“And there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39)
Dear Saints,
Have you ever been in the boat of Mark 4:35–41? Read it; would you please? Now think figuratively with me.
(V. 35). It's evening, hence dark, and you're tired. But it is Jesus that bids you join Him on a voyage to the other unknown side.
(V. 36). You hestitate with a silent: ‘But why?’ What's more: Jesus asked you knowing full well there would be near instant peril, but that fact was undisclosed. Nevertheless, you leave the “crowd” and come.
(V. 37). Then just after the point of no return sharp winds slap you and a swamping squall soaks you cold.
(V. 38). All while this loving, safe Jesus—your host, your guide, your beloved—is in a “cushioned sleep.” The rough seas are perilous. It is a true danger. Perishing smacks of imminency. But somehow this isn't your ultimate crisis. Is is rather that your Lord and Saviour is asleep and seems to “care not if you perish.”
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And in real life it is here your story ends, well pauses, for what seems interminable, like an eternity of dumbfounded, confused, and hurt disbelief. Your unanswered why? and what did I do? cannabalizes you.
***
(V.39). But Jesus cares. He awakens. Your “suddenly” arrives. He rebukes the wind with “quiet, be still.” And comes “a great calm.”
(V. 40). And relief comes in an instant, but not really. Cuz, Jesus too is confused (and seemingly disappointed?). What just transpired? One's debilitating trauma to another is a lack or weak trust?
(V. 41). The audacity of His “higher ways.” Jesus seems to be saying (I'll make it personal): Tim/son, I'd rather have quieted & stilled your soul and carried you on “the everlasting arms” into the eye of the storm (rf. Psalm 46:10). Don't fear the salvos of wind and wave. Revere and look to Me who has always the final Word: “Peace, be still!”
Or as brilliantly written by Joel Hemphill:
‘I know the Master of the wind.
I know the Maker of the rain.
He can calm the storm,
Make the sun shine again.
I know the Master of the wind.
https://youtu.be/1_ijXhDm8qI?is=Q1cAh4dhXklOIwxz
Or as William Cowper put it in God Moves in a Mysterious Way:
‘Oh, fearful saints, new courage take:
The clouds that you now dread
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for His grace.
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.’
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.
In such glad hope,
tIM