King & Friend
0 Amens
6/28/09
King & Friend
How would you enter the throne room of a king? It’s sort of an out dated question because even if we were royalty, there aren’t many kings around anymore. But think about it with me for a moment. How would you enter the throne room of a king? How would you prepare? Would you put on your best clothes? Would you just rush in or would you wait to be announced? What if that king was also your best friend? Would that change the way you behaved around him? It sure complicates matters, doesn’t it. A friend is someone you can call at any time on any day. A king is someone whom you need an appointment to see weeks ahead of time. A friend is someone you can talk to casually about almost anything. A king is someone whom you have to get to the point with because your time with him is limited. In short, your relationship with a king would normally be quite different from your relationship with a friend. So let’s take a look for the next few moments at what kind of relationship we ought to have with God… the one who is at the same time our King and our Friend. Let’s start by looking at Mark 4:35-41.
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!”
This evening’s passage starts off with nothing remarkable. Jesus asked his disciples to join him as he went across the lake in a boat. Since several of Jesus’ disciples were former fishermen, there wouldn’t have been anything unusual about this request. Several of the men had all but grown up on the water – likely having fathers who were also fishermen. Jesus had just spent a good deal of time teaching, and he was ready for some time to himself… some time to rest.
So a tired Jesus climbs into the boat for a nap, leaving the sailing in the capable hands of his disciples. It sounds like a pleasant end to a pleasant day. But the tone of the evening changed quickly when a sudden squall came up. All that was peaceful and calm was now chaos and fear – that is, at least for the disciples because Jesus was still getting some much needed rest in the rear of the boat. As the boat was being tossed this way and that, Jesus remained asleep, even while his disciples became more and more concerned.
Finally the disciples could take it no more and out of desperation they wake Jesus. What exactly did they expect Jesus to do? Probably the same thing they were doing. They probably expected him to help bail out the boat as quickly as they could in hopes of keeping it afloat. After all, what else could he do? To this point in Mark, Jesus had proven himself to be able to cast out demons. He had proven himself to be a miraculous healer. He had proven himself to be a great teacher. But surely the disciples had not yet even considered that Jesus had any power over creation… over the storms! To this point in Mark, Jesus had done many miraculous things, but no one expected Jesus, upon being awoken from his slumber, to change the circumstances they found themselves in. They merely wanted some help in ensuring that they would reach the other shore alive.
But Jesus wakes up and does what today we would expect Jesus to do, but what he did no less than shocked the disciples as they saw what happened. Jesus got up, and I can almost imagine one of the disciples was handing him a bucket when he said to the wind and the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” I would have loved to have been able to see the disciples’ reactions right about then. They must have wondered if Jesus was fully awake yet. What was he doing telling the waves the wind to be…?! But wait. No sooner had Jesus uttered those words than something started to happen. The wind… it was calming! The waves… they were subsiding! Could it be that Jesus had just ended the storm with a few simple words? It couldn’t have been coincidence because only moments earlier the storm was showing absolutely no sign of stopping. What had they just experienced? Their friend and teacher had just calmed the storm.
Do you think their minds flashed to the story of creation – to Genesis when God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.”
Or maybe they remembered the story of Moses in Exodus when Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
Whatever came to mind, it must have struck them almost instantly. Only God has the power to command the wind and the waves, and if Jesus had just done what it looked like he just did, then he must be none other than God himself. And at that thought, they were terrified! They were in the very presence of God!
Jesus, though, obviously isn’t surprised that the wind and waves obeyed him. He wasn’t surprised by his power as God. What surprised Jesus was that the disciples were afraid at what had just happened. He says, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” For a long time I had assumed that what Jesus was saying here was, “Why are you so afraid of the storm? Do you still have no faith that I am able to keep you safe?” But the timeline of this story doesn’t seem to support this interpretation. While my original interpretation of this passage is certainly possible, there seems to me to be a more likely interpretation.
Notice the storm has already been calmed, and Jesus says, in present tense, “Why are you so afraid?” If the fear Jesus was speaking of was of the storm, he could have used past tense, because the storm had already calmed. But he uses present tense, implying that the fear they are experiencing now is from something other than the storm. The fishermen must have been scared by the sea before, but the literal translation for terrified in our Bibles is “feared a great fear.” I can almost imagine it was the kind of fear that takes the color out of your face and makes your hands tingle. They were TERRIFIED!
So what are the disciples so scared of now that the storm has been calmed? Well, Jesus’ next question suggests the answer to that. “Do you still have no faith?” What is it that the disciple’s still lack faith in? Could it be that they lack faith – or at least very recently lacked faith – that Jesus was God. Does their fear stem from the sudden realization that they are in the presence of God himself?
The Old Testament (the scriptures the Disciples would have been familiar with) says we are to “fear the Lord” no less than 63 times. Being in the presence of God was not something to be taken lightly. Even seeing God was a serious matter. In the Good News translation of Genesis 16:13 Hagar asks herself, “Have I really seen God and lived to tell about it?” Or in Exodus 33. Moses was told by God, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” Reverence was required in the presence of God, and the disciples memories must have shot back trying to think of times when they had been less that reverent in the presence of Jesus… less than fearful of the power he possessed.
They had seen Jesus heal the sick… cast out demons… teach with great wisdom, but none of this was enough to convince them that Jesus was God. But now… now that they had seen that Jesus can do what only God can do, they are terrified. They don’t know what to make of all that is going on. They even question if they really know the Jesus they thought they knew. They ask, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.” They ask who it is even as they begin to have faith, believing that it is who they fear it may be, God himself.
We don’t need to tip-toe around Jesus with fear and trepidation, though, as if Jesus is looking for the slightest slip up to beat us down. This is probably shown most clearly in John 15:15. “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” In Jesus something changed. It’s not that respect and reverence for God aren’t still appropriate. Such a response is always appropriate for the creator of the universe. But because of Jesus and his cleansing work of salvation we now have an intimacy with God that we could not otherwise have.
Anytime we come before God in prayer or in times of praise and worship, we ought to be grateful for the wonderful privilege we have to come to God in this way. There are times when it is appropriate to approach God as King, but there are also times when we can approach him as friend. The Psalms exemplify for us many of the ways we can approach God. Let’s look at a few of them to see what we can learn from them.
Psalm 4 starts, “ Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.” This may not be the way we would think of addressing a king, but the psalmist is free to demand that God answer his call. Notice it’s not irreverent, but at the same time it doesn’t beat around the bush. The Psalmist knows that God has promised to hear his prayer and is reminding him of that as he demands that God hear his prayer.
Psalm 5 starts off similar, but not the same, as psalm 4. “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. 2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. 3 In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” Here the Psalmist is not so much demanding anything of God but rather pleading to God. “Consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help.” You can tell the psalmist is desperate and looking to God for answers. He continues later in the Psalm, “ But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple.” There again we see the reverence that is appropriate in the presence of God
Psalm 6 is another plea. “1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.” But this time the plea is for the mercy of God. Reverance is shown in the opening of this Psalm by recognizing that God has the power and prerogative to rebuke and discipline him, but he pleads for God’s mercy.
Psalm 7 opens with a confession of the power of God. “1 O Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, 2 or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.” The beginning of this Psalm is the Psalmist admitting that the he can not save himself. He needs the power of God to save and protect him from those who wish to do him harm.
Psalm 8 starts with what the Psalms are probably known best for – praising God. “1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place.” We can always come into God’s presence with praise. God alone is worthy of praise and he delights in the praise of his people. We can always use the words of the Psalms to praise God, or create our own personal praise for God. Either way the Lord God loves it when we praise his name.
One final Psalm for this evening is the introduction to Psalm 10. “1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” If we could only approach God as King, it would seem to be highly inappropriate to come before him questioning his ways. The King is free to do whatever he pleases. And while God is also free to do whatever he pleases, that does not restrict us from asking questions when we don’t understand why what is happening is happening. God invites our questions because he knows our hearts.
The Psalms are full any number of appropriate ways to approach God, whether it be in prayer or song or worship. So what about the storms in our lives? When a sickness comes up… Or we lose a job… Or we have a serious fight with someone close to us… Or we’re betrayed by a loved one… Or any number of other possible storms. Are we like the disciples trying to bail themselves out, turning to Jesus only as a last resort? Then, when Jesus hears our pleas, are we shocked when he does something about them? Or do walk day in and day out with Jesus as not only our King and Savior, but also our friend?
Some day, we’ll not only walk by Jesus’ side in spirit, but we’ll walk by his side face to face. What will that day be like? What will it be like to be in the presence of the one who not only created us, but also died in our place so that we can spend eternity in heaven with our Lord and Savior.
I had a hard time writing this evening’s message. It just had a hard time coming together. And I can’t help but think that at least one reason for that is because there are so many biblical, appropriate ways to approach God. It seems to me that the common thread that runs through every biblical way is that it shows respect and reverence for God as God, but beyond that there are so many ways. (We never even got to II Samuel 6 when David danced before the Lord in little more than his underwear, but that’s probably just as well J) So what will it be like when we meet him face to face? I don’t know. But I’d like to close this evening with the lyrics of a contemporary Christian song by Mercy Me entitled “I Can only Imagine”.
I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk
By your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When your face
Is before me
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
[Chorus:]
Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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