That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 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?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They were terrified and asked each other, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!’
Mark 4:35-41 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/mrk.4.35-41.NIVUK
I wonder if you have ever heard the phrase ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’.
It refers to a situation where you realise that you are taking a risk. So you move to a different situation, which just seems to be even riskier.
Jesus knew all about that. He knows exactly how it feels. He spent three years of His ministry with a man who would later betray Him for the price of a female slave (John 6:71, 12:4). Even in His home town, where you would imagine He would feel safe, secure and at home, there were those who sought to kill Him (Luke 4:29). He constantly faced the many-headed threats of a restive Jewish population, a Jewish leadership who saw Him as a danger to their religion and a Roman leadership who could not allow anyone to claim to be greater than Caesar.
This was not a fun time to be a Messiah.
The moment we are discussing is a classic example of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’, where Jesus took care of one serious risk, only to be met with another, and, later on, a further risk, and then one after that.
But while Jesus is facing off these risks to His own safety, we can see three contemporary risks that we all face on a regular basis. How Jesus handles the peculiarities of His situation has much to teach us about how we should handle the peculiarities of our modern life.
This often overlooked event in the life of Jesus, sandwiched between some of His greatest and well-known teaching and an outstanding miracle, has much to say about our situation.
More to the point, as we look into these verses we will see that what drove Jesus to cross Lake Galilee was not a wind or the waves, but a purpose – a purpose that led Him to walk away from a burgeoning ministry to reach out to one solitary man, and a demoniac at that.
We will see that what matters most for us is not our status but our purpose.
We will start with the first danger, which, for many of us, doesn’t seem like a danger at all: the danger of POPULARITY.
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