Why Such Fear? A Meditation on Mark 4 for the Season of Pentecost

And the same day, when the even was come,

he saith unto them,

Let us pass over unto the other side.

And when they had sent away the multitude,

they took him even as he was in the ship.

And there were also with him other little ships.

And there arose a great storm of wind,

and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow:

and they awake him, and say unto him,

Master, carest thou not that we perish?

And he arose, and rebuked the wind,

and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

And he said unto them,

Why are ye so fearful?

how is it that ye have no faith?

And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another,

What manner of man is this,

that even the wind and the sea obey him?

 

Fear is not a unique marker of our age, but it is certainly magnified in many of our communities.  There is fear of crime, of politics, of economics, of disease, of injury, of oppression, of being left behind in a technological revolution, of unidentified flying objects, of environmental disaster, of homeless encampments, of international crime syndicates, of red states and blue states, of traffic patterns, of dark money, of the dark web, of cyber terrorists, of shadow banning, of de-platforming, of volcanic eruptions, of earthquakes, of hurricanes, of Sasquatch and Chupacabra… and a thousand other things.  Fear may not be unique to us in our time and place, but we certainly have a lot of it going around, and unlike any age before ours, we seem to be really adept at spreading it.

 

Fear is not wrong of itself when properly aligned, but it is an emotion easily sent out of whack and manipulated by others.  For example, rightly ordered fear and reverence for the King of the Universe manifests in a life of trust and faith conformed to His Word and His Will.  This is a proper fear, since God alone is the Judge of all things, and the One to whom all will give an account.  He is also the only One who can forgive sins, offering life in place of death, grace in place of judgement, for the sake of His own Son’s Vicarious Atonement on the Cross in our place.  As the divine Author and Source of all Law and Gospel, He is rightly the only object of our fear, reverence, love, trust, and hope—of our living faith which transcends all created things and all occurrence of happenstance, because He alone transcends all creation, of which He is the beginning and the end.  A loving trust in God for the sake of His saving promises in Jesus results in a proper and reverent fear, while a rejection of God’s grace results in a terrible but proper fear of God’s eternal judgment.  Whether we trust and love Him, or reject and hate Him, our fear of God alone is justified.

 

But other than God, what is there to fear?  The disciples in the story above were afraid of the wind and the sea, of being drowned and lost in the darkness by the storm which rose against them.  Their fear was not without precedent—weather forecasting was not the science it is today, and many boats were swamped by surprise storms in antiquity (even today, ships are lost regularly to all sorts of climactic occurrences on the sea which are still unpredictable to our tools and analysis.)  The disciples were afraid of death at sea, and in their panic, they woke up Jesus who was asleep down below… apparently unafraid of the wind, the sea, or death.  When Jesus arose and settled everything down, He cajoled the disciples by asking why they were so afraid, and how it could be—after everything He had shown and taught them—that they had no faith?  In this moment of terror, Jesus took time not only to preserve everyone’s lives (the lives of those in the boat with Him, and all the “little boats” that the text reveals traveled with Him,) but to teach them that their fear was misplaced by their lack of faith in God.  As the wind and seas were stilled by His Word, He left them with the inescapable conclusion that Jesus really was the Son of God, the King of the Universe, and the only One to whom their fear could be rightly ordered.  This is revealed by the disciples’ and the crew’s last recorded question that night, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?

 

And that is the question which helps us reorient our fear today.  The charlatans and the malevolent of every age know that fear is useful for manipulation at both the individual and the communal level, so they distort it for their own profit or power.  Disordered fear, like any other human passion, can be used to create great havoc, and eat away at the faith and virtue which emerge from a properly ordered fear of God.  Fear is a money maker in the wrong hands, and taking just a few steps back from the rhythm of modern life will reveal how many hucksters have been trying to tap into this well of emotion for their own benefit while grinding down people to the point of despair.  To see such opportunists for what they are, quickly strips away their perceived power, and liberates both mind and body from their influence.  There is no tech oligarch worthy of our fear, just as there is no politician or bureaucrat worthy of it, either.  No gang, no camp, no journalist, no scientist, no researcher, no philosopher, no theologian, no angel, no demon, and not even the forces of nature itself are worthy of our fear.  None of these hung the stars in their places, set the course of galaxies, or fixed the laws of physics; none of them built the foundations of life in chemistry and biology; none of them created themselves or gave themselves the gift of rational thought; none of them can say they are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Only God can truly say that, and only He is worthy of our rightly ordered fear.

 

To every soul in the whole of creation, this is great and wonderful news.  For the only One to whom our fear is rightly ordered, is the One who has set our fears at ease.  The Judge has become our Savior, giving us eternal life in Him, restored to full communion and fellowship with Him forever, by His own gracious work on our behalf, in which we trust and hope by faith in Jesus.  What can possibly terrify such a child of God, whose life is secure in Him?  Should the workings of political animals, or the machinations of industrial giants, or the rising of armies, or the dereliction of mobs and gangs disquiet us anymore than the convulsions of nature?  No matter the threat which attempts to terrify a child of God, there is no one and no thing in all creation which can separate such a person from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and nothing in heaven above or hell below which can take away the eternal life given to them by the irrevocable work of Jesus upon His Cross.  Neither life nor death, nor things present nor things yet to come, as St. Paul would say, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus, nor break this sweet communion of the whole household of faith.  The earth itself is not destined to be ruled by evil, but to be inherited by those made righteous by grace through faith, a resurrection of the world in which all the forces of malignant fear are imprisoned forever, and the people of God shine forth like the stars of heaven unto all ages, because the Rock of Ages is both their foundation and their future.

 

Hear the Word of your God and King this day, that He may set your heart at ease, and dissolve your fear into a loving, trusting hope which transcends every peril of this life.  For the One who has lived, and died, and risen never to die again, comes to speak peace and forgiveness to you, that you might live in Him forever.  Hear Him as He speaks peace and stillness into the winds and storms around you, that you may answer with faith the question posed by those frightened mariners so many years ago.  Amen.