Today’s post is a bit late. We are in the mountains in Invermere. We had a huge storm last night that blew down numerous trees, pulled out patio umbrella out of the stand and deposited it on the roof and left boats and other items all over the lake with no drivers in them. I was driving home from a prayer meeting with debris and branches blowing by me on the highway! Yes, I was calm. We also had the power out for 8 hours. Heroic work by the power company to restore power in the midst of a storm, applicable to today’s post.
I concluded the last part of this series encouraging us to live from heaven toward earth, or as Paul put it, ‘set your mind on things above.’ Here I want to look at the fruit of this in Jesus’ life. A great example was Jesus exercising authority over a storm on the sea of Galilee. The incident follows.
35 On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” 36 Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. 38 But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40 But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!” Mark 4:35–41 (NKJV)
To set the scene a bit, they were on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Capernaum area. Jesus had told His followers that they were going to the other side (the Gadarenes). He was in a boat with an accompanying group of boats and a storm came up that opposed them. Jesus was sleeping in the storm; everyone else appeared to be afraid of the storm and they woke Jesus up and asked if He cared that they were perishing.
At this point I think the storm was spiritual in origin, opposition to Jesus, for a couple of reasons. One Jesus rebuked the storm, He spoke to it. The word ‘ceased’ refers to growing weary. The opposition became weary. The other reason is that Jesus was on his way to set the Gadarene demoniac free from a legion of demons. They knew He was coming and what He could do. I am sure word had gotten around in the spiritual realm!
Now back to the key element, Jesus was sleeping in the midst of a storm. We can speculate that He was simply very weary but that doesn’t seem like enough to account for His behaviour. Our text tells us that the boat ‘was filling.’ Many of those with him were seasoned fishermen who knew how tempestuous the sea of Galilee could be and the were deeply concerned yet Jesus in the midst of the storm needed to be awoken by them even though water was coming into the boat.
I believe Jesus could sleep because His heart was at rest in His Father and He could calm the storm and release peace because that was what He carried. In the spirit realm He simply externalized what He was carrying internally. We may protest that Jesus was God and that is why He could do what He did. I won’t go into all of it here, but though He was fully God and fully man in His earthly ministry, Jesus did what He did as a man under the anointing of the Spirit (I wrote about this in 2015, see the link below).
Now back to what Jesus rebuking a storm means for us. We have this verse in scripture, which I personally find a bit uncomfortable, as I realize how short I fall.
12 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. John 14:12 (NKJV)
I can’t say that I have done greater works than Jesus. At the same time, I accept the responsibility to release peace into the storms of life around me. I think we can all do that! When we set our minds on Him we experience peace no matter our circumstances and we can be a source of peace and stability to those around us. We do this by our words, our actions and our spiritual awareness. After all, if He has assigned us to do something our hearts can rest in the Father just as Jesus did and we can release what we carry.
On many occasions over the years people have commented on how calm I am, it happened again just recently. I appreciate that, but at the same time I recognize that the calmness I carry is the fruit of pursuing my relationship with Jesus. Something we can all do.
http://wisdomfromtheword.ca/the-man-christ-jesus-part-1/
