Take this morning’s story about Mark. The Miracle at Sea is perhaps one of the best known… the calming of the storm. On their way across the sea of Galilee, Jesus and his followers find themselves in the midst of a howling gale. When the squall hits them, Jesus is fast asleep in the boat… for those of you who heard me preach on Jonah a few weeks ago, this might ring a few bells. To the disciples in their tiny little fishing boat, this Goliath of a storm seemed like chaos itself ready to engulf them. The swirling seas toss the little vessel back and forth, its menacing arms reaching out to smash their boat into a mass of splinters. With each passing moment, the dark fingers of the deep claw away at the boat, intent on dragging it down to the horrible waters. It seems impossible that Jesus could sleep through a storm like this. If I were in the boat, I think I’d personally be the one shaking Jesus awake, screaming into his ear. The disciples do exactly that, and like the sailors once said to Jonah, “Do you not care if we drown?” Jesus gets up, and the first thing he does is rebuke the wind and the waves. In most English translations, Jesus says “peace, be still…” No… that’s far too gentle… in Greek, it’s a real rebuke. Jesus shouts at the wind and the seas, “Be Silent! Shut UP!” His voice echoes like a trumpet blast, and then there is silence.
Only after the seas fall calm does Jesus then turn to the disciples and say, “why are you afraid, have you still no faith?” The fear-filled time of the storm is over… but the disciples are even more overcome with it.
Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
The disciples don’t get it. They are stunned, and manage to stammer out those strange words: “Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?” Yet their words are far more prophetic, far more important than we realize. Instead of them being words to show how much they didn’t get it, they’re more a hint of what is to come. It’s a hint that points to something much more important.
Two-thousand years later, we have long since forgotten that Jesus was not alone as a teacher or a miracle-worker. In the time that Jesus lived, there were many others who were famous teachers, there were many powerful miracle workers, and there were many who were both. Mark’s challenge in writing the gospel was trying to draw out those threads that distinguished Jesus as being more than simply a miracle worker, a healer, or a teacher. Why? Because for the early church it was far to easy for a critic to say, “so this guy Jesus was a miracle worker and a teacher, so what? There are plenty of them around? What’s so special about him?” Mark is dropping hints, pointing us to something more…
“Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?”
The disciples ask this of each other at the end of the story… but it’s meant for us as the listeners and readers to hear. It leaves us flapping in the breeze, calling us to think for ourselves. Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him? When we encounter Jesus this early in the gospel, Mark isn’t quite ready to answer that. Instead, the invitation is “stick around and find out!” Yet like a great storyteller, Mark gives us a clue.
Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?
As listeners we being to think. Anyone who is familiar with Hebrew Scripture knows the stories where God controls the wind and the seas. Here’s a short list:
1. Genesis chapter one, where God calms and divides the chaotic waters of creation;
2. The parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, granting freedom to Moses and the slaves of Egypt.
3. Jonah in the boat, fleeing from God’s call to go to Nineveh.
4. Psalm 107, which we heard this morning.
If there was one thing Israelites feared more than anything else, it was the terrible, foreboding deep of the seas. They were a mountain people, who preferred to have solid rock firmly beneath their feet. Even so, these ancient stories reminded people that God’s power is not limited to land, but extends over all of creation… over the very things that they fear the most… including the chaotic realm of oceans and seas.
Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?
It’s less a question than a hint.
As much as the gospel tells the stories of Jesus as a miracle worker and as a teacher, for Mark everything points to the cross… and to the empty tomb on Easter morning. For Mark, Jesus cannot be fully understood until after the resurrection… but as he tells the story, he keeps dropping these hints that encourage us to keep listening and keep following.
Even so, there are these rather harsh sounding words from Jesus:
“Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?”
Notice Jesus doesn’t say why were you afraid… he asks them why are you afraid. In much the same way as the disciples ask each other, the question Jesus asks is as much for us as it is for them. If we can only understand who Jesus truly is after the resurrection, then we have the benefit of knowing… we have the benefit of hindsight. We already know… and as such, this question punches through history… and lands in our lap. Why are you afraid?
Part of this is realization, briefly understanding exactly who their teacher is. It’s a brief glimpse, but a terrifying one. It is realizing that God actually sits up and notices… that God really cares about who we are, and whether we live or die. Remember that question that the disciples scream at Jesus in the midst of the storm? Do you not care if we drown? It was entirely rhetorical. Yet the storm stops. Jesus implicitly says, yes, I do care. Now what are you going to do about it?
When the disciples stammer out that question at the end of the story, it’s realizing that they are in the presence of the living God. They are so filled with awe that they might be tempted to leap out of the boat and swim away as fast as they can.
What happens when we discover that God actually does pay attention to us? When we realize that God actually does care who we are, and that we matter, that we might truly experience this fear the disciples had. There’s a reason why, as the gospels tell it, the prevailing emotion on the first Easter wasn’t joy. It was fear. Mark’s gospel ends, about a dozen chapters after this one, saying that the women come out to the cemetery, the angel announces, “He is risen from the dead! Go, tell!” and the women “don’t tell anyone because they were afraid.”
Afraid of what? Afraid that Easter might just be true? And we say, “Who is this? Even death is subject to him? It isn’t over until he says it’s over! He makes a way when there was no way!” Just at the point where we think the storm is going to overtake us, that we have resigned our fate, Jesus reaches out and calms the storm… and then calls us to stay in the boat with him.
And it scares the wits out of us.
We come to church every Sunday, listening for a comforting word. We hope that we get a little something that will carry us through the week. Yet, like the disciples in the boat, what happens to us when we realize we are truly in the presence of the living God? When we think about it, good news is downright scary… because it means that everything has changed. Everything is going to be different… death no longer has power over us. This is more revolutionary than we can possibly imagine. That's why is scares us!
I was once told of a story of a declining church. They were just about to call it quits. “Lost their neighbourhood,” the bishop told the young pastor as he appointed her there.
She soon found that, though almost none of their members still lived nearby, they did actually have a neighbourhood poor families, a few street people, people like that. So at the pastor’s urging, the church opened its doors to its neighbourhood. Some of the members began a soup kitchen for the poor, serving nearly 50 meals every weekday at noon. A health care cooperative took up residence in some of the church’s unused Sunday school rooms, turning them into a health clinic for the poor.
Now, on Sundays, that once declining, mostly empty church is nearly half full of people. That congregation has been resurrected. People from six, seven blocks away are coming to the church that does so much for the neighbourhood.
As inspiring as this story is, the trouble was, many of their best, long-time members just couldn’t take it. They were all prepared for out last days as a church and then, wonder of wonders, their church was raised, given a new mission, a reason for living. And it scared them to death…
When we answer the question, “who then is this?” in our own lives, will we have the guts to stay in the boat?
Amen.
Special thanks to William Willimon for some excellent ideas and themes.
I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the way the disciples are pictured in the gospel of Mark. These are the people whom tradition says would play a major role in the founding of the Christian Faith. Even so, have you noticed that the disciples never seem to get the point? In Mark, they come across as a bunch of lunkheads would couldn’t find a clue if it came up and bit them. Throughout the gospel stories, we find the disciples never quite getting the point, always being a bit slow on the uptake. It’s a miracle in and of itself that Jesus actually put up with them. Yet it is a little too easy to simply dismiss the disciples this way. I can’t help but wonder if the disciples always got the point, Mark would have nothing to write about? For us as listeners of the story, the dullness of the disciples is an aid and a guide. Their dim-witted responses help us learn more about Jesus, and more about the good news that Mark proclaims. Most importantly, it helps us learn something about our own faith.
Take this morning’s story about Mark. The Miracle at Sea is perhaps one of the best known… the calming of the storm. On their way across the sea of Galilee, Jesus and his followers find themselves in the midst of a howling gale. When the squall hits them, Jesus is fast asleep in the boat… for those of you who heard me preach on Jonah a few weeks ago, this might ring a few bells. To the disciples in their tiny little fishing boat, this Goliath of a storm seemed like chaos itself ready to engulf them. The swirling seas toss the little vessel back and forth, its menacing arms reaching out to smash their boat into a mass of splinters. With each passing moment, the dark fingers of the deep claw away at the boat, intent on dragging it down to the horrible waters. It seems impossible that Jesus could sleep through a storm like this. If I were in the boat, I think I’d personally be the one shaking Jesus awake, screaming into his ear. The disciples do exactly that, and like the sailors once said to Jonah, “Do you not care if we drown?” Jesus gets up, and the first thing he does is rebuke the wind and the waves. In most English translations, Jesus says “peace, be still…” No… that’s far too gentle… in Greek, it’s a real rebuke. Jesus shouts at the wind and the seas, “Be Silent! Shut UP!” His voice echoes like a trumpet blast, and then there is silence.
Only after the seas fall calm does Jesus then turn to the disciples and say, “why are you afraid, have you still no faith?” The fear-filled time of the storm is over… but the disciples are even more overcome with it.
Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
The disciples don’t get it. They are stunned, and manage to stammer out those strange words: “Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?” Yet their words are far more prophetic, far more important than we realize. Instead of them being words to show how much they didn’t get it, they’re more a hint of what is to come. It’s a hint that points to something much more important.
Two-thousand years later, we have long since forgotten that Jesus was not alone as a teacher or a miracle-worker. In the time that Jesus lived, there were many others who were famous teachers, there were many powerful miracle workers, and there were many who were both. Mark’s challenge in writing the gospel was trying to draw out those threads that distinguished Jesus as being more than simply a miracle worker, a healer, or a teacher. Why? Because for the early church it was far to easy for a critic to say, “so this guy Jesus was a miracle worker and a teacher, so what? There are plenty of them around? What’s so special about him?” Mark is dropping hints, pointing us to something more…
“Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?”
The disciples ask this of each other at the end of the story… but it’s meant for us as the listeners and readers to hear. It leaves us flapping in the breeze, calling us to think for ourselves. Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him? When we encounter Jesus this early in the gospel, Mark isn’t quite ready to answer that. Instead, the invitation is “stick around and find out!” Yet like a great storyteller, Mark gives us a clue.
Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?
As listeners we being to think. Anyone who is familiar with Hebrew Scripture knows the stories where God controls the wind and the seas. Here’s a short list:
1. Genesis chapter one, where God calms and divides the chaotic waters of creation;
2. The parting of the Red Sea in Exodus, granting freedom to Moses and the slaves of Egypt.
3. Jonah in the boat, fleeing from God’s call to go to Nineveh.
4. Psalm 107, which we heard this morning.
If there was one thing Israelites feared more than anything else, it was the terrible, foreboding deep of the seas. They were a mountain people, who preferred to have solid rock firmly beneath their feet. Even so, these ancient stories reminded people that God’s power is not limited to land, but extends over all of creation… over the very things that they fear the most… including the chaotic realm of oceans and seas.
Who then is this, that even the wind and seas obey him?
It’s less a question than a hint.
As much as the gospel tells the stories of Jesus as a miracle worker and as a teacher, for Mark everything points to the cross… and to the empty tomb on Easter morning. For Mark, Jesus cannot be fully understood until after the resurrection… but as he tells the story, he keeps dropping these hints that encourage us to keep listening and keep following.
Even so, there are these rather harsh sounding words from Jesus:
“Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?”
Notice Jesus doesn’t say why were you afraid… he asks them why are you afraid. In much the same way as the disciples ask each other, the question Jesus asks is as much for us as it is for them. If we can only understand who Jesus truly is after the resurrection, then we have the benefit of knowing… we have the benefit of hindsight. We already know… and as such, this question punches through history… and lands in our lap. Why are you afraid?
Part of this is realization, briefly understanding exactly who their teacher is. It’s a brief glimpse, but a terrifying one. It is realizing that God actually sits up and notices… that God really cares about who we are, and whether we live or die. Remember that question that the disciples scream at Jesus in the midst of the storm? Do you not care if we drown? It was entirely rhetorical. Yet the storm stops. Jesus implicitly says, yes, I do care. Now what are you going to do about it?
When the disciples stammer out that question at the end of the story, it’s realizing that they are in the presence of the living God. They are so filled with awe that they might be tempted to leap out of the boat and swim away as fast as they can.
What happens when we discover that God actually does pay attention to us? When we realize that God actually does care who we are, and that we matter, that we might truly experience this fear the disciples had. There’s a reason why, as the gospels tell it, the prevailing emotion on the first Easter wasn’t joy. It was fear. Mark’s gospel ends, about a dozen chapters after this one, saying that the women come out to the cemetery, the angel announces, “He is risen from the dead! Go, tell!” and the women “don’t tell anyone because they were afraid.”
Afraid of what? Afraid that Easter might just be true? And we say, “Who is this? Even death is subject to him? It isn’t over until he says it’s over! He makes a way when there was no way!” Just at the point where we think the storm is going to overtake us, that we have resigned our fate, Jesus reaches out and calms the storm… and then calls us to stay in the boat with him.
And it scares the wits out of us.
We come to church every Sunday, listening for a comforting word. We hope that we get a little something that will carry us through the week. Yet, like the disciples in the boat, what happens to us when we realize we are truly in the presence of the living God? When we think about it, good news is downright scary… because it means that everything has changed. Everything is going to be different… death no longer has power over us. This is more revolutionary than we can possibly imagine. That's why is scares us!
I was once told of a story of a declining church. They were just about to call it quits. “Lost their neighbourhood,” the bishop told the young pastor as he appointed her there.
She soon found that, though almost none of their members still lived nearby, they did actually have a neighbourhood poor families, a few street people, people like that. So at the pastor’s urging, the church opened its doors to its neighbourhood. Some of the members began a soup kitchen for the poor, serving nearly 50 meals every weekday at noon. A health care cooperative took up residence in some of the church’s unused Sunday school rooms, turning them into a health clinic for the poor.
Now, on Sundays, that once declining, mostly empty church is nearly half full of people. That congregation has been resurrected. People from six, seven blocks away are coming to the church that does so much for the neighbourhood.
As inspiring as this story is, the trouble was, many of their best, long-time members just couldn’t take it. They were all prepared for out last days as a church and then, wonder of wonders, their church was raised, given a new mission, a reason for living. And it scared them to death…
When we answer the question, “who then is this?” in our own lives, will we have the guts to stay in the boat?
Amen.
Special thanks to William Willimon for some excellent ideas and themes.
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