No Fear of Turmoil

No Fear of Turmoil–that’s what peace (i.e. the Hebrew word shalom) with God gives us.  No matter what life churns up our way, we can still be in the center of God’s peace.

Mark 4:35 That day when evening came, [Jesus] said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. 40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

Jesus was sleeping while a furious storm raged.  He knew there was no fear of turmoil.  Jesus’ disciples would have known there was no fear of turmoil as well, had they truly realized who was in the boat with them.

These disciples, professional fishermen, had likely experienced choppy seas before.  Their familiarity with circumstances such as these only served to increase their distress because they knew sometimes, rough seas do not bode well for the outcome of fishermen.  They panic, wake up Jesus to make inquiry and indeed, their question seems incredibly rude.  “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

Interestingly, it’s a failure of faith because they failed to know Jesus on two counts: first as Lord over nature, and second as the most loving and merciful human being to walk the face of the planet because He’s God and God is merciful.  The way they asked the question in Greek would have expected the answer, “Yes, of course I care.”  It would have required different wording to expect the answer, “You’re right.  I don’t.”  It’s a nuance lost in English.

If the disciples weren’t being intentionally insulting, what was going on?  They were relying upon what they saw instead of Who they knew.  Had they seen Jesus as God Incarnate, they would have known that their boat was the safest place to be…because in the boat, they were with God Himself.  Their second failure of faith was a refusal to believe that God is merciful beyond measure.

What should we take away from a passage like this or the one pictured below?  We should know that no matter what our circumstances show, the safest place to be is in the boat with Jesus.  Circumstances can lie to us, but even if our entire culture IS falling apart and we’re careening toward the end of days, we need to believe that God will be merciful to disciples of Jesus because it’s His character to do so.  Peace with a merciful God leads to our having No Fear of Turmoil.