Even Winds & Sea Obey

I think we treat the ocean way too casually. Maybe it’s because we are accustomed to the distinction of land and sea: this is our space, that is yours. For most of us, if we interact with the ocean at all, it is playing in the fringes of it’s outermost edge… close to shore, mostly with our feet still on ground.

Scripture, however, speaks a number of times to the power of the sea, highlighting it’s subjection as one of the great acts of God:

Or who shut in the sea with doors
        when it burst out from the womb, 
    when I made clouds its garment
        and thick darkness its swaddling band, 
    and prescribed limits for it
        and set bars and doors, 
    and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
        and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? - Job 38:8-11 

    Do you not fear me? declares the LORD.
        Do you not tremble before me?
    I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea,
        a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
    though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;
        though they roar, they cannot pass over it. - Jeremiah 5:22

I grew up near the Jersey shore and spent a good deal of time body surfing and playing in the waves. For whatever reason, there was a period of about ten years where I had repeated dreams of a tidal wave coming. It was immense - hundreds of feet high, looming far above. I remember running across the beach for the thirty foot high sea wall in my dream, but being aware the wave would be going far above and beyond it.

A few years ago I was at the Outer Banks, at the ocean edge, when a woman came running past me, into the water, calling out to three teens who were on rafts and quickly moving away from the land unaware. Recognizing the trouble I swam out to them, was able to orient two guys back to shore, but the girl was struggling. I tried towing her on the raft but could make no headway. I had her swim ahead of me, while I dragged the raft behind going nowhere myself, I abandoned the raft.

(Yes, I’ve read the signs…caught in a riptide go horizontal to the shore, or let it carry you out, don’t fight it. But such is the panic of the moment.) As I swam towards the shore, I was stunned how quickly my strength was sapped. “I can’t fight this, and it is the fringes of the fingers of the ocean!”

And so we come to Mark 4:35-41, “Jesus Calms a Storm.” Mark notes that other boats were with him. Jesus being asleep on a cushion provides the setting and contrast to “a great windstorm”, waves “breaking into the boat,” and men in danger, convinced this is the end, roughly waking Jesus.

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. - Mark 4:39 

How does one do that? Where does wind even come from? What are you stopping? Each molecule of salt water, every atom of air, suddenly halts in motion in attention to the voice of their creator. Jesus did not block the wind, or make the boat unsinkable, both of which would have been impressive. He commanded creation. And then said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” No wonder that they were now “filled with great fear” and said, “Who is this?”

Reflecting back on my tidal wave dreams - somehow I never perished. Somehow I was always protected. Robin spoke Sunday on the Fear of the Lord, and how critical it is that we remain in the fear of God.

Maybe swimming in the ocean this summer can be but one reminder.