Confronting Holiness: The Fear and Cost of Jesus

Have you ever noticed something that I at least find strange about people who are not professing Christians? That they sometimes are very hostile towards Christians and hostile to the church, but you almost never hear them say unkind things about Jesus. They are not willing to affirm his deity or that he is the savior of the world, but they will usually say that he was a great prophet or a great teacher or a great man. [00:00:06]

And people are so kind in their assessment of the historical Jesus that it makes me wonder what it was about him that so infuriated many of his contemporaries that they actually clamored for his blood and of course they executed him. So as nice as we are about Jesus from a safe distance of about two thousand years if we go back in time and look at the period in which he was walking around this earth, you know, we find all these people who hated him. Why? [00:00:37]

Well I think there are a couple of episodes recorded for us in the New Testament that’ll give us an inkling at least as to why so many people hated him. And the first one is found in the gospel according to Saint Mark where we read in the fourth chapter and the thirty-fifty verse these words. Mark says, “On the same day when evening had come he said to them, ‘Let us cross over to the other side.’ [00:01:15]

And when they had left the multitude they took him along in the boat as he was. And other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But he was in the stern asleep on a pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ And he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ [00:01:42]

And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said to them, ‘Why are you so fearful? How is that you have no faith?’ And they feared exceedingly and said to one another, ‘What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” I find this an extraordinary narrative and I have a special interest in it because I used to teach a course in the seminary on atheism. [00:02:23]

And I required my students in that course to read the original works of some of the most brilliant and formidable advocates of atheism. And I noticed particularly among 19th century atheists that there was a common strand of thinking among them where people of that ilk were trying to explain why it is even though there is no God there are so many people who are religious. [00:02:57]

And one of the most important voices from that period was that of Sigmund Freud. You’ve all heard of Freud who is regarded as the modern of psychoanalysis . . . er . . . the father of modern psychoanalysis. Freud came up with the thesis that the reason why religion emerges in history is out of people’s natural fear for the forces of nature. We’re afraid of tornadoes, we’re afraid of hurricanes, we’re afraid of floods, we’re afraid of diseases that can invade our bodies and destroy us, we’re afraid of death and so on. [00:03:27]

And he said it’s out of this fear of nature that we create religion. We create a God who rules over nature that we can talk to, that we can plead with, that we can try to butter him up with our praise and worship so that maybe he will steer the tornado in another direction. And so for Freud it is the fear of nature that causes us to be religion . . . religious. [00:04:12]

Well here we have a story in the New Testament where the disciples meet one of these fearsome natural forces. They’re on their way across the Sea of Galilee. And remember they are seasoned veterans – fishermen. They are accustomed to the vagaries of the winds and the currents and so on. But where that lake is situated in the Middle East, it happens to be arranged in such a place where there is almost like a wind tunnel from the Mediterranean Sea that sometimes a storm will come flowing through that wind tunnel and hit that sea without any warning and turn it into a tempestuous . . . uh . . . catastrophic . . uh . . . natural disaster. [00:04:54]

And that’s what happened. While they’re going across the sea, suddenly this fierce storm arises and the wind starts blowing a gale and the water is turbulent and is boiling up and is filling the boats and threatening to capsize them. And all this time Jesus is sound asleep in the back of the boat. Now the scriptures tell us that the disciples are frightened and so they run to their leader and they shake him awake and they said, “Lord, do something or we’re going to perish right here on this sea!” [00:05:31]

So Jesus stands up, looks at the waves, looks at the turbulent waters, and he shouts a command saying, “Peace! Be still!” And instantly the sea is like glass, there’s not a zephyr blowing in the air and everything is absolutely calm. Now what would you expect that the reaction of the disciples would be at that? You would think they’d throw their sou’westers in the air and say, “Thank you, Lord for removing the threat of nature from us at this moment so wonderfully!” [00:06:13]

But what happens? The Bible says they became very much – exceedingly – afraid. You see this is the point that Freud didn’t consider. That even though we may be afraid of hurricanes and floods and fires and other natural disasters, there’s something that is more frightening to us than the wind or the sea. It’s the presence of God. [00:06:50]

You see when the disciples saw Jesus tame the storm and the sea by the mere force of his command, they stood back in horror and they asked the question, “What kind of man is this? What kind of person is this?” Now think about that. You meet new people all the time. You walk down the street and you see strangers coming and you know that there are people walking around out there who are strange to you. [00:07:23]