Mk 4:21–23 (ESV) And [Jesus] said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light. 23 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus has come to reveal the kingdom.
4:35 On that [same] day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”
Why? There was no reason: he was teaching the crowds, they were listening, he was in Israel. There was no reason to go across to the “other side” the Gentile (non-Jewish) side of the lake. Except there was a reason: an appointment with Legion, and two massive demonstrations of Jesus’ power – or rather, two revelations of the King of God’s kingdom: Jesus. Jesus has come to reveal the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is centred on him.
1. He is Lord of Creation
36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Can you imagine the scene? Caught out on the Sea of Galilee, the wind blowing, waves crashing into the boats. Panic on the faces of the experienced fishermen as they begin to realise that they could be killed. It’s dark, the wind is howling, the boat is being flung up intot he air and then CRASH down again on the waves. And Jesus? Jesus is asleep on a cushion in front of the boat. A crisis of his making. A crisis to reveal his power and teach the disciples about faith in him.
Now there’s been lots of talk about this passage being about Jesus leading us through our storms in life, and we don’t need to be afraid, blah blah blah. Let’s not allegorise this too quickly. The point is not that Jesus can take us through storms in our life, though he can. It’s not even that often those storms are of his own making in order to glorify himself in our lives and strengthen our faith in him. Those may be truths about our relationship with God, but that’s not the point of this passage.
The point of the passage is this: Even the wind and the waves obey Jesus! Who is this man?
This is not like Moses, who prays to God, and then God tells him to raise up his staff, and then God causes a wind to blow, and God parts the sea. No. Jesus simply speaks to the sea and ORDERS it to be calm.
It is without precedent in the Bible (it has never happened before). In all other cases of control over Creation the Bible has always been at pains to ensure that God gets the glory, that it is God’s power at work – here it is Jesus who gets the glory, Jesus who has the power to simply speak a word of command to the storm – and it obeys!
Psalm 107, a Psalm about the redeeming love of God, it says of God: 28 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 29 He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
And in case we missed it, he even says “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Faith, not just in whatever – but faith in Jesus.
God Almighty is in the boat – what is there to fear?!
Except, perhaps, the fact that GOD ALMIGHTY IS IN THE BOAT!!!
The disciples knew well that no-one could approach the Holy God and live. “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips” said the prophet Isaiah. Uzzah touched God’s Ark of the Covenant and dropped down dead. And anyone venturing into the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem would drop dead. Like darkness destroyed by the brightness of the light, unholy or sinful men cannot be near the Holy God. No wonder they were filled with great fear!
But Jesus came to suffer once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God 1 Pet 3:18. He is the new Temple, the meeting place between God and mankind. He has come, not to judge, but to rescue. He is the doctor, come to save the (spiritually) sick.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
It is God Almighty, in the flesh, come to redeem a lost world.
1 Jn 3:16 (NIV84) This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ (God Himself!) laid down his life for us.
Fall at his feet and worship! Praise him with great praise! Listen to Him and obey him. Be filled with awe and wonder at the Lord of Creation, who speaks to the wind and the waves and they obey him, and who calls to you to follow him, to know him, to be with him, to obey him.
And that invitation is for everyone, without exception. There is nothing that can keep you from God, no sin which is too great (except rejecting Jesus) – no social status, or family connection, or bad habits, or dark past that can keep you from Jesus. And we see that with our next character: Legion.
2. Jesus can make the unclean, clean.
5:1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. 6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. 14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marvelled.
Let’s deal with the pigs first. Lots of people get all hung up on the pigs! Never mind that 1.5 MILLION of pigs are slaughtered every year in Norway for our food!
I may as well ask why does anything bad ever happen? In this chapter, why does Jesus allow a bunch of pigs to panic and run into the sea? Or delays just long enough so that a sick little girl dies - only to be brought back to life? Or a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years? Or a storm to rise up and almost kill the disciples? Why does God allow storms and disasters, and murders and theft and all other evil in this world?
Short answer: to bring him glory. All things are created to bring him praise and glory, and even evil will have to bow the knee to Him and give up praise and glory. How?
Firstly, His patience in delaying punishing evil now, gives us a chance to be saved. Think about your friends, family members, work colleagues, neighbours, who are destined for destruction. And if you’re a Christian, imagine if he had judged evil before you had accepted Christ? God is merciful in delaying judgement on evil, and we glorify him for that.
Secondly, He allows evil so that we see the consequences of abandoning him, so that we can turn and be saved. If life was perfect, who would ever repent and turn to God? We would not know that we had rebelled against him, and in our ignorance would eternally perish. So he allows a limited expression of evil in this world – and it is limited, because “no one is righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10) and “every inclination of every thought of the heart of man was only evil all the time” (Gen 6:5) – this world could be, and should be, much worse. God limits our evil (in fact, Revelation says that what we see is only a third of the evil we are capable of) in his mercy, allowing just enough for us to turn to him. Think about how closed people are to God here in Norway. Life is good, so they turn from God, and head for eternal damnation. Suffering can be a good thing to turn us to God. A limited amount of suffering here is a worthwhile price to pay for eternal paradise!
Thirdly, he could simply have destroyed us (humanity) immediately. Condemned us all to an eternity in hell. But he did not. Instead he became a man, a human being, lived amongst us, shared our hurts and pain, our joys and laughter, our ups and downs, revealing himself to us, the Heart of the Universe on display – in the boat, commanding the waves, on the shore teaching the people - and, supremely, on the cross, taking our place, absorbing the result of evil in his own body (propitiation), and opening the way to paradise through him. Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus identifies with us. He knows us. And through his death evil is swallowed up. In eternity, what nothings these temporary temporal sufferings! They will be turned to praise for the great God who can turn death to life, suffering to praise, and demonic destruction to glory to him.
For the demons meant to destroy the pigs in a meaningless death – but instead their deaths ring out through time to glorify Jesus!
They show his power over the unclean spirits in a visible way – you can SEE that they left the man, who now is sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and went into the pigs who rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea. This was not some psychosis or mental illness. This was spiritual.
They show the destructiveness of the unclean spirits. They immediately drive the pigs wild, and destroy them.
They show the number of the unclean spirits, and therefore again magnify the power of Jesus. He truly is the stronger man who can bind up the strong man, Satan (remember chapter 3 – only someone stronger than Satan can cast out Satan). A reminder again that Satan is no threat to God. He is not God’s enemy, but ours. And when his time is up, he will gather a vast army and come against God’s holy city – and God simply throws him and his army into the sea of fire, the place of torment. Read about it in Revelation chapter 20.
Still with me? Let me tell you a story how in my own life Jesus turned horrible sadness into great glory. Kai Sverre. Found body. Face to face with death. Smashed away everything else. Realised only thing in this life is Jesus. He was foundation - everything else chaff blown away. Horrible experience – but I am so grateful for it. Who knows where I would be now if God had no shown me how I was building my life (selfishly!)? I would probably be destined for destruction. Sometimes God’s hammer blows are painful. But they are always good.
Here we have a man in a horrible situation. Everything says that he is beyond hope. He is an unclean man, with unclean spirits, living in an unclean place (tombs were unclean: if you just touched a dead body you were unclean for 7 days), in an unclean area (Garasenes was a Gentile area), with unclean animals (Jews were not permitted to eat pork).
Nothing about this man qualified him to know God.
There was nothing good in him, nothing moral, nothing upright. Yet Jesus travels across the lake to meet him. Here was a man who “No one had the strength to subdue him” – the demons / unclean spirits were immensely strong. But Jesus is the stronger man, and with a word of command orders them to leave. 2000 powerful evil spirits, grovelling before Jesus, and obeying his commands. Who is this man, that even a legion of evil spirits obey him?
It’s a great reminder that we don’t have to reach some level of holiness before we are acceptable to God. We come, as we are, to Jesus. However you are dressed, whichever country you are from, whatever your religion or ideas about God; whether you are demon-possessed, or a liar, or gossip or adulterer or murderer or thief or pornography addict or drug abuser or wife beater; whether you are hetero- or homo-sexual – whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, you can come to Jesus. He came to seek the broken, to bind up our inner wounds and make us whole, restored, in right relationship with him and each other. By grace alone.
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar