Who Is This? (Mark 4:35-41)
Pastor Ben’s sermon on February 10th was about Jesus calming the storm by saying “Peace be still.” All week community groups have been discussing how God calms the storms in our lives. I’ve had the Lord calm some terrific storms in my life. There’s nothing like the peace that God can give you in the midst of a storm. It’s a peace that passes all understanding. (Phil. 4:7). When a doctor tells you, you have breast cancer and yet there is a still small voice inside that says it’s going to be okay, that even boggles the mind of the doctor.
But I’ve been thinking of a different aspect of this Scripture. After Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples had a totally different view of him than they had before. They had been traveling with him for a little while. They had seen him drive out evil spirits. (Mark 1:21). He healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and then all the sick and demon possessed that came to the door of her house. (Mark 1:29-34). A man with leprosy was cured. (Mark 1:40) and a paralytic was healed (Mark 2:1-12). He had been teaching them many things through parables and then explaining the parables to them. (Mark 4:34).
I would think all of these things would give them a pretty good idea who Jesus was. But when he calmed the sea, they said “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.” The act of bringing peace to the storm gave them a totally different view of Jesus. It made more of an impact on them than all the other miracles Jesus had done. This was a Jesus they had never seen before. The wind and the waves obeyed him.
As we experience Jesus calming the storms in our lives, I think we will become more intimately acquainted with him. It’s one thing to have Jesus touch the outward things in our lives, but when he starts doing miracles that change us inside, that’s when we will truly begin to know him in a different way. When he touches the innermost part of our being, and speaks peace to the storms that can rage there, we won’t have to ask, “Who is this?” as the disciples did, but we will know he is the powerful, almighty Son of God.
God is good all the time,
Naomi Brinkman
