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Building One Another


E. Stanley Ott

DEAD CALM-LIVE GOD Vol 13 No 5

March 25, 2014

Dear Friend,

One day Jesus taught until evening and then stepped into the boat with his disciples, saying, "Let’s go to the other side (of the Sea of Galilee)." He was exhausted and promptly fell asleep. 

A terrible storm came upon them and as Mark described it, "The waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped." They woke Jesus up saying, "Don’t you care that we are dying?" Jesus rebuked the wind and the wind ended.

If that was the whole story, people could contend it teaches that Jesus is Lord of all creation, but then others would argue it could have been pure coincidence that the wind died down just as Jesus rebuked it. 

It’s the next phrase that changes everything. Jesus said to the sea, “Peace! Be still and there was dead calm!”   

To understand the significance of this you have to know a little physics. There is tremendous energy that is stored in giant waves as they roll and roil. When the wind dies down, the energy in the waves keeps the waves thrashing around for a long time.

For crashing waves to become immediately a “dead calm” is totally unnatural. It happened because Jesus spoke with power of the actual infinite, almighty creator God of the universe. 

It was a real miracle and they knew it. “And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” Mark 4:41

“I sing the mighty pow’r of God.”  Join me!

With joy - E. Stanley Ott
Copyright 2014 E. Stanley Ott
*Scripture from the NRSV