Grace For Your Day June 3

So far, in our studies in the Gospel of Mark, we have seen several miracles in the life of Christ. A short list would include:
You get the picture. As you can see, the vast majority of Jesus’ miracles revolved around the issue of healing. Since Christ was a man of compassion, He was continually showing mercy to those who were in need. However, in the next episode in the Gospel of Mark, the Lord performs a different kind of miracle. Mark 4:35-41 says:

On that day, when evening came, He said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. Jesus Himself 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?”

And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

You can tell how unusual this miracle was because, unlike His previous ones, the Lord did not heal a person. Rather, He commanded the forces of nature to obey Him. He told the Sea of Galilee to “be still” and it submitted to His will which stunned the disciples because they had seen Jesus do miracles before but not like this. In this one, He controlled a storm on the same body of water that many of them had spent their entire lives fishing on.

The question is: Why? What caused Jesus to do this feat of strength? Scholars have given several answers to that question but the most popular one is that Jesus did it to prove His deity. This miracle gave irrefutable proof that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all creation.

John 1:3 says, “All things came into being through Him.” Hebrews 1:3 says, “He upholds all things by the word of His power.” Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” All of those passages ring true in Mark’s portrayal of this event as it puts Christ’s divine nature on display in a clear and unforgettable way which is what we are going to talk about this week at Grace Fellowship Church.

This week, we are going to look at the story of Jesus calming the sea in order to study the next miracle that He does in the Gospel of Mark. It is one that many of us have read before but that should not take away from the shock and awe of it because that is the impact it had on the all those who saw it. They were shocked. When they saw Jesus do this, they said “Who then is this” (verse 41)?

Have you ever done that before? When you read the Bible, have you ever put it down for a moment and said “Who is this?” You should because there is no one like Jesus. You can search the world and back again and you will never find anyone like Him because He is the one who rules the universe.

Please join us as we talk about that on Sunday morning. The service will begin at 9:30 and it will be recorded and posted on You Tube later that day for all those who cannot make it in person.

– Jeremy Cagle