Jesus, Storm of Storms

by Jez Carr

Note: This article is the second in a series of three Lenten reflections examining imagery of storms and water in the Bible. The first article situated how our struggles fit within the Christian worldview. Here, we look at how we understand Jesus within this imagery, and the series will conclude with what it means to live this out within the life of faith.

Thousands of years ago, deep in Babylon, Daniel is plagued by dreams (Dan. 7). Well, nightmares, really. The kind that you spend the next day trying to shake off: The depths of the oceans churn angrily, and grotesque beasts crawl out one by one, each more terrifying than the last, to infect humanity with the deathly chaos to which they belong. They represent the great empires of the ancient Near East—epitomes of human violence and evil. Each beast ravishes the earth, but then the Ancient of Days—the great God beyond them all—steps in and brings final destruction on them. In their place, God appoints his own king—the Son of Man, who rides the storm clouds to his throne, who will rule in peace and who can never be deposed. Daniel wakes up, pale and dripping in sweat.

When Jesus claims to be the Son of Man, he is making the grandest claim imaginable. He is the climax of God’s defeat of the watery chaos and its beasts. He is the one who comes to our rescue, riding the clouds.

Some of Jesus’ most dramatic miracles point towards this extraordinary claim: Jesus and his friends are out at sea when a furious storm threatens to sink them (Mark 4:35-41). While his friends are hysterical with fear, he’s fast asleep. They shake him awake, swearing profanities at him. He yawns and stretches, gets up, puts on his school principal face (Okay, I admit, it doesn’t say all of that . . . ), gives the storm a good scolding and commands, “Silence! Zip it!” (literally, “Be muzzled!”). The water immediately stands to attention at the sound of his voice, sheepishly remuzzles, and all goes quiet.

In the last reflection “You Are Not Alone: Storms in Faithful Christian Experience,” we talked about the almighty battle described in many ancient Near Eastern mythologies, by which the storm god defeats the beast of the waters; Jesus needs no such effort—he simply speaks with an authority that neither storm nor beast can resist. He is greater than Baal, Marduk, Zeus, or Jupiter. He is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Storm of Storms.

As he commands quiet, I imagine his finger pointing at the water, then moving to point at his followers: “You too! Why were you so afraid?” They had been filled with disquiet; they had let the chaos get inside them. Just like the terrified Hebrew slaves in the exodus, if they understood who he was, they would have known he would fight for them, that they need only be still (Exod. 14:14). I guess he frequently points that strong but forgiving finger at me too.

We also talked in the last reflection about the fearful bemusement we hear within much Old Testament poetry: Where is God when I (and my people) feel overwhelmed or hopeless? Often, the answer remains somewhat shrouded. Of course, that should be no surprise if we believe in a God who is utterly beyond our understanding, and the story is still unfolding. But we start to see how Jesus puts himself forward as the answer.

It is worth placing some of these poems alongside this story of Jesus stilling the storm. (Remember that the disciples knew their Old Testament really well, and some of these references likely jumped into their minds.) In the midst of the storm, when it felt like the waters had come up to their necks, when they were worn out calling for help, when their eyes failed looking for God (Ps. 69:3), Jesus steps in. Though first, the disciples find him asleep in the bow. “Awake, awake, O Jesus . . . whoa—are you the one who pierces the sea monster through?” (Isa. 51.9, admittedly slightly adapted). Jesus turns out to be “mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea” (Ps. 93:4 [New International Version]). In another famous story (Matt. 14), when Peter sinks in the towering waves, when the hand of Jesus reaches down through the storm and draws him out, did he remember Psalm 18:16? (“He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.”)

In these miracles, Jesus doesn’t just claim power over creation; he claims supreme power over darkness, death, and all their allies. There was an epic showdown coming, and Jesus stares down the enemy.

The victory Jesus was to have over the chaos thunders darkly over his baptism (Mark 1). Baptism evokes all of the imaginative loading we’ve talked about (see the last reflection)—we go through the deathly waters of the exodus; we rise again as God’s reborn people; the powers of evil are washed away, just as the oppressive forces of Egypt were. For us, this is both a sign of our commitment to God and a symbol of what God does for us in Jesus. In the case of Jesus’ own baptism, as he is lifted out of the waters, he too has made this journey to join this reborn people. “God with us” is revealed as a spiritual reality at the baptism of Jesus.

And as he comes up out of the waters, the Father speaks words over him: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). These words are no cozy father-son moment; they point beyond the image of water baptism to a deeper, darker baptism that lies ahead. The son with whom God is “well pleased” is the “Suffering Servant” depicted in Isaiah’s “Servant Songs” (Isa. 42, 53, and elsewhere); the Suffering Servant who would rise to be crowned king, but whose path to the throne would involve sinking into death for the sins of his people.

At the cross, Jesus would undergo this ultimate baptism, dying in the waters of evil’s grip over the world. The Beast thinks he’s won! But this is the Storm of Storms—there’s no way the Beast can hold him: No, just as the Hebrew slaves of the exodus are reborn into God’s new life, Jesus rises from the waters, reborn into resurrection life, crowned as king over a reborn creation, over life beyond death.

As the book of Revelation unpacks the story of Jesus from a whole different angle, we see the Beast—the dragon, the agent of chaos—finally defeated. Revelation 4 talks about a “glassy” sea in front of a throne rumbling with thunder and flashing with lightning. Four beasts (remember Daniel 7?) submit before the throne in worship, and crowns are cast to the ground in submission. Part of what this image evokes is that the dragon, who has churned up the waters for so long, has been finally destroyed—the sea has gone glassy-still. Instead of the chaos invading the stillness of God’s good world (Gen. 3), the stillness of God’s good world pushes the frontier all the way through enemy territory. In a similar vein (but so much more) to Baal and the other “storm gods” defeating their respective sea dragons and being crowned kings of their divine pantheons, Jesus’ victory heralds his final, supreme, irreversible coronation.

And by the end of Revelation, the sea itself is no more (Rev. 21). John is not talking about the end of beach holidays (phew!); he is talking about the watery chaos that has been the nemesis of God’s people throughout the story of the Bible. Now, Jesus has destroyed the Beast and its realm.

Maybe the phrase “Jesus loves you” has lost some of its power, because of the Jesus we imagine. The love of a cozy, meek Jesus feels feeble and impotent in a stormy world. Maybe we need to rediscover Jesus, the Storm of Storms, who speaks with authority over the waters, who is furious at their oppression of us, his people, who rides with fury on the clouds to our rescue, who reaches into deep waters to lift us out; the one who destroys the power of chaos and is crowned king over the sea, the storm, and all of creation.

In some ways, I should quit while I’m ahead. But we ask again, “Where is this Jesus now?” Well, in a sense, he’s here already, but that’s for the next reflection to explore. In another sense, he’s coming. “Look! He’s coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him!” (Rev. 1:7) Jesus confirms, “Yes, I am coming soon,” and we chime in with all those who wait, “Amen (let it be so)! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20)

“Soon” may seem a stretch, especially when we forget that the one who forms mountains works to a different timescale than us. In fact, every rescue feels long in the waiting, and there’s no doubt we’re in the waiting. But the promise is certain. He will get here. We won’t be lost to the depths, no matter how helpless we feel against them. That is the ultimate Christian comfort to which we hold amid all that we might face. What do we do in the meantime? Well, that’s what we’ll explore in the next reflection.

Jez Carr divides his time between leading the Hutchmoot UK team and pastoring a small Anglican church in Seer Green (a village in Buckinghamshire, UK). He has held a variety of roles in music (mainly jazz) and mission, and has graduate degrees in theology from Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the University of Oxford.

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