Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, June 21st, 2015
Text: Mark 4:35-41Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Jesus Stills a Storm
35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” 39 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. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” 41 And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
God does not take the easy road.
Today’s Gospel lesson tells us about one of Jesus’ most memorable and dramatic miracles on the Sea of Galilee.
The Sea of Galilee is notorious for sudden, violent squalls that come out of nowhere. One writer has described these storms like this: “It is not unusual to see terrible squalls hurl themselves, even when the sky is perfectly clear, upon these waters which are ordinarily so calm. The numerous ravines which [open out] upon the upper part of the lake operate as so many dangerous defiles in which the winds from the heights of Hauran, the plateux of Trachonitis, and the summit of Mount Hermon are caught and compressed in such a way that, rushing with tremendous force through a narrow space and then being suddenly released, they agitate the little Lake … in frightful fashion.”1
Everybody who lived in that area, particularly those disciples who had formerly been fishermen, and certainly Jesus himself, knew about the dangers of that Sea. Yet, when Jesus pointed toward the distant shore on the other side and said, “Let’s go over there,” they followed him without hesitation or complaint.
Right off the bat, then, this story becomes a metaphor for faithful following. Jesus calls us, and we tumble into the boat and set sail, even though we might not be fully aware of our direction or our destination, and even though unknown dangers might lie before us on the path. He calls; we follow.
Then, of course, the plot thickens – a sudden storm does come up, one that is so serious that it threatens to sink the boat. The disciples are utterly terrified; they do their best to bail out the water that’s washing over the gunwales, but it’s no use. They’re about to go down…
…and yet, there’s Jesus, sleeping peacefully in the place of honor in the stern of the boat, as if he were in a comfortable bed in a house on dry land. The disciples steal amazed glances at him as they try to save the boat and themselves – and finally, they dare to awaken him.
“Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” And Jesus simply sits up, and shouts out to the sea and the wind “Peace! Be still!” and suddenly the sea is calm, and the wind is gone. And Jesus says to his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”
Note here that that “faithful following” I just mentioned was no problem while the sea was calm. But when the waves kicked up and the boat started filling with water – well, that was a different story. Suddenly the disciples were all “fair weather friends” of faith, and Jesus called them on it.
That’s a good lesson for us, too: Faith is not just for when the sun is shining. In fact, faith really comes into its own when the night is dark, the wind is howling around us, and we can’t see to put one foot in front of the other.
But then Jesus calms the storm, and the disciples are left standing, struck dumb with amazement, and ask each other, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”
This is an important passage in the Gospels – we know that because it’s in Mark, Matthew, and Luke – so it’s likely that this is one of those eyewitness accounts the early church told and retold to make sure it was remembered. This is one of the events that proved to them beyond a shadow of a doubt that this Jesus they followed was more, much more, than just a man or even a gifted teacher – it proved that Jesus was, in fact, God himself.
Jesus could have said to his companions, “OK, boys, let’s walk along the beach to the other side of this lake.” But if he had done that, this opportunity to not only show God’s power at work in Jesus, but also the opportunity to deepen the faith of the disciples (and all those who have come after them) would have been missed.
God does not take the easy road.
God does not take the easy road, because nobody learns anything of lasting value by taking the easy road. It’s only when things get tough that we begin to take stock of who and what we are and what God might have in mind for us.
So if we simply read this story and only take from it the usual lesson – that yes, this was a bona fide miracle and that yes, Jesus had the power of God to command the elements of nature – we miss the deeper lessons.
Lesson 1: God is more powerful than anything we face. The God who gave us his Son is the God who created the Universe and all that is in it – so nothing and no one we will ever encounter can prevail against that God.
Lesson 2: God is on our side. I have many favorite passages in the Bible, but my all-time favorite is from Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, verses 31-38: “31 What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; 34 who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us?[e] 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For thy sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
How, I ask, can anyone read this passage and not be moved, not be comforted, not be strengthened? That’s the God of Jesus in that boat that day. That’s the God who’s with us whenever we find ourselves up that proverbial creek of manure with no paddle.
This does not mean, of course, that we will always experience nothing but clear sailing in our lives – even Jesus didn’t, as we just read; it does not mean that we will not face challenges, sometimes horrible challenges, in our lives. This past week has been a challenge for Katie and me – and even more so for Madelaine, our daughter, and Phil, our son-in-law. Little Chloe had some tough sledding the first two days of her life – her blood sugar just wasn’t up to the right level, and I, for one, didn’t know what exactly that meant and what was going to happen because of it. So we were a bit tense there for a while! Prayers were flying upward for those two days! But the doctors got her back on track, and now she’s home and thriving. As challenges go, it turned out to be toward the minor end of the scale (I’ve since learned that this is not uncommon among newborns); nonetheless, those couple days were definitely trying.
And we all know people – some of them in our St. John’s community, and some of them right here among us today – who are facing deep personal challenges of the kind that truly try the soul. We don’t know what the future holds. No one does. No one can. But one thing we do know, and that with absolute certainty: God is with us. God has our back. God holds us in the palm of his hand.
Lesson 3: Jesus gives us peace from the storm of sorrow. My Dad was fond of saying, “Into every life, a little rain must fall.” Sometimes ‘way more than “a little rain” falls on us! But when sorrow comes to us, as it does to everyone, Jesus reminds us of the glory of the life to come. When the shadow of death falls across our path, Jesus shines the light of eternal life on it, and it goes away. Those of us who are in Christ aren’t just “whistling Dixie” when it comes to what’s in store for us when we reach the end of our road – it is a certain fact, a guarantee from God himself that we will enter into the Promised Land and spend eternity there with him. Now that’s what I call insurance!
Lesson 4: Jesus gives us peace when life’s problems hit us like a tsunami of doubt and tension and uncertainty. Since this is Father’s Day, I think particularly of those times when we Dads simply don’t know what to do about our kids. There they are, standing at a crossroads, and we are just plain at a loss to help them choose the right path.
I really do believe that this is sometimes because the role of dads has changed and continues to change. Things are different for those of you dads who are younger than I am, just as things were different when my kids were small than they were in my Dad’s time. And so it’s sometimes hard to get a bead on how best to raise our kids in the face of changing circumstances.
But the main thing is this: Keep trying. Keep making the effort. Yes, you’re going to get it wrong sometimes, but that’s OK. It’s better to make your best efforts to raise your kids than to not try at all.
Lucky for us, we have an ace in the hole. If we turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, I don’t know what to do. Give me guidance,” eleven times out of ten (pretty good odds!) the way will become clear. The real tragedy is that so many times it’s not that we don’t know what to do, but that we don’t simply ask for help. To ask Jesus for guidance and then to submit to that guidance straightens things out and gives all of us peace of mind.
Lesson 5: Related to Lesson 4, Jesus gives us peace from anxiety. I have never met a Dad (or a Mom, for that matter), who hasn’t had more than one sleepless night full of worry and anxiety over his family. I remember one in particular, back before Nick, our son, was even born. We’d been to the doctor, and some test result had not come back as expected. Talk about anxiety! I stared all night into the darkness, brooding and wondering, and hoping and praying that everything would be fine.
One of the “roles” of fathers that still seems to be current is the role of Dad who, like Jesus today, faces down the storms and makes things right. Only we know that sometimes making things right is beyond our power – and then it’s time to call in the A-Team, that amazing God of ours whose eye is on the sparrow. Jesus speaks to us Dads today of our loving “Father whose hand will never cause his child a needless tear and of a love beyond which neither we nor those we love can ever drift. In the storm of anxiety, he brings us the peace of the love of God.”2
So today, fellow Dads, let’s remember these lessons; and above all, let’s remember to call in that A-Team when we need it!
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
In the Name of God: The Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
1 Quoted in Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark, St. Andrew Press, 2001
2 Ibid., p. 134