No Ordinary Boat Ride

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 

He woke up and rebuked the wind,

and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”

Then the wind ceased, 

and there was a dead calm"

Mark 4:38-39

Click here to read the complete story here.

People go down to sea for many reasons. Some for recreation; making a living; escaping oppression; a ferry for transportation. 

In this familiar story, Jesus and the disciples get in a boat to cross to the sea. A storm nearly swamps the boat as Jesus sleeps. They wake him. He rebukes the sea. The storm ends.

However, this isn't a story about "the storms of life" or and facing them by trusting Jesus in your fears. 

The deeper story is Jesus silencing the storm and rebuking it. Those "silence" and "rebuke" are exorcism words Mark often uses in Jesus’ ministry. As strange as it sounds, Jesus is not offering therapy for our fears but an exorcism for a world out of whack.

The point of this story is a revelation. The stilling of the storm tells us something  about the Kingdom of God and Jesus himself. The fact that Jesus stills the storm with the word "rebuke" also tells us something about him. To the ancients "rebuke" was a word used for exorcism.

After experiencing this, the disciples are terrified. "Who is this that even wind and sea obey?" (Here's the answer in Mark 1:1)

The stories setting is significant. There has been a great cultural trauma. The destruction of the temple caused deep questions touching on life and the forces threatening to upend everyone.

The Good News is, whatever terrors and revelations are ahead of us in this apocalyptic boat ride with a world out of whack in this cultural trauma of the moment, we will notice God's saving power in Jesus Christ. We will see there is the living God among us in Jesus Christ.