In The Boat Together

Mark 4:35-41

OUR PANIC

- someone’s gotta do something

- terrorism - son we’re all gonna be victimized by some suicide bombers

- global warming - soon we’re all gonna drown in the every-rising sea levels

- economic crisis - soon we’re all gonna starve because no one can afford their food anymore

- health crisis - soon we’re all gonna die because the hospital has gotta close its doors

- pick your crisis!

THE DISCIPLES’ PANIC

- We’re not the only ones panicking

- Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

- the disciples expect Jesus to do something

- the Son of God - the waters of creation

- Rabbi - friend

- How can you be sleeping when ALL your friends are SO terrified? How dare you?

JESUS CALMS THE DISCIPLES

- 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.

- he didn’t jump up

- he wasn’t alarmed

- slowly

- cool

- followed by a dead calm - 7th day of creation

- Jesus not only calms the storm but in the process also calms the alarmists

- Were their lives really in danger? - We don’t know.

- Jesus said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

- Time and time again in Scripture the word is, ’Do not be afraid.’ It is, you might say, the first and the last word of the gospel. It is the word the angels speak to the terrified shepherds and the word spoken at the tomb when the women discover it empty: ’Do not be afraid.’

- The angels simply have to say it over and over again because people love being afraid

JESUS CALMS US

- Dean Smith once said: "If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times."

- And church people tend to be extraordinarily good in panicking, which comes natural

- Most traffic jams are a result of everyone breaking a little harder than the car in front of them

- Illnesses get worse the more people are involved in telling the story

- bad news are sometimes intentionally over the top in order to motivate

- spiral of emotions: good-upward until bad news-downward, indulge in self-pity

- malfunctioning scale made me panic

- blood sugar tests make doctors panic

- less passionate

- the real miracle is not Jesus mastering the elements of nature but Jesus putting a lid on our passion

- take it easy

- As the Bible puts it: ’Do not be afraid.’

- Not because there are not fearsome things on the sea of our days, not because there are no storms, fierce winds, or waves, but rather, because God is with us....even though there are real and fearsome things in this life, they need not paralyze us; they need not have dominion over us; they need not own us, because we are not alone in the boat.

- To start with the disciples were full of fear, in the end they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”