Mark 4

³⁵ On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷ And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹ 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?”

Adela Yarbro Collins has recounted a fascinating example from history of a king attempting to exert authority over water.

               Herodotus tells how Xerxes had bridges built across the Hellespont from Asia to Europe. The distance was seven-eights of a mile. In the first attempt, he had the Phoenicians make a bridge of flaxen cables, the Egyptians one of papyrus. No sooner was the strait bridged than a great storm occurred and destroyed their work. Xerxes was very angry and commanded that the Hellespont be scourged with three hundred lashes…and a pair of fetters be thrown into the sea…He sent branders with the rest to brand the Hellespont…He charged them while they scourged to utter words, which were in Herodotus’s view, outlandish and presumptuous…: “You bitter water,” they should say, “our master thus punishes you, because you did him wrong although he had done no wrong to you. Yes, Xerxes the king will pass over…you, whether you wish it or not; it is but just that no man offers you sacrifice, for you are a turbid and a briny river.” Thus he commanded that the sea should be punished…and they who had been overseers…should be beheaded…[1]

There is something amusing about this to us. Throwing fetters into a body of water, whipping it, and rebuking it is the kind of thing that, in our minds, only a crazy man would do, for no man has authority over the waters and the waters are not animate objects over which authority could even be exerted. You might as well yell at a tree to stand up taller as yell at the ocean to be still.

In fact, in all of human history only one has rebuked the sea and it obeyed, and only one could. The miracle that Mark now recounts is a miracle with which many people are quite familiar. Even so, familiarity does not necessarily mean understanding. In fact, this miracle on the Sea of Galilee was about much more than getting the waters to calm down. It says something significant about Christ and His mission and it says something that we all need to hear for the living of our lives today.

For the Church, this is a story about the growth and expansion of the Kingdom of God and the trials that come with it.

It has become customary in sermons on this text to apply it immediately to the life of the individual believer, but that is an unnecessarily narrow approach and, I would argue, a harmful one. I say “harmful” because the stripping of any passage of scripture from its immediate context so that it can be quickly applied to the individual robs it of its contextual significance and also threatens to reduce every and all scripture to the purely and solely personal sphere. While all of scripture is written for our edification, part of our edification should be found in seeing what it says about the broader body of Christ, the world itself, and, above anything else, the Lord God.

In the context of Mark 4, let us remember that Jesus has been talking a great deal about seed sowing, about the kingdom of God, and about how the kingdom grows and expands. What should we make of the fact, for instance, that immediately preceding our passage is a parable about the kingdom being like a mustard seed that starts small, is buried, grows, becomes a large plant, and becomes a shelter for the birds of the air? I would propose that the general flow of those arguments starting in the beginning of Mark 4 should help inform our interpretation of this text and specifically of the first two verses.

³⁵ On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him.

A straightforward and surface reading of the passage renders a plain explanation of what happened next in Jesus’ ministry: He wanted to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee so He and His disciples began the journey across the waters. But there is more happening here than the mere unfolding of chronological details.

For starters, Jesus’ words, “Let us go across to the other side,” raises the question, “What is on the other side.” The answer? The Decapolis. And what is the Decapolis? The Decapolis was “a group of Hellenistic cities E[ast] of the Jordan and Lake Tiberius [the Sea of Galilee].” The cities included “Abila, Canata, Dius, Gadara, Gerasa, Hippos, Pella, Philadelphia, and Scythopolis” and Damascus.[2] Put another way, Gentiles were on the side of the Sea of Galilee. It was Gentiles to whom Jesus wanted them to sail!

This is most fascinating. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It is a small thing that, when buried, grows into a big thing. Do you know the last words Jesus says before He says, “Let us go across to the other side”? They are found in verse 32.

³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

That is most interesting.

³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

^35b “Let us go across to the other side.”

To paraphrase, “Birds from the air the world over will come and nest and be refreshed in the branches of the kingdom of God…let us sail across to where the Gentiles are.”

What is happening here? What is happening is that Jesus told them that the kingdom of God was going to grow and be salvation for people the world over and now He is going to show them what that looks like. “Let us go across to the other side.”

Joel Marcus observes that this miracle story follows the parables of Mark 4, “the latter half of which emphasizes the irresistible expansion of God’s dominion and hints at the inclusion of non-Jews (4:21-32).” What is more, Marcus sees “the odd detail in 4:36, ‘and other boats were with him,’” as recalling “3:14, in which the Twelve were chosen ‘in order that they might be with him,’ and 4:10, in which the circle of disciples was widened to include ‘those around him with the Twelve.’”[3]

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington says of this text that “Jesus is depicted as crossing over into foreign, indeed pagan territory – a land where pig herding is acceptable and demons mass in legions.” He argues that, “Mark is using the story symbolically to suggest the crossing over into a largely pagan realm.”

So they begin to pass over to the other side, and there is a storm that the disciples think will kill them! It can be hard and it can be scary to take the message of the kingdom “to the other side.” Going “to the other side” pushes us to our limits. We get hit with all kinds of scary storms when we start to go with Jesus “to the other side.”

Witherington further points out the absolutely fascinating fact that, in the gospel of Mark, when Jesus and the disciples pass from the west side of the Sea of Galilee to “the other side” there is a storm and when they pass back from “the other side” back to their side there is no storm (i.e., “first voyage to the other side, 4:35-5:1 ((storm)); return, 5:21 ((no storm)); second voyage to the other side, 6:45-53 ((storm)); return, 8:13,22 ((no storm))”).

It can be a stormy, bumpy ride when you trust God enough to go with Jesus “to the other side,” to those who are different from you, to those who seem scary to you, to those who might oppose you, to those who might even try to kill you. Really start taking the gospel to the world and the storms will come. Mark seems to be making this point.

But there is something else here. Just think of the components of our passage:

• God calls His children to take the good news to the pagan peoples over there.
• On the waters, a terrifying storm rises up.
• The man sent from God is asleep on the boat.
• Those awake on the boat wake him in terror.
• The man sent from God responds.
• The waters are calmed.

What does that sound like? It sounds like the story of Jonah.

Jesus and Jonah. It is an intriguing connection and one that Mark appears to have wanted us to make. Jesus Himself made the connection in Matthew 12.

³⁸ Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” ³⁹ But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. ⁴² The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Here, Jesus was talking about His resurrection and how it His own descent into the earth and rising again is like Jonah’s descent and rising again. The difference, however, is that, in Jesus, “something greater than Jonah is here.”

So too with the parallel between Matthew 4:35-41 and the story of Jonah, the similarities are interesting but the dissimilarities are what is most important. The parallels between our text and the story of Jonah, including:

• In both texts the man sent by God is asleep in a boat during a storm while everybody else is terrified.
• In both texts it is “the behavior of the prophet when notified which would result in the calming of the storm in each case.”
• “In each case the captain of the boat rouses the person in question with a charge of dereliction of duty (cf. Jon. 1:6).”
• “…the verb ‘to die’ is the same here as in Jon. 1:6,14 and 3:9.”
• The phrase “they were filled with great fear” in verse 41 is “a Semitic form of expression that echoes Jonah 1:10 (LXX).”[4]
• The description of the storm in Mark 4:37 “may owe something to Jonah 1:4.”[5]

But the dissimilarities include:

• Jonah was running from God when the storm came. Jesus was fulfilling the call of God.
• Jonah was sleeping in a state of rebellion. Jesus was sleeping in the peace of the Father.
• The storm was a genuine threat in Jonah because he was running. The storm was never a threat to the disciples because Jesus was obedient.
• Jonah asked to be hurled into the sea in the hope that God would spare the crew. Jesus is the God of the sea and knew that He was going to spare the crew.
• Jonah was spared and begrudgingly went to the Gentiles. Jesus was always in control and gladly went to the Gentiles.

The point is clear and also extremely important: the God of heaven and earth had stepped into time in Jesus and, through Jesus, He came not only to His own people but also to the entire world! This is the growing, spreading kingdom. It invites the birds of the air to come without partiality. The kingdom is intended to be a haven of salvation for the world, for whosoever will come.

Christ, the greater Jonah, showed in His person what Jonah should have done: gladly and joyfully embraced the call of God to go to the nations! Furthermore, Christ took His disciples with Him. He showed them how the kingdom was to spread.

Those in the expanding kingdom will face turbulent storms in this world to be sure, but the children of God will never be conquered by the opposition of the devil and what he hurls at them for Christ is with us.

For the believer, this is a summons to radical faith in the midst of fear on the basis of the sovereignty and love of Jesus Christ.

Then there is the personal application of this most amazing passage. It is right to see and make the person application, for truly this passage speaks to us where we are. It speaks first of the commission of the people of God to go to the lost “over there” and it speaks of the storms we will face when we do so. But it also speaks to us of the nature of life and of the sufficiency of Christ for the living of these days and all the days to come.

³⁵ On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷ And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹ 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?”

When we apply this text to our individual walks with Jesus, certain noteworthy truths emerge. We would do well heed these carefully.

The storms will come for followers of Jesus.

The most readily apparent truth is that the storms will come.

³⁵ On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷ And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.

The disciples had been walking with Jesus. They were growing closer and closer to Him, though, as our text shows, they had yet really to grasp who He was. But they had left their families and their vocations to follow Jesus. We might think that for that reason they would be exempt from such a harrowing experience. However, they were not.

It might be argued that the storms of life are a special privilege for the children of God because God knows that His children can handle them. More than that, God knows that it is only in and through the storms that we grow in our understandings of Christ and His kingdom.

There are entire movements within Christianity that seem bent on promising their adherents that if they truly believe enough, they will never face the storms. Our text obliterates such an idea. The disciples are at peace with Christ at this point in the gospel and they are obedient. Nonetheless, the storm comes with special ferocity.

The storms will never find us without Jesus though Jesus is not always present in the way that we might prefer.

Even so, the storm that comes upon the obedient follower of Jesus will never come upon him or her in the absence of Jesus! The followers of the Lamb may suffer, but the Lamb is with them as they do. Nonetheless, He is not always with us in the way that we might prefer.

³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

“This,” observes Danny Akin, “is the only time in the Gospels that we read of Jesus sleeping.”[6] Jesus is only depicted as sleeping in this episode in the gospels. That is significant. The one depiction we have of Jesus asleep is at a time when His sleeping strikes us as most unusual. To the disciples in the boat it was absolutely flabbergasting. More than that, Jesus’ sleeping led them to question His love for them: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

The nearness of Christ does not always strike us, with our limited perspectives, as involvement. We know He is near but we want Him to do something, preferably now and preferably in ways that we understand. But here too we need to remember that this story comes fast on the heels of the kingdom parables. Remember especially that Jesus had just told His disciples:

²⁶ And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. ²⁷ He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.

That is, the kingdom is about divinely empowered growth, change, and transformation in ways that cannot be seen, quantified, or even understood. There are times when our greatest moments of transformation will be our most confounding moments. “What is God doing?” we will ask. “Why is He not moving?” we will ask. We must remember, however, that God is at work in ways we “know not how.”

Jesus was present. They were never alone.

Jesus is present. You are never alone. Do not mistake His stillness for inactivity or resignation. There is never a moment when He is not in control even when you are tempted to panic.

You will never face a storm over which Christ will not have ultimate victory.

Jesus slept the peace of one who knows He is in the center of the Father’s will and who knows He will not and cannot be overcome.

³⁹ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

When Jesus tells the sea to “Be still!” He literally says, “Be muzzled!” which is the exact wording He used to rebuke the demon in Mark 1:25.[7] Jesus has all power over the powers, the forces, and the elements. Christ Jesus is more powerful than any storm you are facing or will face.

Let me repeat that in case you especially need to hear it: Christ Jesus is more powerful than any storm you are facing or will face.

There is no raging sea He cannot muzzle.

There are no dangers He cannot conquer.

There are no powers He cannot subdue.

There are no stormy gales He cannot silence.

Christ Jesus is more powerful than any storm you are facing or will face.

He does not move and work on our timetable, and for that we should learn to be thankful. He is ever with us and ever able. Perhaps He does not wield His sovereign might in the ways and with the timing we think He should, and for that too we should learn to give thanks! For God knows precisely what God is doing and we do not.

⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹ 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?”

Who…is…this?!

The only thing more terrifying that being on a powerful, raging sea is being in a small boat with something more powerful than a raging sea. I envision the disciples drawing back in stunned amazement and fear.

“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Yes. That is the great question and Jesus is the great answer. He is Jesus, Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of the waters and the sky, God enfleshed and among us. He is the one who sleeps peacefully in the valley of the shadow.

“Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Ah, Church! Jesus is in the boat with us. Jesus is mightier than the storm and the sea. Jesus contains a power we cannot fathom.

Do not doubt. Do not fear. Do not be afraid.

Have faith, Church. Trust. Believe.

There is someone more powerful than the storm, and He is here in the boat!

 

[1] Adela Yarbo Collins, Mark. Hermeneia. Ed., Harold W. Attridge. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), p.261.

[2] David Noel Freedman, ed. D-G. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Volume 2 (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), p.116.

[3] Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8. The Anchor Bible. Vol.27 (New Haven, CT: The Anchor Yale Bible, 2005), p.336. Collins believes “it is likely that the evangelist is deliberately alluding to the Jonah story here, since the book of Jonah is also alluded to in the scene in Gethsemane and since Jonah was an antitype of Jesus in early Christian tradition.” Adela Yarbo Collins, p.260.

[4] Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), p.173-176.

[5] James A. Brooks, Mark. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed., David S. Dockery. Vol.23 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1991), p.87.

[6] Daniel L. Akin, Mark. Christ-Centered Exposition. (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), p.99.

[7] Robert H. Gundry, Mark. Vol.1 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), p.240.