Mark 4 vv 35 41
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These slides accompany video at http://bit.ly/U9UDPN
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Mark 4 vv 35 41
- 1. ‘Oh, Lord GOD, you did indeed make heaven and earth by your mighty power and great strength. Nothing is too hard for you! Jeremiah 32:17 Video is at http://bit.ly/U9UDPN
- 2. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction “From the second chapter of this Gospel we’ve been receiving indications that those living in the Kingdom of God can expect
- 3. Mark 3:13 – 6:6 • Beginning (3:13-35) – Appointing of 12 Apostles (3:13-19) – Opposition from the family (3:20-21) – Opposition from religious leaders (3:22-30) – Opposition from family again (3:31-35) • Middle (4:1-5:43) – Parable: The Sower (4:1-20) – Parable: The Lamp (4:21-25) – Parable: The seed growing secretly (4:26-29) – Parable: The mustard seed (4:30-34) – Miracle: Stilling the storm (4:35-41) – Miracle: Driving out Legion (5:1-20) – Miracle: Healing of sick woman (5:25-34) – Miracle: Raising Jairus’s daughter (5:21-43) • End (6:1-6) – Opposition from family and friends (6:1-6)
- 4. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 “On that day, when evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side of the lake.” 36 So after leaving the crowd, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat, and other boats were with him.”
- 5. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 • The storm, vv. 37-38 “Now a great windstorm developed and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was nearly swamped.38 But he was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. They woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are about to die?”
- 6. Mark 4:35-41 First century Galilean craft ‘The Ginosar Boat’
- 7. Mark 4:35-41
- 8. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 • The storm, vv. 37-38 • The Saviour, v. 39 “So he got up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Be quiet! Calm down!” Then the wind stopped, and it was dead calm.”
- 9. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 • The storm, vv. 37-38 • The Saviour, v. 39 • The Saviour’s challenge, v. 40 “And he said to them, “Why are you cowardly? Do you still not have faith?”
- 10. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 • The storm, vv. 37-38 • The Saviour, v. 39 • The Saviour’s challenge, v. 40 • The Saviour’s point, v. 41 “41 They were overwhelmed by fear and said to one another, “Who then is this? Even the wind and sea obey him!”
- 11. Mark 4:35-41 • Introduction • The scene, vv. 35-36 • The storm, vv. 37-38 • The Saviour, v. 39 • The Saviour’s challenge, v. 40 • The Saviour’s point, v. 41 • Conclusion The Kingdom of God is coming in, but there is still an AWFUL lot of chaos in the cosmos … and yet when He is encountered in it Jesus acts like He’s King over His Kingdom, and the chaos is progressively pushed back as His Kingly authority presses in. The clear point is one of challenge to His followers … this Jesus; Who IS He to you?
Editor's Notes
- From the second chapter of this Gospel we’ve been receiving indications that those living in the Kingdom of God can expect opposition for turning from sin to trust and follow Christ.
- The four parables in 4:1-34 taught (in the teeth of this opposition) that in spite of the opposition and the discouragements that run alongside fishing for men because you follow Jesus, the sown Word of God is powerful and effective. The four miracles that follow in 4:35-5:43 show the power of the Lord Himself Who speaks in His Word. These miracles show Jesus as powerful over the forces of chaos that riot through the Creation. It is a Creation that is NOT yet back under His authority. The authority accompanies the incoming Kingdom, which is the root of His message … remember Mark 1:15? “after John was imprisoned, Jesus went into Galilee and proclaimed the gospel of God. 15 He said, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel!” It wasn’t in yet, He says, but He announced it was COMING, was ‘at hand’, so NOW was the time to acknowledge God’s rule over your life by repenting and trusting Christ and to express your following of Jesus by following Him. Then Jesus went on to explain what that ‘following’ thing meant, and demonstrated it involved following Him in becoming (like Him) a fisher of mankind. How do you operate as a fisher of men? You fish for mankind the way He did by preaching His Word, which receives a range of responses, but as the preceding parables have demonstrated you don’t stop because (despite appearances) it IS effective. It IS effective because it is HIS Word … the Word of the Kingdom is the Word of the King. And now these four miracles sit at THIS point in Mark’s Gospel to demonstrate that He really IS authoritative to speak, He really IS the King! Although there really is more to it than this, these four areas where Jesus is shown to be the authoritative King of all creation are areas where human beings feel their own weakness and inadequacy in a creation hostile to God and damaged by sin, and Jesus proves to be King of it all.
- Jesus has been teaching a large crowd from a small boat as they all lined up on the shore and His boat stood off the beach to give Him room. You read about it in 4:1 “Again he began to teach by the lake. Such a large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there while the whole crowd was on the shore by the lake.” The stuff about explaining privately to His disciples the parables He’d been teaching comes in parenthesis … then (v. 35) “On that day, when evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side of the lake.” 36 So after leaving the crowd, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat, and other boats were with him.” So it looks as if, now that evening had come, Jesus decided not to wade ashore and get mobbed by the large crowd but to strike out to the Eastern, pagan dominated, side of the Lake. He’s heading off into the Decapolis, where paganism and idolatry are the predominant belief systems. And as He heads off into that hostile territory, across the hostile Sea, it makes its futile, chaotic and threatening attempt to dispose of Him. He was in the boat. Other boats were there to witness what happened. Here’s the eye-witness account of what took place …
- Mark paints a very vivid picture of the ferocity of the storm here … look at v. 37! Now, we’ve been there and I can tell you that the Sea of Galilee – surrounded as it is almost all the way around by mountains – is like a basin. Violent winds from the South West enter that basin through the southern cleft and create a situation in which storm and calm can succeed one another rapidly. These conditions tend to prevail more in the afternoon so fishing was done in the morning or at night, but when this situation does arise at night, the storm tends to be very much more fierce. Now, the disciples with Jesus in the boat numbered amongst them four experienced fishermen that we are aware of. These men were well used to Galilee, its waters and its weather … and such is the powerful, sudden squall that comes up in v. 38 they think there’s a real possibility that the boat will be swamped, will sink, and that they will all drown. We have an example of the sort of boat that was used … And sleeping on a cushion in the stern, is the coming King over the Kingdom of God!
- We have an example of the sort of boat that was used because a first century Galilean boat was unearthed in 1986 and preserved in the Yigal Allon Centre at Ginosar. It is 8.2 metres long and 2.35 metres wide, and if it is the sort of boat Jesus was using, a group of 13 would comfortably fill it. It is an open boat with shallow sides (no doubt to facilitate fishing with nets over the side) and would be vulnerable to high waves. It’s not surprising then that in this storm things were getting sticky … ἤδη γεμίζεσθαι τὸπλοῖον – the boat was almost SWAMPED. And sleeping on a cushion in the stern, is the coming King over the Kingdom of God! All three Synoptic Gospels recount the fact that Jesus was ASLEEP … quite an exceptional feature of the account. Like Jonah’s equally remarkable sleep during a different storm, it serves to highlight the key role of the main figure in the story, while the other characters mentioned are helpless.
- The disciples’ really speak quite rudely here to Jesus. His Deity is veiled quite thoroughly, as it often is in our everyday experience, and the Son of God is subjected to the rudeness of fearful, faithless, sinful men Their fear drives their manner of expression. But it is still quite a shocking-sounding way that they express themselves. For all that they DO understand, there’s a lot yet that they DON’T understand. Now, of course, their blunt ‘don’t you care if we drown’ is the language of panic rather than intentional disrespect, but what’s clear is that they haven’t learned to trust the King over the Kingdom in the wild storm and at night. More than that … their fear seems to have lied to them, the way it does at the heart of a storm, and they are persuaded that the Lord doesn’t even care if they die.
- Mark shows us Jesus absolutely but calmly in command of the situation. The King always is. Lane: “He is the personal, living God Who intervenes in the experience of men with a revelation of His power and His will. He is the God Who acts, not some pale abstraction.” Whatever storms the Christian’s facing, we know the One Whose voice commands the storm and makes it still. Two surprising things jump at us out of this verse … Firstly, Jesus appears to speak to the wind and waves in the sort of way you’d stop a dog from jumping up: ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Secondly, the wind AND THE WAVES obey Him! (Astonishing enough for the wind to immediately holds its breath, but the waves also disappear at once instead of their energy gradually decaying in line with the established laws of motion known to modern physics: ‘It was completely calm’, we are told. But there is far more to this calming of the raging sea than the physical wonder of the miracle itself. The emphasis is really not on the physical but the metaphysical significance of this account. These four miracle accounts from here to 5:43 are about Jesus vanquishing and subduing forces in Creation that are hostile to God. The Kingdom of God has been announced in 1:15 and begun to be inaugurated before our very eyes in these opening chapters … these four miracles that follow the four parables of this fourth chapter all show Jesus conquering features of Creation in rebellion against God … with the cosmic dimensions of Jesus’ encounter with the chaotic forces of satan emphasised in this first miracle account in the series. In the OT, from Genesis 1 onwards, the Hebrew term תהום tÿhom, (“deep”) refers to the watery deep, the salty ocean – especially the primeval ocean that surrounds and underlies the earth (see Gen 7:11). “1) deep, depths, deep places, abyss, the deep, sea 1a) deep (of subterranean waters) 1b) deep, sea, abysses (of sea) 1c) primeval ocean, deep 1d) deep, depth (of river) 1e) abyss, the grave” sn The watery deep. In the Babylonian account of creation Marduk killed the goddess Tiamat (the salty sea) and used her carcass to create heaven and earth. The ‘Sea’ – when this word is used – represents the demonic forces of chaos in Creation. God CREATED the Sea back in Genesis 1 only for it to come to symbolise chaotic opposition to God at the Fall. When (in Mark 1 ff) Jesus is restoring His authority He brings the forces of Satanic chaos back under the control of His incoming Kingdom by bringing it again under the authority of His WORD of command. This is not just a physical, but a metaphysical miracle. Something is happening in the cosmos and it’s demonstrated here as Jesus speaks and the waves immediately subside. Jesus brings the surging sea, the motif of chaotic satanic rebellion against God’s ordering of Creation beneath His authority, BACK under His authority again … which shows His Kingdom is NOW coming in. Jesus overcoming the effects of the unleashing of the forces of chaos at the Fall is the theme that runs through this and the subsequent three miracle accounts. You wouldn’t get this from the English translation but Φιμώθητι (Πηιμοο) is the unusual word of command Jesus uses to stop the surging of the chaotic sea. It is strikingly the same command He used in 1:25 to still the chaotic surging of the evil spirit that had inhabited the personality of the man who cried out in the synagogue at Capernaum … “Leave us alone, Jesus the Nazarene! Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” But Jesus rebuked him: “Silence! Come out of him!” The cosmic overtones of this event and of the Gospel Christ proclaims really must not be overlooked. “So he got up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Be quiet! Calm down!” … and the chaos of cosmic rebellion bows to His Sovereign sway. “Then the wind stopped, and it was dead calm.” The aorist tense indicates an immediate result and the report of the immediately calm sea emphasises the total transformation brought about by Jesus’ intervention. It was no natural change in the weather. Storms surge long after wind subsides. But on this occasion the Lord spoke and it was calm. GREAT, then? Jesus is the King come restoring the authority and reign of God so we can all stop worrying? Not quite … we were born part of the chaos in Creation, and the coming of the King brings its challenges …
- This is the first in a series of rebukes that stretch from here on through chapter 9. Faith is required as well as repentance, and that faith works out as trusting Christ the coming King even when the storms rage around us and the skies are deeply dark. Their cowardice must be repented of, because it is the opposite of faith.
- Erm. – hang on a minute. They were afraid when Jesus STOPPED the storm? The awesome power of the coming King over the Kingdom of God Who speaks the word and the storm subsides, that awesome power is more fearful than the terror of a sinking in a ferocious storm at sea by NIGHT?! Yes it is. καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν φόβον μέγαν ‘And they were a-feared with a MIGHTY fear’ NOT because of the storm, but because of the sheer authority of the One Who was amongst them, Who can speak and still the storm. The big question, the big FEARful question is this: Who IS He, standing amongst them, Who has such awesome authority as THIS?
- Here’s the bottom line, then. The Kingdom of God is coming in, but when it’s preached the response of a fallen world to it is MIXED … but you keep on preaching the Good News of the Kingdom (that’s the message of the parables we looked at in the last few weeks). The Kingdom of God is coming in, but there is still an AWFUL lot of chaos in the cosmos … and yet when He is encountered in it Jesus acts like He’s King over His Kingdom, and the chaos is progressively pushed back as His Kingly authority presses in. The clear point is one of challenge to His followers … this Jesus; Who IS He to you?