Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.13UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.07UNLIKELY
Fear
0.69LIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.52LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.63LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.92LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.86LIKELY
Extraversion
0.28UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.54LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.67LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Greetings
Good Morning
Great to be here with you today
My name is Joe Kraftchick and Gary has invited me to share with you this morning
Please turn to , we’re going to look at Jesus and the storm on the Sea of Galilee
Full disclosure that the inspiration for this sermon, and this particular text actually comes from a Twitter thread I came across last week
So depending on how this goes we can attribute some positive element to social media in 2018
But first, let’s pray
Background
Been awhile since we’ve kicked off a sermon in the NT
Let’s do a quick recap to what’s going on as we approach a story that is probably a familiar one
Up to this point in his ministry Jesus has been hanging out primarily in the northern part of Israel around Galille
He’s done some healing, he’s appointed some disciples, and in chapter 4 he’s been doing some teaching
He has been drawing some crowds, and as our story picks up we can gather that these crowds are probably pretty sizeable
As they’re down at the Sea of Galilee, Jesus is presumably doing this teaching from a boat
Practically he would want to do this so he could stand on the raised portion of the boat in the back, so that the whole crowd could hear him speak.
Think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, similar idea.
In a world without microphones you do what you can to make listening easier.
Essentially you want to be up high with your audience below.
People also like to see the speaker, standing in a boat or higher on a mountain makes this easier.
Now, let’s jump into our story with Jesus changing the setting starting in v. 35
.
Now, let’s jump into our story
Jesus has been teaching the crowds from the boat and once evening comes he tells his disciples that he wants to go across the Sea to the other side.
I have read this story countless times and always thought of it as Jesus being finished teaching and wanting to rest
I’m not sure that’s the case, the boat has been the place he’s been teaching the crowds and I think that the teaching continues after they shove off
The teaching doesn’t stop, but his audience changes, the text tells us the disciples take him along ‘as he was’
Which in this case ‘as he was’ was teaching from a boat
Now, I’m not sure how familiar you are with boating in the Bible, but it very rarely seems to go smoothly
The disciples probably aren’t too thrilled with Jesus at this point as he tells them to shove off for the other side of the Sea and then he goes and finds a cushion in the stern to sleep on.
They wake him, he quiets the wind and waves by rebuking them
Then he rebukes the disciples, questioning their faith, before presumably going back to his cushion and to sleep
Storms and Chaos
Now, this is a story that is short and familiar to many of us
It’s less about weather and more about God
Maybe I’ve made a small sidenote about Jesus calming the storm b
Throughout all Scripture we have this idea come up several times of God calming a storm.
The image being that God is the one in control over the chaos and power of storms that might overcome us.
That same power is on display here as Jesus rebukes a force of nature
The word used for rebuke here is the same one used when Jesus casts out demons
The word for storm used here is the same one used to describe the whirlwind that confronts Job
These are big forces at work and still Jesus is above them all and they are subject to him
The questions that he asks the disciples are interesting.
Why are you afraid?
Because of the storm
Do you still have no faith?
The point of these questions from Jesus is that the disciples don’t believe that Jesus is capable of taking care of them.
Why fear the storm when you know this whole thing was Jesus idea to begin with?
Why fear the chaos when you have the Son of God?
The disciples don’t get it though, and now after fearing the storm they in turn fear Jesus.
It’s funny, when you read Mark’s gospel, the disciples don’t always come off looking very well
Often they’re missing the point or getting rebuked by Jesus
What About Us?
I think that there is lots for us to take away from this text
The first thing that likely jumps out is the idea that Jesus is above the agents of chaos of the world and as just as he calmed the winds and storm he can lead us through the storms in our own lives
With that said I want to dive a bit deeper
No pun intended with a story about the Sea of Galilee
Mentioning the Sea of Galilee, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Israel and when you get to the Sea, one of the most striking things is how it’s not very big
When we hear about Seas we tend to think big scale, that’s not the case here
The SoG is about 21 km long and at it’s widest it is 13 km, with a surface area of about 166 square km
For reference, Harrison Lake is 60 km long and about 9 km at it’s widest, for a surface area of 218 square km
So the Sea of Galilee is more like a big lake then it is a Sea like say the Mediterranean Sea
Lake and Sea is used interchangeably by the OT and NT writers
My understanding after approximately 10 minutes of googling is that there is no scientific difference between a lake or sea, but sea does seem to carry a connotation of big or sizable
Semantics aside is that the Sea of Galilee isn’t like setting sail onto the Atlantic, it’s a different scale.
That’s important because the smaller scope makes it a little more appealing to ancient people, especially Israelites who were not a seafaring people.
The reason you can go out on a body like the SoG is that not much can surprise you out there.
You want to know what the conditions on the water are like look out and you can see a lot of it.
Want to know if there’s a storm coming?
look around, look up to the sky.
When we read Scripture, sometimes more so the gospels we have to think of symbolism in the text.
Think about how many times we hear about storms, seas, and water in Scripture and what is behind them.
The point of the disciples and Jesus out on the boat isn’t necessarily the storm they encountered but the bigger picture is the idea of a life surrounded by forces of chaos.
I think we can all identify with periods of time when we are sailing in our own proverbial boats and the storms are welling up threatening to capsize our boats
This can be a personal or communal experience.
We likely can identify periods of personal chaos or feeling overwhelmed by outside forces.
Similarly as a body of believers, followers of Christ we can read or watch the news and see the forces of chaos swirling around our world.
In our text it’s easy to focus solely on Jesus calming the waves
Let’s focus also on Jesus rebuking the disciples and why he rebukes them
Why are you afraid?
Jesus asks 2 questions
Why are you afraid?
Do you still have no faith?
They are 2 questions but they’re related
He’s asking about their fear and their faith
I don’t think he’s asking a rhetorical question,
He wants to go deeper, if it’s the storm they’re afraid of, why are they afraid of it?
This is a bunch of ancient Jewish guys on a boat in a lake, they’re not swimmers
They’re afraid that the storm will swamp their boat and they’ll drown
They are afraid of dying, they fear death
That is why Jesus asks why they have no faith.
The point Jesus is getting at is that they shouldn’t fear death
Look at the life of Jesus as a whole, he doesn’t fear death instead he surrenders to death before overcoming it.
The idea of dying to the agents of this world, death to a part of us, and to a part of the world
This isn’t something unique to Jesus here in Mark, Paul picks this type of language up and runs with it over and over again
Death seems like it is the final authority and power, but what overcomes the power of death for Christians is that we have a saviour in Jesus who walks us through those gates
The power of death is to isolate and separate, that was the point of crucifying Jesus to isolate and get rid of him
But in that crucifixion, deaths power was undone, because he lives!
Jesus does the same thing for us, in his death, the death that we share there is life!
We believe in life yet to come after this one
This is totally a Jesus thing, that in him and his death and resurrection we too may have life after this one passes away
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9