Summary
Calming the Sea and Rocking the Boat
The bumper sticker says, "Jesus not only calmed the storm—He also rocked the boat." It is one of the better ones, because Scripture itself bears it out. The same Lord who stilled the wind and waves on the Sea of Galilee is the Lord who upended the comfortable assumptions of the religious establishment, and who still disturbs the false peace of His people today.
The familiar account in Mark 4:35–41 sets the scene. The Sea of Galilee sits 690 feet below sea level, ringed by hills and cliffs that funnel wind down onto the water and produce sudden, violent squalls. Matthew describes this storm with the Greek word seismos—the root of seismology—an earthquake of a storm. In the stern, Jesus sleeps on a cushion. He is, after all, fully human as well as fully divine: one hundred percent of each, not a blended fraction. He grows tired, He grows hungry, He sleeps. And yet when the disciples wake Him with the bitter question, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?", He rebukes the wind and says to the sea, "Peace! Be still." The result is not merely improvement but "a dead calm." This is the Lord of Psalm 65:5–7 and Psalm 89:9, who silences the roaring of the seas and stills the rising waves.
But the same Gospel of Mark shows Jesus rocking boats well before He calms one. In Mark 2:15–17 He sits at table with tax collectors and sinners, scandalizing the scribes and Pharisees, and declares that He has come not to call the righteous but sinners. In Mark 3:1–6 He heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, grieved at the hardness of heart around Him, and from that moment His enemies begin plotting His death. The One who can quiet a storm is also perfectly willing to disturb the peace of the self-righteous.
He still rocks the boat with His own people, and chiefly through His Word. The mirror of His Law exposes our sin in its full height and depth—the words spoken that did not glorify Him, the deeds done that ought never to have been done, the deeds left undone that ought to have been done. We would much rather have our ears tickled with reassurances that we are wonderful just as we are, but Jesus loves us too well for that. He tells us the truth: we are sinners who have transgressed His ways and who, left to ourselves, deserve His wrath. That exposure is itself an act of grace, because the comfortable, normalized sin we wear like a baggy shirt is precisely what He came to take from us.
He also rocks the boat by allowing the waves to hit it. In His sovereignty He never wastes a moment of suffering. The waves pull us out of self-aggrandizement and self-dependence. They humble us, reminding us that we are sheep, wholly dependent on the Shepherd, and that He is God and we are not. This is how He matures faith—moving us out of the kindergarten of trust into something deeper—chiseling us, by difficult circumstances, into the likeness of Christ.
Rembrandt's 1633 painting Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee captures the scene memorably: a torn mainsail, the boat pitched at a forty-five degree angle, disciples wrestling the rigging, one leaning over the side sick, two confronting Jesus in anger. Count the figures, however, and there are fourteen, not thirteen. The fourteenth, looking straight out of the canvas, wears Rembrandt's own face. He has painted himself onto the boat—and in doing so, he places the viewer there too. Whether Jesus is calming our storm, exposing our sin, or letting the waves break over us, the assurance is the same: the One in the boat is the One who went to the cross to bear the sin of the world, who claims us in the waters of Baptism, and who says to us, "I forgive you." Fear not His will. He is in the boat. The sticker, for once, has it right “Calming the Sea and Rocking the Boat” 7-16-23.
Video citations
- “Calming the Sea and Rocking the Boat” 7-16-23 — Let us pray together, please. Grace is Heavenly Father, we are indeed a people who buy your grace, sing the words that you are our Redeemer. Lord Jesus, we praise you for the cross and for the empty…