Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

Calming the Storm

Mark 4:35-41

 

Tonight we’re going to take a look at Mark 4:35-41.  Just by way of introduction, I want to remind us that Mark’s objective, like the other three gospel writers is to make it clear that Jesus is God in the flesh.  He makes that statement in the opening verse, and then begins piling up evidence to support it. 

 

I don’t know that there is a better, more powerful illustration of that fact than what we find in this text. 

 

Mark 4:35-41

 

Well the simple answer to that question is, "He is God because only God has such power over wind and waves." After all, if He created it, it shouldn’t surprise us that He can control it. 

 

So far in this study we’ve seen His power over sickness and sin and Satan and now He demonstrates His power over the seas. 

 

That means He can control the spiritual world. He can control the human, physical world and here we see He can control the natural world. 

 

Now I don’t know how you go about classifying miracles or putting them in order of greatness, but I will say there is uniqueness about this particular miracle.  All of the miracles are amazing and great and beyond human comprehension and I don’t want to lessen the magnificence of any of them. 

 

But this one is on a grander and more powerful scale. And the Lord couldn't have picked a better place to demonstrate His power over His creation.

 

Although verse 1 simply tells us He was teaching by “the sea”, other accounts tell us in particular it was the Sea of Galilee. 

 

And I wanted to share a little bit with you about that body of water that I found interesting, and hopefully you will also, because they help us get a better picture of what this text is telling us.

 

The Sea of Galilee isn’t really a sea at all.  Identified in Scripture as Galilee, Genessaret and Tiberius, it’s actually the largest a fresh-water lake in Israel.  Tody it’s known as Kinneret. 

 

It’s not only the largest lake in Israel, it’s the lowest fresh water lake on the planet at 682 feet below sea level. Scientists tell it has 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 fact, 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’s very easy to understand why there were so many fishermen in the area.  At least four, and maybe seven of the twelve Jesus selected were fishermen. 

 

It is surrounded by mountains that rise up to 1500 feet on the west and the northwest and on the northeast and east, they rise to three thousand feet.  That is the area known as the Golan Heights.

 

The lake itself is 8 by 13 miles and sits in this bowl created by the surrounding mountains.  It is primarily fed by 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.

 

And 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.

 

Because of its unique location, only 30 miles from the Mediterranean Sea and sitting down in this hole at a very low elevation, it has some very unique properties and has been the subject of much study and those who’ve studied it say it is different from any other body of water in the world.

 

And in particular, what make it unique are its winds.  It is subject to very, very severe winds. In the summer, the winds come from the east every day from noon to six o'clock and they are very predictable. The winds come down hard off the Golan Heights and begin to churn the waves making it a very treacherous place to be in a boat at the wrong time.

 

 

 

In the winter, it’s 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.

 

So whether you're in the summer or the winter, it can be a very troublesome place if you're there at the wrong time.

 

Between November and April is the most dangerous, treacherous time. There are documented reports of waves between five and ten feet high.  Can you imagine that on say, Lake Texoma or Murray? 

 

In fact, one historian records waves on the western shore 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 I tell you that just to say there 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 me quickly walk you through the story.  Let’s begin with

 

 

verse 35

 

What day? The same day that started in verse 1.

 

So the Lord’s been teaching and telling stories and explaining things to His disciples.  And it's been a long day.

I wouldn’t be surprised if He did some healing and very probably told stories and taught lessons that aren’t recorded here.  And what we have here is just a typical, exhausting day in the life of the Lord and His followers. 

 

And eventually evening comes and the crowd thins out and He says to His disciples, “ 'Let’s move over to the other side of the Lake."

 

Now the logical assumption is He was going over to the other side to get a little rest and that would be a reasonable assumption.  He did that on other occasions.   But a little look ahead lets us know that is not at all what He is doing.   At the beginning of chapter 5 we discover he has a divine appointment with a demon-possessed man.  

 

So there is intentionality in what He says. 

 

verse 36

 

So far, so good. Jesus is in the boat with some of His followers.  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. It’s a beautiful day; they’re serving the Lord; Life is good! 

 

Now at this point, Luke inserts a very important word into his account of the events.  He says “as they sailed” and the word He uses to say that is a very specific word.  They sailed instead of rowed.  Those boats had the capability of being rowed. They had oars but they also had a mast and a sail.

 

Why the differentiation?  You row when there's no wind. You sail when there's wind. So it was an ideal situation. 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.

 

Luke also tells us somewhere along through the trip, Jesus fell asleep.  He laid His head on a pillow and dozed off.  Here is a beautiful picture of the balance of deity and humanity.  Jesus the human is exhausted.  And with absolute trust in God, He lays down to take a knap. 

 

After all, He created the water. He 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.

 

Now remember, trailing along behind that boat are all those who were followers of His and it turns out they're not all true followers. Some of them are rocky and weedy soil, as we saw in the parable earlier in the chapter.  But they are following Him for now.

 

And all is well as the Lord lays sleeping in the calm before the storm. 

 

Then we see

 

 

verse 37

 

“A great windstorm” is descriptive of hurricane-type winds.  We’re talking about unbelievably strong winds.

Some have calculated this event is happening in the winter of 29 A.D. If that’s correct, then it’s not just a strong wind, but it is cold also.  ANd Luke says it came down upon the lake.  SO here is this cold air funneling down the ravines and slopes, gaining speed as it descended until it collides 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, only thirteen by eight miles, once those waves hit the shore, they just explode back and collide again and again.

 

Now I think chances are good they were all familiar with storms on the lake. They lived around the lake and on the lake and made their living from the lake so storms were nothing new.  But this storm wasn’t an ordinary storm.  It was a God-ordained storm.

 

I think it safe to assume that these winds were divinely ordained winds to put the Lord in the position to demonstrate that He is in fact the one who controls His creation. This is to be a lesson. So what's it supposed to teach?

 

Look at verse 40

 

This is a faith lesson. The point the Lord wants to teach His disciples is that He can be trusted in the most threatening of circumstances.

 

And if you don’t believe it was threatening, then do some studying from Matthew’s (chapter 8) account of the story.  He describes this storm as a great tempest that covered the boat with waves.  In the original it is seismos megas.

He says it was a seismic event of mega proportions.  That is basically the description of an earthquake.  It describes a violent shaking of the earth  generated by hurricane force winds. And the result is the boat begins to fill with water and they are in danger of being swamped. 

 

Matthew also mentions that all of this is occurring at night.  So they are in the dark, trying to bail out the water and not be thrown overboard in a hurricane that is violently shaking the earth. 

 

And there is one other fact to notice.   

 

verse 38

 

Now either Jesus is really tired OR He absolutely trusts God, no matter what’s going on around Him. 

 

I think it is both.  No doubt He was exhausted.  But you know as well as I, just because you’re tired doesn’t mean you can automatically go to sleep. 

 

Worry has a way of overwhelming exhaustion.  And even though we are often tired, if we aren’t careful to keep our eyes and mind on God, worry will rob us of rest. 

 

He understands weariness. But he wasn’t the only one who was tired.  He is, however, the only one asleep.  I call that the calm during the storm.

 

Nobody else was calm.

 

Notice what they said. 

 

Verse 38

How can You just sleep when we're going through this? Don't You care that we're perishing?

 

They believed they were about to go down.  This situation meant inevitable death. They would not survive this. And they panicked.  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.

 

And they knew their only hope was Jesus.  Now I don't think it entered their mind that He could stop the storm. But if they were going to survive, then 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.

 

And in this pandemonium, while the wind and waves are crashing, they’re yelling at Jesus. 

 

Mark uses "Teacher”. Luke says they said, "Master, Master." Matthew says, "Lord." Somebody says, "Well, that's scriptural inconsistency." No it's not. This was not a calm, one-time question for Jesus.  This is panic and pandemonium and they’re using and every word they can come up with. 

 

They’re about to die and He’s the only hope!  You know it's a dark day when the sailors have to call on a carpenter to get them out of the storm.

 

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.

 

So they call out to the Lord and that leads to

 

verse 39

 

He spoke to the wind and instantaneously the wind stopped.  He spoke to the water and immediately the water calmed.  The water and the wind recognized the voice of their Creator and they did as He commanded. 

 

Mark says there was a great calm.  Can you picture that?  Immediately, the whole Seas is as calm as a Sunday morning.  , 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. It wasn’t like the wind died down and the waves kept going for a while and eventually slowed. 

He stopped the winds and at the same time stopped the water simply by speaking. And what follows is this perfectly, 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.

 

Why would anyone ever doubt that He can bring salvation and life and newness to anything He wants?  He can bring the new creation. He can restore the earth to Eden-like characteristics. He can make the desert blossom like a rose.  He can open a river in Jerusalem that flows out into the desert, turns it into a garden. He can change nature so the lion lies down with the lamb and a child can play in a snake pit.

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.

 

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.

 

He’s in charge of all of it!

 

No wonder He said to them, "Why are you afraid? How is it that you have no faith?"  Here they sit in the middle of this absolute silence and 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?"

 

And we'd like to have them say, "Lord, we'll never doubt you again.  As long as You’re around we know everything will be all right.  We're not going to worry about anything. We've seen enough. We're convinced." But that's not their reaction.

 

Verse 41

 

There we find

 

 

I find it interesting that they were afraid during the storm, but after the storm, they were exceedingly afraid. 

 

What’s more frightening than having a storm outside your boat is having God in your boat. That's enough to panic you.

 

They are beginning to grasp what they are dealing with. God Himself is sitting there in the boat!  And as that realization begins to sink in, they panic!

 

Why does it cause panic?  It is because if if you see God, then God sees you. You see His glory, but He sees your sin. That's a very normal response through Scripture.

 

We see it with Adam and Eve; we see it with Abraham.  We see it with Manoah, the father of Samson; we see it with Job and Isaiah and Ezekiel;  Daniel had the same experience as did Peter and John. 

 

It's a terrifying thing to realize that you are in the presence of God. But there was no other explanation.  And even as they sat there asking “What kind of man does stuff like this?”, they knew the answer. 

 

Mark doesn't even give an answer. Where is this person from? I’ll guarantee you one thing:  He’s not from around here!”

 

There's no reason for Mark to answer because there is only one possibility. Only God controls the elements of nature 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.

 

Now, all of that to say this:  If He can handle the winds and the waves, He can handle what’s going on with you. 

 

He wanted them to know He was God in the flesh and He cared about them.  And we have the privilege of knowing and being blessed by the same power and love. 

 

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.