21 January 2011

21 January 2011

Psalm 31; Isa. 45:18-25; Eph. 6:1-9; Mark 4:35-41

The Lord continues to declare His supremacy and preeminence. As Dizzy Dean, the great baseball pitcher once said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.” Indeed this is not empty boasting, it is a summons for salvation. The Lord is crying out through the prophet to the world to recognize Him not simply to draw attention to His majesty but so that we might come to Him for salvation. It is His desire to be known so that we might come and receive grace and life and one way to do that is to state a claim to be the only one who can save, the only one big enough to save ultimately. If He is for us, who can be against us that would cause us fear? In the revelation of Himself He makes an appeal to us not to fear Him but to come to Him. This is the kind of God we need.

What a moment in the disciples journey this night was! The storm threatened the boat, their very lives were at stake and yet Jesus was asleep through it all. Their question was deeply ironic but they could not know it in their panic and fear, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" The entire reason He was among them was because He cared so deeply that they were perishing. His mission was life-giving. His response was to speak to the wind and tell it to stop. It was through speaking that He called all things to be and now it is revealed that He still commands the elements by His voice. Which is more frightening, the wind or the one who commands it? They do well to stop and ask, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" Maybe He is more than a teacher.

Paul commands those who are in superior-inferior relationships concerning their conduct towards one another by reminding them that those who are in superior positions to other men are themselves inferior in their relationship to the Lord. In such relationships we are called to emulate the Lord in how we treat one another. How we treat those under our care reveals much about our relationship to the Father. The way in which we respond to those who are over us in the world likewise reveals much about our relationship to the Father. Do we see Him as stern, unforgiving, a taskmaster, or do we see Him as one who guides and directs us, holding us accountable for our actions? Are we obsequious towards authority or do we truly want to please them and do those things which are “right”?

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
But of all Thy rich graces this grace, Lord, impart
Take the veil from our faces, the vile from our heart.