Episode 4 | Muzzling the Chaos: Fear, Faith, and the Creator’s Word

“Faith isn't mere belief. It is acting upon what we believe.”

What is the first thing you think about when we talk about "the deep"? For many, it immediately conjures vivid images of the unknown—loss of control, violent storms, and the dread of what lies beneath. This physical fear of the depth, where you can neither see nor touch the bottom, often mirrors our spiritual lives. We stay in the shallows where it feels safe, fearing the storms that following Jesus might bring.

In this episode of The Deep Waters Way, we join the disciples on the Sea of Galilee in a "great windstorm" that threatened to overwhelm their expertise and their lives. We explore how even those well-prepared can be overcome by adversity, and why our obedience to God’s word is often exactly what brings us into the midst of the storm.

Depth of Insight

• The Geography of Fear: Discover why the specific surroundings of the Sea of Galilee—sitting more than 600 feet below sea level—made this "great windstorm" particularly terrifying, even for seasoned professional fishermen.
• Linguistic Fingerprints: An exploration of the Greek text, revealing why the word for wind (anemos) and Jesus’ choice of command (pephimōso—to be muzzled) signal a cosmic act of binding chaos rather than just calming a breeze.
• The Ancient Near East (ANE) Worldview: Understanding the "ancient dread of the deep" and how the biblical authors link Jesus’ authority to the God of Job, Isaiah, and the Psalms who alone tames the sea.
• The Two Kinds of Fear: Distinguishing between the "cowardly fear" that paralyzes us in the storm and the "reverential awe" that leads to the beginning of wisdom.

Core Takeaways

1. Obedience in the Storm: Storms are not always a sign of disobedience; often, they are the direct result of following Jesus’ command to "go across to the other side".
2. The Creator Binding Chaos: When Jesus rebukes the storm, He is not grabbing a bucket to bail water; He is acting as the Creator binding chaos and drawing order out of it.
3. A Choice of Sovereignty: When faced with a storm, we must choose what rules our lives: the cowardly fear of our circumstances or the reverential awe of the One who is in the boat with us.
4. The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus: Mark’s narrative provides a vivid display of the "hypostatic union," presenting Jesus as both fully human—exhausted and asleep in the stern—and fully divine, possessing the unique authority to bind the chaos of the abyss.

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Featured Scripture

• Mark 4:35–41: The primary text where Jesus commands the crossing and muzzles the storm.
• Psalm 74:12–14: Depicting God dividing the sea by His might and crushing the heads of Leviathan.
• Job 38: God’s declaration that He alone is capable of taming or reigning in the sea.
• Isaiah 51:9–10: A prayer for the Arm of the Lord to "awake" and pierce the dragon of the deep.
• Colossians 1:15–17: Identifying Jesus as the Creator and Sustainer in whom all things hold together.

Outside Sources

• Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. (Reference: Used to define anemos as a "strong tempestuous wind").
• Enuma Elish (The Babylonian Creation Account). (Reference: Cited regarding the personification of chaos as the sea monster Tiamat).
• Ancient Near East (ANE) Context. (General historical and worldview framework regarding the "abyss" and the "deep")

They had seen demons retreat. They had seen sickness removed. They had seen deformity corrected. And now they've seen nature obey. The deep waters way, where scripture, theology and transformation meet.

Welcome once again to the Deep Waters Way. I'm your host, Ray Cooper, and I want to thank you for joining me on our continuing journey to explore the depths of our Christian walk.

As I'm currently working on this episode. I'm watching the trees out my back door sway in the strong winds that are blowing in a storm. And that's fitting as we're going to be looking at the storm in Mark 4. So grab a cup of coffee or hot tea and settle in for the journey. It's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters.

What's the first thing you think about when I say, let's go to the deep? If you're like most people, that immediately conjures up some pretty vivid images and fears, and that's completely understandable. The deep exposes some of our deepest fears. Fear of the unknown, loss of life or self, storms, hurricanes, even being lost at sea.

We have old maps that have drawings of sea monsters in the middle of the oceans. And so this is something that has been around for a very long time, even to the point that we have old stories from sailors about giant squids or other large sea creatures. Or you may be like me and just fear the depth itself of water.

When I was younger, my family often went to nearby lakes during the summer and we would boat and ski and play around in the water and just have a good time, either for the day or weekend or even for a longer period of time sometimes. And sometimes we would stop the boat in the middle of a cove and everybody would get out of the boat and swim.

And I can remember my parents encouraging me to get out of the boat and swim. And sometimes I would, but a lot of times I wouldn't because I was terrified. I hated it.

I hated the idea of getting out of the boat because I couldn't see or touch the bottom. And I had no idea how deep the water was. In a pool where I could see the bottom, I was fine. Even in swimming areas in the lakes where I knew the water was only 20 or 30 feet deep below me, and even though I couldn't see it, I was still fine because I knew how deep it was. I was comfortable there.

But out in the middle of the lake and in the middle of a cove with no real concept of how deep the water was, I was absolutely terrified. And those same fears that cause us to dread the physical deep, also keep us from exploring and enjoying the rich spiritual depths that following Jesus offers. We fear the unknown or the loss of self. We fear the storms that may come. And so we choose to stay in the shallows where it feels safe, where life feels manageable.

In today's lesson, we're looking at one of the times Jesus disciples were sent into the deep. And by doing so, they encountered a storm.

So we're going to be looking at mark 4:35-41. And here's what Mark tells us. And this is from the English Standard Version.

On that day when evening had come, he that is Jesus, said to them, the disciples, let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was, and other boats were with him.

And a great windstorm arose and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace, be still." And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"

And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Now, if we take a moment and back out from this passage and look at the broader context of Mark 4, we see that Jesus has spent the day teaching. Mark tells us that Jesus got into a boat and asked to be put out a little from the shore so that the people could hear him speak. And then towards the end of the day, he instructs the disciples to make for the opposite shore.

The next time we meet, we're going to discuss that particular interaction that takes place on the other side. So you'll definitely want to check out that episode. But for now, let's focus simply on this journey and on the Sea of Galilee.

At its widest, the Sea of Galilee is about 8 miles across and is roughly 13 miles long from north to south.

At the point where Mark's narrative occurs, it's probably about five or six miles across, and depending on the conditions of travel, whether or not there is a favorable wind, whether or not there's calm waters, whether you're fighting a storm, the passage could take anywhere from an hour and a half to potentially all night. One other thing to note is that because of the specific geography around the Sea of Galilee, Sudden, violent storms are not uncommon.

The lake itself sits more than 600 feet below sea level and and is surrounded by mountains and ravines that channel cooler air coming off the tops of those mountains down into the warmer area of the lake. This is the situation that has developed now in our passage. The boats are on the lake at night and a storm erupts.

This storm appears to have been particularly violent, as Mark describes it from Peter's recollections, as a great windstorm. He adds that the waves were breaking over the sides of the boat and were starting to fill it with water.

Now remember, at least 4 of the people involved here are professional fishermen. They know this lake. They fish it every day. And based on what we're told in at least two other places in Scripture, they routinely fish it at night. And so a storm coming up while they were on the lake when would not be an unprecedented event.

And yet, they panic as the wind howls around them and the waves slap the sides of the boat, as water pours over the sides, and the wood creaks and groans from strain. Jesus is asleep in the stern. They wake him up. Don't you care? You can almost hear the bewilderment in their voice.

How can you sleep at a time like this? You see, they had reached a place where their expertise had failed them. Not only was the boat in danger of being overwhelmed, they themselves were overwhelmed. And they sought to rebuke their teacher. They sought to rebuke Jesus for his apparent lack of care.

For those in the boat with Jesus and in the other boats with them, a harsh reality was setting in. Sometimes you can do everything right and still suffer through hard times.

But Mark allows room for us to see the possibility that the overwhelming nature of this particular storm might have been more than natural. To examine this facet of Mark's narrative, we need to start with where Jesus is coming from and where he is going.

Mark 4 again opens with Jesus teaching the crowd. Mark then includes a number of parables about the nature of the kingdom of God. This is what Jesus is teaching. How the kingdom grows, how the kingdom expands, what the kingdom is like.

And he even includes a parable that speaks of birds, that is the enemy, as Jesus describes and explains the parable, coming to snatch away the seed, the gospel of the kingdom, before it can even begin to take root in a person's life. So that's where we're coming from. On the other side, we see that Jesus is headed into Gentile territory.

This is a new beginning moment for the spread of the kingdom. And again, we'll talk about that episode next week. But it becomes clear from here on out, from this point forward in the Gospel narrative, that the kingdom is for both Jews and Gentiles.

So that's what we have. That's the two bookends teaching about the expansion of the kingdom on one side and visibly watching the kingdom expand on the other. And right in the middle of these two kingdom moments, you have what Mark describes as a great windstorm.

The phrase refers to a violent squall, the kind of sudden, destructive storm that the Sea of Galilee is known for in the Greek Old Testament. This kind of language is also often associated with powerful and chaotic forces of nature.

And the specific word Mark uses here for wind, anemos, as described by Thayer, can refer to a strong, tempestuous wind. This word contrasts with the one that we normally see translated as wind.

And it's part of what caught my attention as I began working through this passage. Jesus uses the word pneuma in John 3 for wind, and it is often translated that way. But it also means spirit.

In fact, when Jesus uses it in John 3, he's making a wordplay between wind and spirit, using the same word for both. The word Mark uses here, though, carries a much different connotation. As noted previously, it's the kind of wind found in the great windstorms. Viewed purely as a physical storm, this is a violent, destructive wind.

Once, while living in my hometown, I encountered this kind of wind. Straight line winds blowing perpendicular to the direction I was driving and yet strong enough to rip the bed liner out of my truck. And while that wind was indeed violent, it would have created nearly impossible conditions on the Sea of Galilee.

The wind Mark describes here is very similar in nature, violent, fierce, destructive. And its timing, I don't think can be dismissed entirely.

It hits in the middle of a major kingdom shift, teaching on one side about the expansion of the kingdom, visibly watching the expansion on the other. If the boat goes down here, if this passage can be stopped, the whole plan is lost.

And it's possible that Jesus sees the a potential spiritual influence. I think the case for this is strengthened by the very words that Jesus uses when he confronts the storm.

When Jesus speaks to the wind, Mark says he rebukes it. The word here that's translated rebuke is used 29 times in the New Testament. And out of those occurrences, more than half are are by Jesus.

And out of all of the uses that Jesus has, two thirds of them are directly against demons, storms, or demonic influences. When Jesus uses this word, he is most often directly opposing a force of chaos fighting against the kingdom of God.

Just as with the wind, when Jesus speaks to the sea, he uses a word that he commonly uses in confrontation with evil spirits. First he tells the waves, be calm. And then he uses the word he often uses against demons, which literally means to be muzzled, and by metaphor then, to be silent or be still.

Now, I want to be careful here, because even though I've taken Greek, I am not a Greek scholar and I don't pretend to be a Greek scholar. But I do know that the meaning of words in the New Testament is established by how it's used in context, not by its base dictionary definition. So Be still is a perfectly accurate translation. And I don't want to push past that into something the text doesn't say.

But here's what I find interesting. Mark uses this same word two chapters earlier when Jesus confronts a demon in the synagogue. Same word, same command, same immediate result.

And when you notice that, and then you see that the word's own range of meaning includes the idea, or is even based in the idea, of muzzling, putting something over the mouth of a creature to silence it, it doesn't change the translation, but I think it begins to expand the picture.

Be still is accurate. Be muzzled might be what's underneath it. And if it is, the question of what kind of thing gets muzzled becomes very interesting because of that. I don't think Jesus is treating this potential devastation by the wind and the sea as a simply physical event.

His language can seem to imply something dark and chaotic, that the storm, if not evil in and of itself, is at the very least being affected by something that has reared its head against the growth of the kingdom. Now this is really striking where the sea is concerned because it is literally threatening to swallow them into its depths.

In the Ancient Near East, the sea was seen as the personification of chaos, the manifestation of the abyss. It was violent and disorganized. It was indeed the abyss, the home of giant beasts like Leviathan. Oftentimes it was depicted as a serpent to be subdued by the gods, such as Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, one of the Babylonian mythologies. This framework, this idea and thought about what the sea is and what the sea represents can even be seen in the Bible.

In Genesis 1, it's stated that the earth is formless and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters.

And then in Psalm 74, verses 12 through 14, we read, "yet God, my king, is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth, you divided the sea by your might, you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters, you crushed the heads of Leviathan, you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness."

And here we see God depicted as the one who has brought salvation by beating back and subduing not just the serpents within the deep, but the deep itself. The irony here with Mark's narrative is that in Job, God speaks from the great storm. And in Mark, Jesus calms the great storm.

The one who claimed mastery over the wind and the sea is now asleep in a boat, about to be swamped by the wind and the sea. And when he wakes, both cease their violence at his word.

And while Mark may not be intentionally invoking these ideas, his early readers would have been operating within a mindset and a framework that would have allowed them to see it. Jewish believers would have heard the echoes of the Old Testament. Gentiles, unfamiliar with the Old Testament, would have seen their own worldview come to life. And that worldview is largely consistent across the ancient world, whether in Babylon, Canaan or Egypt.

This ancient dread of the deep wasn't just a bogeyman, and it wasn't confined to the nations around Israel. It can be seen not just in the stories Israel tells, but as an integral part of the people's prayer life.

It can be seen as far back as the Exodus, with Israel trapped between Pharaoh and the Red Sea, crying out and asking Moses why he brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. It can be seen throughout the Psalms and in Job 38, as the God of Israel is proclaimed to be the only one capable of reigning in the sea.

And it can be seen in Isaiah 51:9-10, as the people cry out to God saying, "awake, awake. Put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake. As in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea of a way for the redeemed to pass over?"

And again, another piece of irony that we find here in Mark's narration, Jesus, God incarnate, lies asleep in the stern of a boat in the dark of night, in the midst of the raging and roaring tehom, the deep, as the waves threaten the to drag the boat into the depths of the abyss.

And the disciples, in their fear, subconsciously echo the centuries old prayer of their people as they cry out for Jesus to help them. They don't ask him to fix the weather. They want help bailing water. Their minds are stuck on the water, filling the boat, on the human Jesus lying sound asleep in the midst of chaos.

How utterly exhausted he must be at this point. How utterly human. But as we see, he is so much more than merely human. When Jesus awakes, he doesn't grab a bucket. He rebukes the chaos, not as someone speaking about the weather, but as the Creator binding chaos and drawing order out of it. And amazingly, the wind and the sea respond not with more destruction, but with obedience. Mark says the wind ceased and there was a great calm.

The Greek here can be read as, and the wind became exhausted and a great calm was created. Oh, the irony of the exhausted Creator causing the wind to become exhausted and creating a great calm that echoes the creation story.

As the calm descends on the boat now bobbing peacefully in the tranquil, ordered deep, Jesus turns his attention to the disciples. "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"

The word Jesus uses here for fear almost always in the New Testament carries the implication of cowardly fear. The disciples are terrified of the chaos of the world. And it's this cowing to the forces of chaos that that Jesus rebukes.

And then the weight falls as the realization sets in. Mark tells us they were filled with a great fear. Literally, they feared with great fear. But this fear is different.

It is the reverential fear and awe found in the presence of God. This isn't fear that paralyzes you. It's the fear that Proverbs calls the beginning of wisdom.

And in that state of godly amazement, they ask the really important "who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" They had seen demons retreat. They had seen sickness removed. They had seen deformity corrected. And now they've seen nature obey.

Their Old Testament framework hints at the answer they're feeling. It would have told them only God can calm the storm. Paul makes this explicit some years later as he writes to the Colossian church:

"By him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

He is the Creator and the sustainer, the author and the finisher. He is God. Don't miss what Mark does in this passage either. He allows us to see what theologians would later call the hypostatic union.

He shows us Jesus as both human, exhausted and asleep in the boat and divine, able to bind the chaos of the abyss and strike the head of the serpent.

Before we continue our journey into the deep waters. Take a moment to subscribe if you haven't already, so that you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram @t TheDeepWatersWay. Now let's get back into our text and see why any of this matters.

Jesus rebuked his disciples for their cowardly fear of the storm. But that rebuke hangs on something that we don't need to overlook. It hangs on Jesus' command in verse 35, let us go across to the other side. Jesus had said, we're going to do this.

His rebuke comes because their fear reveals that their trust in His Word is lacking, that their love has not yet been fully perfected. Jesus, as God incarnate, had declared his intent. Getting to the other side was assured as long as obedience and faith operated.

It's why Jesus in his humanity could sleep through a storm strong enough to terrify seasoned veterans of the sea. The storm was dangerous. That was never the issue. The issue was that they allowed the danger to cloud their vision to Jesus' word.

That's why Jesus asks, have you still no faith? He's effectively saying, after everything you've seen, do you still not understand?

You and I often face storms in life. Over the last several weeks, I faced storm after storm, setback after setback, each one preventing me from working on this podcast, stealing little bits of time here and there, and leaving me too exhausted at times to really do anything meaningful. One night I sat at my computer for hours, just staring at the screen, wanting to work and yet not wanting to at the same time.

And I had to remind myself, I'm doing what I was called to do. The storms are simply part of the journey. And the timing wasn't lost on me. Escalating storms the deeper I get into doing what I'm called to do. Disruptions and aggravations, vying for my focus. That's not coincidence, that's opportunity. Opportunity for the adversary to derail a mission or for me to live out my calling.

And that is so often the struggle we face. We have been conditioned to believe that the storms in our lives are the result of disobedience. But so often our obedience to God's Word is exactly the thing that brings us into the midst of the storm. And when that happens, we're faced with a choice. What is going to rule our lives. Faith or fear?

Faith isn't mere belief. It is acting upon what we believe. And if we truly believe that Jesus has called us into the deep, then we can rest knowing that whatever we encounter there serves a purpose.

The forces aligned against God sought a more opportune time to derail Jesus' mission. But Jesus does what God so often does - turn what was intended to harm into something beneficial.

Paul reminds us that all things work together for good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purposes. As a friend of mine has said repeatedly. He doesn't say all things will be good. What he says is that God can use all things for good.

And so it is with the storms in our lives. Even they must bend to the will of the Savior, who commands them and uses them to transform us and give us a new beginning.

The deep is dangerous. There's no getting around that fact. You and I feel it in the core of our beings, and it unsettles us. It can cause us to fear, and it should.

When we get into the deep, we're going to face storms. Jesus said it plainly. In this life, you will have tribulation. But take heart. I have overcome the world.

So it comes down to two issues, two questions we need to consider as we set our sights on the deep. What kind of fear do I have? Cowering fear or reverential awe? And the second question? Do I recognize who is in the boat with me?

Thank you for joining me today. It's time to slip the moorings and head for the deep waters,

The Deep Waters Way: Where Scripture, Theology and Transformation Meet.