Thayer Thursday – DINOSAUR THUNDER!!
The past several weeks in the Charlotte area have been riddled with thunderstorms. Just about every night of the last three weeks has included rain, lightning, and thunder. Compared with the droughts that we’ve had in the past several summers, it’s a nice reprieve from the constant danger of fire. However, for a young mind such as my two and a half year old son’s, it’s frightening. His imagination is just starting to blossom. This is wonderful when we’re playing with his train set, but when he sees a flash of light, hears thunder, and feels the house shake: his young mind does not know how to process what is happening. His growing imagination produces fear.
Recently, my wife took my son to the library. He’s started to take a keen interest in books on dinosaurs. So they checked out several books that had dinosaurs in them and brought them home to read. One of these books happened to be a book called Dinosaur Thunder.
It’s about a boy who is trying to figure out what thunder is during a storm. His favorite response from those he asks is “Dinosaur Thunder!” So during a storm two weeks ago, in a moment of sheer parenting genius, as soon as it thundered my wife joyfully exclaimed to my son: “DINOSAUR THUNDER!” His fear was replaced with a healthy trust in his mom and her reaction to the thunder. Now any time it storms he happily runs around the house telling everybody that he hears “Dinosaur Thunder!”
Mark 4:35-41 recounts a story of Jesus and his disciples on a boat…
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
For good reason this boat ride caused tremendous fear in the disciples. As Jesus is sleeping in the back, a storm arises and they begin to fear for their lives. Several of them were fishermen and knew that bad storms on the Sea of Galilee could kill. Even those who weren’t fishermen knew that fighting a losing battle with a storm in order to keep your boat afloat was good cause for fear. As Jesus’ disciples were frantically trying to get the boat to the shore, and maybe bailing out water that was threatening to capsize it, they look to the back of the boat and find Jesus sleeping; sleeping on a cushion. So they wake Jesus and ask him: “Why aren’t you helping? Don’t you care if we die?” Jesus gets up, tells the wind and waves to shut-up – and everything calms down.
Then, in what seems like a strange twist, Jesus chastises his disciples and asks them why they are still afraid. Don’t they have faith yet? Don’t they trust Him? We might find this a little odd, and pretty harsh from Jesus – but if we read all that Mark recounts Jesus doing before this story, we see that the disciples had seen Jesus perform many miracles before this. They still don’t get it, though, they still don’t trust him.
In other words, Jesus tells His disciples: “It’s Dinosaur Thunder: replace your fear of the storm with trust in me. Yes, it’s real, and dangerous. In fact, a storm is going to come and take my life in just a little while. But do you trust me more than you fear the storm? Chaos will swirl around you, but I am going to take care of it. You must trust me as I have given you reason to.”
In an incredibly telling response to the fact that the wind and the waves listened to Jesus: Mark tells us that the disciples were terrified. They recognized that the one who was sleeping on the back of the boat is more powerful than the storm that came in the first place. They saw that Jesus was more worthy of their awe and respect than the storm.
Do we?
Chris Thayer
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, New Testament