Boxed in.

“And Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm…And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’”

Mark 4:39,41

The disciples were in trouble. They were in the middle of the sea, and they were scared. No one can blame them – they had good reason to be afraid. After all, they were faced with a fearsome storm – the sort of storm that compels you to take an honest look at your own mortality.

That was the fear of the disciples, but what about you? What are you afraid of this Wednesday?

As the disciples battled the storm, they quickly realized that they were powerless. And what’s worse – their Rabbi was sleeping. The storm raged – the storm that would likely take their lives, and there was Jesus – sleeping. They could have used another man to handle the sails, another man to grapple with the rigging, another man to wrestle with the rudder, another man to help bail out the boat – but no, Jesus was taking a nap. Incredulous at the apathy of Christ, the disciples call out, “Um…Jesus!? We hate to wake you, but as you can see, we’re kinda dying over here…do you mind giving us a hand?”

Jesus woke and rebuked the gale and commanded the sea. Like he was speaking to a rambunctiously disobedient child – Jesus gave orders to wind and waves. “Shh. Be quiet.” Of course, they obeyed. Jesus didn’t even need to count to three – the wind and waves obeyed Him the instant He gave the command.

The wind and waves stopped. The danger was gone. And all was well in Galilee. And all is well for us. The point of the story seems clear and neat and predictable. Jesus has taught the twelve an important lesson that will help them as they move forward in their lives of discipleship. They have been taught that when Jesus is in your boat, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It seems like this is a reasonable conclusion and summary of what this story is all about. The story teaches the twelve to trust Jesus and not to worry. It’s the obvious lesson, isn’t it?

And with very little effort, we are then able to transport the same relevant lesson forward 2,000 years into the world of 2022. You see, this story seems to be nothing more or less than a grand allegory that speaks comfort into our lives. We conclude that when Jesus is in your boat, when He is in your life, you’ve got nothing to worry about. When Jesus is in your boat, you have nothing to fear – after all, Jesus is there to make the storms go away. And so, with our comfortable, cozy, conclusions firmly re-established, it seems that we’re finished with the text.

But there’s more.

The story doesn’t end with giddy disciples laughing at their past fears. No one is giving Jesus an enthusiastic high five for His sensational, storm-calming skills. No. The story ends with the disciples standing there, soaked, breathless, trembling, hearts still pounding, and eyes wide open staring at their rabbi. The Greek is crystal clear – before the disciples were simply worried about the storm, but now that the storm had been calmed, the disciples were fearing a great fear. Not respect. Not awe. Terror.

The disciples were terrified because everything they thought they knew about God – was slowly being undone and rewritten by Jesus. Before, the disciples would have laughed at the thought of standing in the presence of God, and yet here He was standing in front of them. Before, the disciples would have scoffed at the idea of an almighty, omnipotent, transcendent God becoming limited by the creation, and yet here He was walking around in the body of a man. The disciples thought they knew what it meant for God to be God – they thought that they had Him all figured out. They had God nicely wrapped up in a comfortable, unassuming, distant box that could be easily managed and understood. But Jesus – Jesus was breaking all the rules. As their conception of God’s identity began to unravel, so did their state of mind. They were terrified because God left the box. In the person of Christ, God wasn’t playing by the rules. The disciples were powerless in the presence of the wild, unwieldy, autonomous God-man, Jesus Christ.

To some degree, we are all guilty of putting God in a box. We are all guilty of adopting a view of God that is tailor-made to meet our own individualized specifications and desires. We are inclined to worship a God who comes to us on our terms, satisfying our needs, and catering to our interests. And if our God box fails to live up to our expectations? Well, then we simply return the product. After all, my God box is there to serve me, not the other way around.

There, on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples’ God box becomes undone. Their assumptions about who God was were forced to bend to the reality of the God-man standing in the boat with them. There, in the boat, the disciples were forced into a passive receptivity of God’s revelation. They were forced to learn directly from God about what sort of God He is, not the other way around. No preconceived notions about what God can and cannot do were allowed to survive the storm on Galilee’s sea.

When we read this story, we, along with the disciples have our God boxes turned upside down. Jesus did not come to be the messiah the disciples thought He would be – a savior who would put an end to Roman tyranny. Jesus did not come to be the messiah we often wish He would be – a savior who puts an end to the storms in our lives. Jesus’ incarnation doesn’t accomplish that – at least not right away. Jesus came to demonstrate that no one, NO ONE can limit what God can or cannot do by putting Him in a box.

Only God can put Himself in a box – and that is exactly what He did.

Four cold, dank, unyielding walls of a tomb contained the almighty, the omnipotent, Yahweh Elohim. The king of all creation put Himself in a box unfit for an earthly king. And by doing that, God rewrote the world’s understanding of what it meant for God to be God.

Jesus did not come to rule over the earth from a throne in Palestine; Jesus did not come to fill some void or felt need in our lives – Jesus did not come to be the God we expected Him to be, the God who fits nicely within our own ideas of what it means to be God. No, Jesus came to die.

He died and He rose in order that you might have life forever. Jesus died, Jesus rose, and Jesus is coming back for you. He’s coming back in order that you too, along with the disciples, might touch the holes in His hands – the tear in His side – and know for eternity how much He loves you.