Who Is This Guy?
I wake up to the serenading of birds searching for food and greeting each other. It’s cool in the sleeping bag so I nestle in a little more. On the side of the tent there’s a screen where I see that the sun is still asleep. Lucky sun. I can hear the rustling of pine trees outside, towering above me like spires pointing to the heavens. It’s early for a 9-year-old boy, but not too early for catching fish.
We dress for the day in my grandparents RV. We walk outside the front door, past the grill, down the deck where we threw bread to the raccoons the night before. After loading up the gear, far above us the open sky turns a deep foggy blue. We’d better hurry, the fish are waiting.
My grandpa, my dad and I make the short drive to Roaring River, a gem in the Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri. I cannot hold back the excitement. Somewhere in my vivid imagination I envision catching the biggest one ever caught. We arrive and unload. This is the spot – our spot. We’ve been here before, caught fish here before, and I know the drill. I’m a pro now, thank you very much. I know how to put a hook on (sort of), and I know how to put the salmon eggs on (more or less). I look out at the stream where the down-rush forms the quiet pool before me. All we have to do is wait. And wait.
Wait? What for? The siren, of course. There are hundreds of little boys and girls with their dads and grandpas standing on the edge of the river, poised and positioned, and not a single line is wet. There is a signal we are waiting for, like a tornado siren of splendor. The morning is cool, but nothing I can’t handle. The sun is rising over the tree line, an orange tone of graceful fire. Dad and Grandpa are talking about God knows what. Phooey. We are here to catch fish, not chit chat. Stay focused!
Something catches my eye up stream. I am facing east but looking north. Several of us see a trout escape the water and do a microsecond dance, taunting us. Whoa.
Just when I think I can’t stand it any longer, the sound lets out. Hundreds of poles begin to swing. I cast my line into the water. Not a bad cast, if I do say so myself. The water is clear, so clear in fact, I can see my chartreuse eggs in the water with the onlooking fish nearby. There’s about a dozen close to the bait. It’s only a matter of time. None of them are biting. I wait. Nothing. I reel it in, pretty sure I can land it in a better spot.
Cast. Splash. One of them comes up to the bait, and I just know that he’s gonna bite. He nibbles, then moves on. Pass. Dadgum fish.
Third cast. Splash. I see it happen. One of them comes quickly and hits it hard. The sound fills my ear and warms my heart, the sound of line tightening. The battle is on. My grandpa comes to help, and I reel it in. I step to the edge and see it. It has to be one of the biggest trout ever caught.
The sun is well up now to illuminate the river and the fish I have just conquered. Either myself or one of the guys (but, probably me) unhooks it and I hold it. For a moment, I’m the king of the world, a rugged frontiersman, never mind the fanny pack. In that moment I look into the eyes of a beautiful rainbow trout, speckled with countless dots and a scrambling line of glossy pink. In that moment, the drifting sound of water on rocks against gravity and the awakened sky weaves together a holy moment as I hold a fish in my little hands. I’m holding more than a fish - I’m holding victory, and one of God’s creations. I’m fully aware that I’m holding something wild.
A week or two later, I’m sitting in church and listening to dad preach about Jesus. I’m thumbing through a hymn book when he says something that catches my attention, which is no easy task. He talks of a time when Peter tells Jesus that they need to pay somebody something called a tax (which sounds boring). What strikes me is Jesus’ response. Now, I’m familiar with many miracles of Jesus – turning water into wine, raising Lazarus from the grave, and healing sick people. But this miracle is fascinating. Jesus tells Peter to go fishing. Seriously. He tells him to cast a line into the water and that the first fish he catches will have the exact coin in his mouth, and that he can use that coin to pay this thing called a tax.
Um, what? I know that Jesus can do all kinds of things; heal sick, walk on water, etc. But this is so, well… strange. How in the world does Jesus even know that there is a fish somewhere in the water that has a coin in his mouth? And how in the world does he know that it is the exact coin that he needs? And how in the world does Jesus know that this particular fish will be the very first one Peter catches? I’m overwhelmed with questions by this story.
Something comes over me in a flash. I’m recalling holding the fish from Roaring River and trying to process the story dad just told. This feeling I have all of the sudden is a brand-new feeling; sheer wonder and awe. In this moment I ask the question, who is this guy? Although I know the answer intellectually - I have already made the decision to be a Christian, and know he is my Lord - this is new territory in my relationship with him. Jesus has just surprised me. Turns out, many people have been asking that question for centuries - who is this guy?
Like me, you have probably had a “who it this guy?” moment. In the Bible, there are people who encounter Jesus and reacted in a similar way to what I did as a little boy. Their responses are quite remarkable. Let’s look at the gospel of Mark chapter 4:
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "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?"
It would be helpful to have a little background to the disciples here. These guys were not weekend warriors who occasionally went out on the boss’s yacht for cocktail parties. These guys, probably very young and capable, were well acclimated to sea life. They had their sea legs, all right. Not all of them were professional fishermen, but some of them were trained and skilled in the ways of water and handling all the conditions that accompany the activity. In those days, you would have had many successive generations going into the family business. These guys learned from their dads who spent their whole life on water and passed down tremendous amounts of insight about the craft. These guys were real fishermen. There’s a difference between people who fish for a hobby and those who do it in order to put bread on the table (or, more accurately, fish). They would not have been bothered by a small rainstorm and some moderate waves. In fact, it’s to be expected if you’re used to being on the water.
Marks tells us that the disciples were in a boat and a storm comes through that genuinely makes them afraid. They didn’t think they were going to make it out alive. The picture here is not a small obstacle for a few scaredy cats. This was a stormy storm, one to make you wet yourself. They were fearful, and who could blame them? It’s not surprising at all that they were caught up in fear. The boat is rocking, and it’s filling up with water. What is surprising, is Jesus.
He’s asleep. Like, completely able to sleep through all that is going on. He’s out. I imagine the disciples were more than a little perturbed by that. I mean, Jesus was the one who suggested they go out on the boat in the first place. It would have been easy to blame this all on Jesus. “If he really were all that wise, he would have known that a storm was coming. He would not have told us to go out on the boat in these conditions.” The disciples find him, moments from capsizing, asleep. What kind of guy, especially one who claims to be wise and powerful sleeps through a storm like this?
Back to the disciples. They knew this storm was about to do them in, and in a matter of moments they’d be in the water. In the dark. Drowning in not a glorious way to go. Nobody sees it happen, you just disappear. The water fills the lungs and you pass out as you look around seeing your friends drowning too. Not only that, your family would never be able to find you, which means no burial. You’d become fish food. This was a serious fear.
Now notice Jesus’ response when they wake him up. He doesn’t even address the question, “don’t you even care if we perish?” He starts talking to the weather. That’s right, he talks to the wind and the waves. Immediately the storm goes away and there is a great calm. A storm that was about to kill them all just went away do to three words spoken by a guy who seconds earlier was asleep in the boat. Jaws dropped.
Jesus then turns to them and asks them the most obvious question in the history of questions, “why are you so afraid?” Silence. “Have you still no faith?” I love this response, because we get to see Jesus’ personality on full display. Jesus is still yawning probably, then he turns to the ‘professionals’ and says, in effect, “what’s the big deal you guys? Don’t you trust me?”
This is an amazing story, but the shocking thing is what the Bible says happens next. The disciples after the storm were filled with great fear. Did you catch that? It’s after the storm that they became seriously filled with fear and say, “who is this guy if even the wind and the waves obey him?” Before the storm they were afraid because they were about to die. That fear, the fear of death, is a natural fear that all humans possess. But it’s after Jesus says just three words and the storm goes away in an instant that they become awestruck with a new kind of fear.
But this type of fear is different from the first. This is the moment when they realize that the guy in the boat is NOT like them. The wind and the waves obey his voice. What exactly did they see in the boat that day which brought about this new kind of fear? They saw the wildness of Jesus.
To see Jesus at work, to accurately behold his majesty, will result in a type of amazement and wonder than will produce a healthy type of fear. This type of fear, however, is not the type of fear that something bad will happen, but the type of fear that results from seeing something magnificent. There’s a great illustration of this in C.S. Lewis’ the Chronicles of Narnia. The second book of the series, the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is about four sibling children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, who enter into Narnia for the first time. Large elements of the Narnia stories are allegorical, and Aslan is the obvious Christ-figure of the story.
Early on in the book, the children find themselves in Narnia by entering through a magical wardrobe. After the initial appeal begins to wear off, they become keenly aware of certain dangers all around them. They find themselves hiding out and learning about Narnia from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who explain everything to them. After dinner one evening, they hear about Aslan. Listen to what Mr. Beaver says about Aslan:
Wrong shall be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
Lucy, intrigued by all this, asks the Beavers if Aslan is a man. Look at how Mr. Beaver replies:
“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.”
“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just silly.”
“Then is he safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Here, Lewis is giving us a fictional account containing enormous theological truth. Jesus isn’t safe. But he’s good. What do I mean by Jesus isn’t safe? I mean you can’t control him. You can’t manipulate him. I don’t mean that he isn’t to be trusted - just the opposite. And I don’t mean that Jesus is unreliable - just the opposite. He is indeed completely trustworthy and reliable. He’s absolutely good and kind and compassionate, yes. But, remember what we just read. How many of the disciples felt ‘safe’ after realizing who they were dealing with? None of them! They were shocked beyond shocked, filled with a glorious and wonderful fear, a new kind of fear. However, and this is very important, notice that Jesus does what is good. He calms the storm, he saves the voyage. You see, he is not ‘safe’, but he is good.
Some people think that following Jesus automatically ushers them into a safe life, free from struggles or storms. Not at all. In fact, following Jesus, though an incredible joy, is filled to the brim with adventure and danger and incredible risk. Yes, Jesus did say that the weary can come to him and he will give them rest. But the same Jesus who gives us rest also calls us to take up our cross and follow him. So, in that sense, he isn’t safe. But if you see Jesus, truly see Jesus, it will fill you with such a burning passion to follow him, there’s no way you could say no.
When was the last time you had a “who is this guy?” moment? If you can’t remember, ask Him for one, and I promise, He’ll give you one. He is good after all, He’s the King I tell you.
- Jonathan Yandell