"Let there be ..." and it was so

Looking at the gospel lesson for tomorrow - - as I must do because I will be in Chipley as supply priest, preacher and celebrant at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church - - doing requisite study, I notice, maybe for the first time, maybe not, I don't remember, something that challenges my view of Mark's christology, either the christology of Mark himself or the christology of the early church tampering with Mark's work (but I don't think so, because this story fits precisely in Mark's agenda and his overall scheme of things). 

Over against the canonical Gospel according to John, where the author's high christology is clear from chapter one, verse one - - even if the prologue is a later addition as some scholars hold - - and its intentional relationship to Genesis chapter one, 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and RUACH, the Spirit, Wind, Breath of God moved over churning chaos, and God SAID 'Let there be light,' and there was light." 

And all that God SAID, it was so, creation by the Word, by God SAYING, and this creation story being told from the viewpoint of an observer not unlike Diggory Kirke and Polly Plummer surfacing in the darkness to hear Aslan singing creation, Narnia, into being;

and ...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... all things came into being through the Word ... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us ... Jesus Christ ... "

Generally I've perceived a low christology in Mark, written perhaps about 70 AD, likely while the church understood Jesus as the Son of God (Mark 1:1 in some manuscripts, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God") and before the turn of the first century about when the church was coming to understand Jesus not "merely" as the Son of God but high christologically as God the Son and the Word of God as Gospel John proclaims. 

My imagination may be too loose, but  tomorrow's gospel reading from Mark (scroll down) can be seen as almost a mirror of Genesis 1:1f, beginning as it does with churning chaos that is silenced and calmed by the Word, "Σιώπα πεφίμωσο" "Silence! Be still!" and it was so, and the disciples in the boat with Jesus ask about Jesus the question that the evangelist leaves to us his audience and readers to answer, especially as we go event by event through his astonishing proclamation that ends with the same, silently posed question, "who was this?" to which Mark the Evangelist has made the unspoken answer so clear and obvious and compelling that he intends for us his readers to rush out and proclaim it.

Mark 4:35-41
When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Σιώπα πεφίμωσο (Peace! Be still!). Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Or maybe it's just me, IDK. Though I do know that for the Lent exercise, instead of Luke I would much have preferred to read Mark.

T

art pinched online "Calming the Storm" painting by Tigran Ghulyan. the only thing that bothers me about Ghulyan's painting is that there's no mast or ragged sail