King’s Cross 5

Tim Keller’s newest book, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, examines big questions through the Gospel of Mark. He sees an unfolding of who Jesus is in the Gospel of Mark, and though Mark 1:1 gives us all the clues we need — and the full perspective — Keller’s point is dead-on: Mark’s Gospel unfolds a picture of Jesus.

What do you see in the stilling of the storm?

One of the more potent stories about Jesus in the Gospels, and a story that can only be accepted as total fabrication or as a powerful miracle story,  is Jesus’ calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Mark 4:35-41. (The text is after the jump.)

“To a hurricane, Jesus simply says Quiet! Be still! — just as you would talk to an unruly child…. the storm obeyed like a compliant child” (51).

The sea was for that time an ungovernable force. He observes the disciples’ responses: “Before Jesus calms the storm, they’re afraid — but after Jesus calms the storm, they’re terrified! Why?” “Because Jesus was an unmanageable as the storm itself” (53, 54). The storm is indifferent; Jesus “is filled with ‘untamable’ love for you” (54).

He allegorizes too much for me at one spot, but it’s clever. There are many parallels between this story and Jonah — storm, sleeping, etc. But they threw Jonah over the sides and into the sea, while Jesus wasn’t tossed into the sea … and Keller asks Or did they? And he suggests they do — into the cross. Well, that’s a clever difference between Jonah and Mark 4, but it is far too subtle for me to see in the text.

Big point: Jesus not only has power, but he is power.

³⁵ That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”