Mark 4:35-41: The Importance of Fear in Our Lives

INTRODUCTION

We read this story in Mark 4:35-41:

On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them…

And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”

And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! be still!”

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

He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

It must have been quite a storm. We know that at least four of the disciples were fishermen and would have been experienced with storms at sea. But even they were afraid in this one.

But I find their words curious. They wake Jesus with the words, “Don’t you care if we perish?”

We know from the rest of the story that they didn’t expect Jesus to quiet the storm. So their words, “Don’t you care…,” must mean, “Why don’t you wake up to be afraid with us?”

But even more puzzling are Jesus’s words, “Why are you afraid?” Was Jesus really surprised that they were afraid? I would have been afraid too, even with Jesus in the boat.

I chose this story because I wanted to talk about the importance of fear in our lives. There is good fear and there is bad fear, and we see both kinds of fear in this story.

I. The first “fear” is bad fear.

A. Jesus says, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

I don’t think Jesus was scolding his disciples. It was a gentle rebuke. He was teaching them—and us—an important lesson about trust. With Jesus in our lives we don’t need to fear as other people fear.

B. Here is an important verse from 1 Peter (3:14): “Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts, sanctify Christ as Lord.”

St. Peter is contrasting the fears of a believer in Christ with the fears of those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord.

Unbelievers and believers have different fears. Thoughtful people without Christ live in dread of sickness, pain, poverty, loneliness, old age, and—especially—death.

Even with Jesus as our Savior, those things will still disturb us, but they won’t be the things we fear most. What we fear most is drifting away from God.

We know that even death is, for us, the entrance into life eternal.

When Peter says, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,” he uses the word “sanctify” for the idea of the holy fear that puts all other fears into perspective. Proper fear of Jesus Christ should fill my heart with such awe that the lesser fears are driven out.

II. That brings us to the second kind of fear we find in our story of the storm on the lake. We read, “And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?’”

A. When the disciples experienced God’s power, “they were filled with awe.” Another version says, “They were terrified!” The word translated “awe” or “terrified” is simply the common Greek word for fear, which is phobos. Our word “phobia” comes from this Greek word. You’ve heard of “claustrophobia,” which is the fear of close spaces.

This word for fear in Greek has a wider meaning than just being scared. We see from this story that there is a bad kind of fear and there is a good kind of fear.

Jesus thought that they should have had enough trust with him in the boat with them that they wouldn’t have been so frightened—that’s the bad kind of fear.

The good kind of “fear” is the “awe” they felt after seeing the manifestation of God’s power as Jesus quieted the storm—the overwhelming revelation that the Great God was with them in the boat.

What happened this day was a step forward in their understanding of who Jesus is and in their confidence in him as “Immanuel”—God with us.

This is a lesson we all need to learn.

God is love, but God is Great. God’s love isn’t sentimental; it isn’t mushy. It includes a healthy kind of fear—that includes awe, reverence, worship, confidence, thankfulness, and the excitement of having Jesus in our lives.

B. Knowing the greatness of God in their Lord Jesus was leading them to an assurance of God’s power, holiness, and love.

It would make them in the end fearless witnesses—faithful even unto death.

It is good to be overwhelmed by God’s power and holiness.

My desire to know the greatness of God should be greater than my desire to feel comfortable with him. I wish I had more of a sense of the awesomeness of God.

C. In her memoir, The Water Will Hold You, Lindsay Crittenden tells of her journey from unbelief to faith and God. She writes—

“As with most of us, conversion didn’t mean an end to my problems. One day at a retreat I was sitting alone on the top of a hillside. The breeze was blowing in the grass and I was feeling the burden of my life when a voice said, ‘I love you.’

“No one was around and the voice had been clear and precise. At the sound of that voice, every tension in my body released and I felt as though I might slide into the warm earth. Then the sensation vanished and I was terrified.

“I told my pastor about the voice and how it filled me with bliss, but only for a second. I said, ‘It scared me. It felt like God’s voice. It had to be. But how can a God of love fill me with fear? How can a statement of love make me so scared?’”

“My pastor replied, ‘Oh, my dear girl. How can it not?’”

If we are close enough to God, his very presence with us will fill us with holy fear.

CONCLUSION

The best description of holy fear I have comes from the children’s book, The Wind in the Willows.

     

The Wind in the Willows is the story of the adventures of five animals who are best friends—Rat, Mole, Otter, Badger, and Toad. It is a favorite story of both children and adults because the five little animals are so much like us that we can see ourselves in them.

In one of the adventures in the story Ratty and Mole are facing a crisis. Their friend Otter’s child, little Portly, has gone missing. He’s been missing for several days and Ratty and Mole are terribly worried for their friend. So Ratty and Mole set out to look for the little otter.

It is nighttime, and they are rowing their boat down the river in the eerie stillness, when Ratty hears soft the piping of a flute. He whispers, “Here in this holy place. Here, if any place, surely we shall find him.”

Then suddenly, the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground.

It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty, he turned to look for his friend, and saw Ratty at his side, cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous, bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew.”

Trembling, they looked up and saw the great god Pan playing his pipes. (Pan, you may remember has a man’s body, but a goat’s legs and hooves.) Pan’s kindly eyes are looking down on them. Pan set aside his pipes, and they saw, nesting between Pan’s hooves, sleeping soundly in peace and contentment, the little otter, Portly.

“Rat!” Mole said, “Are you afraid?”

“’Afraid? Afraid of him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O Mole, I am afraid!”

“And then the two animals crouching to the earth bowed their heads and did worship.”

A hymn writer captures this feeling of fear and love in this hymn by the Catholic poet, F. W. Faber:

How wonderful, how beautiful,

The sight of Thee must be;

Thy endless wisdom, boundless power.

And awful purity!

O how I fear Thee, living God,

With deepest, tenderest fears,

And worship Thee with trembling hope

and penitential tears!

But I may love Thee, too, O Lord,

Almighty as Thou art;

For Thou hast stooped to ask of me

The love of my poor heart.