27 January 2024 Mark 4:35-41
“Put a sock in it!” That’s how Jesus spoke to the storm.
Modern English translations of the Bible are a good bit more polite than Jesus was. The verb usually translated “Be still!” comes from the Greek term for a muzzle. Jesus spoke to the storm the way, and with the very words he spoke to evil spirits:
“Put a sock in it!” That’s how Jesus spoke to the storm.
In the Old Testament the sea is often viewed as the habitation of demons: “Leviathan, the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1). It is not going too far to suppose that Jesus saw demonic powers at work in the storm that threatened to keep them from reaching the far side of the Sea of Galilee, and he rebuked the storm with the authority identical to that by which he exorcized devils in people. The result was not just any old kind of calm, but a dead calm, a sea like glass. The English translation is too modest: “There was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).
Jesus’ destination that evening was the east side of the Sea of Galilee, which was a predominantly Gentile area. This is the first time in Mark’s gospel that Jesus and the disciples venture outside Jewish territory, prefiguring the gentile mission that would begin in the book of Acts. The disciples had no way of knowing this, of course, but the staggering majority of Christians today, the staggering majority of the Christians there have ever been, got their Christian belief from the converts of the gentile mission. Christianity today is the only world religious tradition that has penetrated deep into every culture, every continent of the world. The whole Bible has been translated into 736 different languages; the New Testament has been translated into 1658 more; smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1264 more (cf. Wycliffe Global Alliance). It all started on the water that night. Small wonder, then, that the devil tried to disrupt that evening voyage across the Sea of Galilee. Smaller wonder still that Jesus told the devil to shut up and get lost.
“Put a sock in it!”
At the height of the storm the disciples woke Jesus up, and for the first time in Mark’s gospel addressed Him as Teacher: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” After the storm was calmed and the disciples scolded – “Did you really think I was not going to let us get to the other side, faithless nincompoops?” – the twelve realized that just “Teacher” was the wrong word, but what the right word was they didn’t yet know: “Who then is this, whom even the wind and the sea obey?” (4:41).
Jesus calming the storm is the only New Testament story where God demonstrates His sovereignty over the weather. In the Old Testament there are many more, and the meteorological phenomenon most common among the Israelites was clouds. God spoke to Moses in a cloud. God led the Israelites by day in the Exodus as a pillar of cloud. At night, however, He led them as a pillar of fire. He still does. At night, when the storm is howling and it seems like all is lost, He is present, not just as fire, but as the light by which we see everything else, and while the wind is in our ears He assures us still that He will accomplish every single thing He said: “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).
And if we listen carefully, we will still hear Him rebuking the devils in the wind:
“Put a sock in it!”
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