It had been raining, and the path around the lake had flooded in various sections. But Taryn and I had some time to spare before I had to be in the city, so we decided to just walk around the flooded parts of the path where necessary. It was a nice walk… until I saw it. A snake, slithering away from us on a bit of unflooded ground. I yelled out, urgently, “Snake!” throwing my arms out and pirroutting to alert Taryn to the danger. Unfortunately, I ended up first accidentally punching Taryn in the face, before completing my spin by falling down into the mud.
Taryn looked at me, quietly, as the snake continued minding its own business in the opposite direction. “I don’t think you handled that very well,” she said. Said I, “But it was a snake!!!”
Fear does funny things to us, doesn’t it? When we’re afraid, we’ll often have one of four instinctive responses: fawning, freezing in place, getting ready to fight, or – like I did with the snake – trying to run away. Fawning aside, those aren’t necessarily bad things to do – they are, frequently, exactly the right way to react to fear.
But how do we react to Jesus?
Today’s passage is all about fear. It starts with Jesus and His apprentices travelling on a boat across a lake. A great storm comes up, and the apprentices find themselves utterly terrified.
Then, arriving at shore, they encounter a terrified, terrifying man – host to a huge number of demons. Jesus sends the demons away, but the people of the region are so terrified that they beg Jesus to leave.
Back on the Jewish side of the lake, Jesus is met by a terrified man, whose daughter is about to die. His fear drives him to ask Jesus for help.
And while Jesus is on the way to help, we meet a terrified woman, who tries to sneak healing from Jesus, and is terrified when she can’t hide away.
Just who is Jesus? Is He someone to be feared, or someone to bring our fears to? How should we respond to Him?
Today’s passage: Mark 4:35-5:43
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