18 Jan

JUNE 24, 2018   MARK 4:35-41   C & Z   “ARRR….THERE BE MONSTERS!”

One of the things that I really enjoy about preparing for each Sunday is when I discover messages that are hidden right under my nose.  One of the first things that come to my mind is the feeding of the 5000 and 4000 people.  This had to be quite an undertaking even with Jesus directing everything.  They not only fed all these people but there were leftovers.  But if you look at this, Jesus isn’t really talking about physical hunger at all.  One of the lessons of this story is that Jesus takes care of all your spiritual needs with much, much to spare.  Our critics, in other words Satan, want us to believe that this never happened but it was only an illustration to make the point about our needs.  Don’t fall for this.  This is exactly what they are doing as they are trying to ruin the United Methodist Church.  They use misdirection.  As far as I know all these things happened exactly the way they are presented in the Bible.  The authors are very good at pointing out the parables and stories.  This one wasn’t prefaced as a story or parable.  Therefore these people were fed physical food which can also point to our spiritual food.  Jesus was the master of language and stories.  After all, He invented them.  Today we are going to look at a very famous passage in Mark.  Jesus calms the storm.  This really happened so let’s take a look at some of the meanings we might get from this.

I would like to begin today by referencing an old movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean” from Pastor Jeff Strite. If you remember this was a set of 3 movies dealing with Captain Jack Sparrow and his band of pirates.  In the first movie the evil captain of “The Black Pearl” turned to another character and said: “Arhhh….there be monsters.”  This isn’t an original line from the movie as it has been around for years.  So the question is why would any pirate or anyone else for that matter say something like this?

To answer this we go to the British Museum in London where there is an old mariner’s chart that was drawn in the year 1525 of the North American coastline.  The map was made from information gleaned from the sailors of the day.  There were notations where reefs might be and where the best harbors could be found.  But there were certain sections that were relatively blank.  In these sections were written things like ‘Here be giants!’ ‘Here be fiery scorpions!’  ‘Here be dragons!’  In other words ‘Here be monsters!’  Ever since man has gone on the water with boats, seafarers have always been just a little afraid of the unknown, the unseen and the uncontrollable.  They felt fear.

This is what we have in today’s reading.  The disciples are afraid of this storm.  Some of the disciples were experienced sailors as they had made their living by fishing on the Sea of Galilee.  I’m sure that they had seen their share of bad weather and I’m sure that this was a bad storm if they are afraid.  I’m thinking that the disciples had every reason to be afraid.

They had far more reason to be afraid than they thought and even what we think.  Over the years we have tried our best to sanitize the Bible.  What I mean by this is that is that words in English don’t exactly mean what they were talking about in the ancient language that was written.  The word love comes to mind for me as we only have one word and they had several.  Servant is another where we think of someone who serves and they meant someone whose whole existence relied on serving the every little need of the other person, like refilling a coffee cup after one sip.  Anyway, many words are like that and we have decided in our infinite wisdom that we would use the meaning that is least offensive.  Go figure!

Anyway, Jesus has been ministering and is tired.  They decide to go to the other side of the lake.  There were several boats involved with this.  We have to ask ourselves the question, ‘what is on the other side of the lake?’  Jesus knows that Satan is lurking there in the form of Legion.  He is about to do one of His biggest miracles as He casts out the demons from Legion and sends them into the pigs who drown themselves in the lake.  Up to this point Satan has total control of the other side of the lake.  Some call this side the wilderness.

Are you with me so far?  Satan is in control over here and here comes Jesus to turn everything there upside down.  Satan knows Jesus is coming along with all the disciples.  He decides that he can get rid of all of these people with a tremendous windstorm.  We often forget just how powerful Satan is.  He can do most of the things that Jesus can do except he cannot read our minds.  We know the storm was of absolute epic proportions by the original language that was used.  And it wasn’t rain but just wind.  We watered this passage down to make it sound like it was just a little storm.  I believe that one Bible version calls it a squall.  This was no squall.  This was huge and there were no signs that it was coming that we know about and Jesus came along just as He was.  He made no preparations for anything special.  This is another time where Satan is trying to get rid of Jesus and the disciples.  In one fell swoop he could get rid of the whole bunch of them and all his troubles would be over.

Let’s take a look at our own lives for a moment.  Do you have storms that are the worst you have ever seen?  You may be in one now or you may have just come through something.  We all have storms.  I think that as I get older, I find that the storms don’t seem as big as I did when I was younger and that is only because I have seen so many storms in other people’s lives that mine don’t seem as big.  However, this may also be because I’m not in a storm right at this moment.

Now I have also found my peace in Jesus Christ.  If you are not a Christian, this doesn’t make any sense.  Since I came to Christ some 25+ years ago, I have been much calmer in the face of the storms of my life.  Jesus has made many promises to me and you and He keeps them.  He will always be there to help.  I have found that just by having Him in my life, I have a certain amount of peace that I never had before.  Therefore if you don’t know Jesus, then confess, repent and make Him Lord and Savior of your life.  You will never regret this and it will be the best thing you have ever done.  This is the only way to achieve the kind of peace that Jesus talks about, a peace that transcends anything else!

I also know that many of you love Jesus and that is a great thing.  I would almost be willing to bet that many of you don’t recognize Satan when he attacks.  We like to blame things.  We blame not having enough money or being too old or too young or not having experience.  We have a thousand excuses as to why something bad has happened in our life.  We will even try to blame God for these things before we even think about putting the blame where it belongs.  It belongs right at Satan’s feet.  He is the culprit and not God.  Remember that.  God isn’t in the business of making bad things happen.  He only wants what is good for you.

As I said Jesus had been working hard as had the disciples.  They decide to go to the other side of the lake.  The storm comes up and the disciples figure they are in trouble.  And Jesus was asleep in the boat.  He is not about to let some silly little wind storm keep Him from what He must do.  Keep this in mind, we like to think of what we have to do is important and we define what is important in worldly terms.  So everyone thinks that what is important for Jesus is to get to the other side of this lake and minister to more people.  However, I think that was the last thing on His mind at the moment.  He also wasn’t thinking of the storm.  He was thinking that He was going to have to show the disciples a lesson.  This is a storm that came from nowhere and it will end up nowhere.

The disciples get all excited as the storm is as bad as they had ever seen.  They come to Jesus and ask Him if He even cares that they are about to die.  They are trying to blame Jesus.  Let’s just stop here for a moment.  Last week I made the statement that I find a lot of people I meet think that their life is the toughest in the world.   I’m sure you have met them also.  If you have one disease, they have three.  If you are in financial trouble, they invented financial trouble.  If you have one child in trouble, their whole family is far worse.  What I’m trying to say here is that we sometimes get totally caught up in our own lives and we forget that others are in the same boat so to speak.  We all have it tough but we don’t all have it tough at the same time.  We should praise the Lord for that.

So Jesus asks “Why are you so afraid?  Do still have no faith?”  It almost sounds like Jesus is rebuking the disciples but I don’t think He is.  I think that He is pointing out that He is in charge all the time.  He is in charge when He seems so be sleeping.  He is in charge when we feel that He isn’t even around.  He is in charge of everything, everywhere at every minute.  This is something that you need to embed in your mind because at times it will be the only thing that gets you through.

Who do you blame for your misfortunes?  Who is responsible for you losing all that money?  Who is responsible for our families that break apart?  Who is responsible for your business failures?  Finally, who is responsible for this terrible wind storm that came out of nowhere?  The answer to these and all similar questions is Satan.  The devil owns this world and we refuse to give him the credit for trying to destroy just about all we have.  That is what we are trying to talk about today.  Quit blaming God for things just because you can’t get your own way.  You should be praising the Lord that you can’t have your way because your way is usually wrong in God’s eyes.  Quit blaming God for every little thing that is wrong in your life and start to shoulder some responsibility yourself as you blame the devil for your down turns in life.  I’m sure you won’t have to look very far to discover that it was your wrong decisions that caused your troubles.  And guess who talked you into these bad decisions.  He is laughing at you right now.  He is an evil monster that needs to be out of your life.

Now some of you may disagree with me that the devil caused this storm and that is ok because no matter if he did or if it was just a freak storm, the bottom line is the same.  Who is there to rescue you when bad things happen?  Jesus.  He is always there and we have to learn to rely on Him more and more.  He can even help you from making the dumb decision that caused you to go into this storm in your life.  What I mean is that if you go to Him before you make any decision then He will help you make the right one.

People this storm was no accident.  Jesus knew it was coming because He knows all things.  This was a storm where the disciples had every reason to be afraid.  Jesus tells us that it is ok to be afraid.  The Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  So don’t be afraid to be afraid.  That is not the point of this passage.  The point is to know where to go when you are afraid.

Remember that Jesus got up and told the wind and the waves to be quiet and be still!  The miracle is that they did as they were commanded.  This had to be near the beginning of His ministry because the disciples aren’t really used to His power.  They are terrified again and ask each other, “Who is this?  Even the wind and the waves obey Him!”  Satan may have caused this but Jesus trumped Him as His power is unending.  The disciples go from being afraid for their lives in a storm to being afraid when they realize the power that Jesus has.  They don’t yet realize that Jesus will never use this awesome power against them.  He will only use this power to do good.

That is what we have to remember in our lives.  Jesus does good.  The devil does bad.  Jesus good, devil bad!  Evil will never win the war because Jesus has already done that.  So when the bad things, Satan, come upon you be sure to grab ahold of the right person to follow.  That person is Jesus Christ.  He loves you and He will use His massive power. This is a power we cannot even begin to imagine.  He will use this massive power to calm your storms.  If that doesn’t comfort you, I don’t know what will.

I would like to wrap this up with the rest of the story that I began at the opening of this sermon about the ancient map of our East Coast that was in the British museum in London.  Before the map came to finally rest at the museum it was the prized possession of British explorer Sir John Franklin in the 1800’s.  This is like 300 years after it was made.  So this was a very valuable map when Sir John had it.  However, he was so offended by the fear of the ancient mariners that was shown on the map that he scratched out the various inscriptions that had once read:  “Here be giants!  Here be fiery scorpions!  Here be dragons!”  Instead he wrote these words across the entire map: Here is God!

We live in fear all the time.  It is real and it can be everywhere or anywhere.  It can play a small part of our lives or a large part but it’s always there in the foreground or the background.  So please remember that God is written everywhere on our maps and God can be written over all the fear in our lives.  When God is in charge of your life you need not fear things of this world any more.  He has conquered all and the best part is God has given us Jesus Christ.  Now that is a gift that cannot be beat.  Arrr, there be God!  Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.