(Preached on Sunday, June 21, 2009)
And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?” -Mark 4:38
Have you ever been on a large body of water in the midst of a storm in a small boat? When I visited Israel three years ago one of the highlights was our excursion on the Sea of Galilee in a replica fishing boat similar to the boat Jesus and his disciples may have used. That day the sea was smooth as glass and it was an inspiring, peaceful, sacred time we enjoyed on the water. But the day before the winds were strong from the east, the sky was grey with sporadic rain, and the waves were quite large. We witnessed a smaller fishing boat with two fishermen aboard face quite a struggle on those waters. I would not have wanted to be on that water even in the slightly larger boat we used.
I was on a large body of water in a small canoe once. It was a huge lake in the Minnesota Boundary Waters, not quite as large as the Sea of Galilee, but very close. And the canoe was a much smaller craft than the fishing boat in Israel. Those lakes in Minnesota are smooth as glass each morning. You can glide across them as easy as ice skates on a frozen lake. But as the day goes by, the winds and other activity stir the water so that they become much choppier. This particular day as we entered this large lake, making for camp late in the afternoon, the wind was particularly strong so the waves were stirred up to about 1 – 2 feet tall. That may not sound like much, but our canoe had 3 persons with all our gear and rode very low in the water, with only about 10 inches clearance from the top of the gunwales, the boat sides, to the water line. Those waves felt huge, and were clearly higher than the sides of the canoe. Paddling into the wind on such choppy water was extremely difficult, and quite frightening.
I can well imagine how those disciples felt in that storm. Even though they were fishermen, with a wealth of experience on the sea, being in a storm was never something they relished. As fishermen, they went out to sea not because they enjoyed it, but out of necessity. The Jewish people had a long history of dislike for the sea. In fact, their word for heaven, translated literally, means “no more sea.” They saw the sea as a threatening, foreboding place of chaos and capriciousness. It was a threatening power which no human being could ever tame or control. Very similar to how we, at times, view life.
More and more life seems to careen out of control. How many times in any given day are we assaulted by bad news? We can barely recover from one depressing declaration before we are confronted by another. If it’s not a car repair, it’s a house repair. If it’s not a headache, it’s a heartache. If it’s not a problem finding a job, it’s a problem keeping a job. If it’s not a mortgage meltdown, it’s another financial bail-out. If it’s not national security, it’s the national debt. If it’s not hell at the workplace, it’s hell in your home life. Increasingly our faith is severely tested and we wonder, “Does God care?”
The early Church for which Mark wrote this gospel was experiencing storms that were shaking its trust, its faith. It was in danger of being overwhelmed by skepticism, fear, unable to understand why it had still so many trials to face and endure. They struggled with the very same crisis of faith. Scripture has a strong tradition of considering God asleep whenever the people of Israel suffered defeat by an enemy or some calamity or tragedy. The cry of the disciples that Jesus wake up and show his concern is the cry of faithful people of every age when besieged by trouble and in danger of being overwhelmed by the storms of life. When the doctor looks at us and before she even speaks you can read on her face the word cancer; when you are startled in the night by the late telephone call and the voice on the other end says, “I have some bad news.” At those moments we feel overwhelmed by the storm and we wonder where is God? Has God abandoned us, or is God asleep?
The disciples were irritated that Jesus was not as worried as they were. How could he sleep at a time like this? Jesus sleeps not because he does not care about his companions in the boat with him. Jesus sleeps because he knows that the one who created the power of the storm is greater even than the storm and he knows that the same one holds him in strong, protective hands. Jesus sleeps on because of his supreme, serene confidence in the face of the storm. Jesus sleeps because he knows that in the storm, God is with him; the storm does not mean God has abandoned him, or is punishing him. Jesus knows, what Paul reminds us of in Romans 8: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.” Jesus’ nap indicates the perfect trust of a human heart in God’s unfailing love and care.
There was a mother and her little 4 year old daughter who were preparing to retire for the night. The child was afraid of the dark, and the mother, on this occasion alone with the child, felt fearful also. When the light was out, the child caught a glimpse of the moon outside the window. “Mother,” she asked, “is the moon God’s light?” “Yes,” said the mother. The next question was, “Will God put out His light and go to sleep?” “No, dear, God never goes to sleep.” Then out of the simplicity of a child’s faith, the little girl said that which gave reassurance to the fearful mother. “Well, as long as God is awake, there is no sense in both of us staying awake, too.”
There are times we find ourselves in a small boat on a large and tumultuous sea. But we are never alone in the boat. Jesus is always right there with us, ready to say: “Be calm. Don’t panic.” Even though we may cower like frightened disciples, Jesus calls us to faith. Not a blind faith that grasps at straws for miraculous rescues, but rather faith that God is good; God does care for us; and God is always with us, even in the harshest storms. Such faith knows that God will see us through.
It is not always with a miraculous rescue overpowering the forces of chaos, as Jesus did in rebuking the wind and the waves. We so want to go that way with this story. But all one need do is remember the people of New Orleans who watched a might storm crush their home and flood their city, bringing death and destruction, or those who perished or lost loved ones in the tsunami several years ago. Though Jesus rebuked the wind in this instance, we should remember that Jesus didn’t cancel Roman taxes, and he did not drive the Romans from the land, and he did not make people immune to sickness, and he did not outlaw death. The cross reminds us of that truth. But the resurrection reminds us that even in death God is with us and never leaves us and ultimately, finally, even death is not to be feared, for in God we will triumph over death as well.
Jesus brought the power of the living God into the midst of the disciples in that boat in that storm. He can do that in our lives, too. In the depth of our depressions, in the overwhelming pain of loss, in the searing hurt of disappointment, in the desperation of not know what to do next. Jesus is able to set things right and become the calm at the center of the storm.
Frederick Buechner preached a beautiful sermon on this passage in which he reassures us that Jesus will be with us: “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and … in whatever way we can call on him as the fishermen did in their boat to come awake within us and to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us, each one, our way. May he be with us especially when the winds go mad and the waves run wild, as they will for all of us before we’re done, so that even I their midst we may find peace, find him.”
We do not ask that all the problems of life disappear. Nor do we ask that we be made perfect and make no mistakes. We cannot rightly ask or expect that we will have no more perplexing situations or demands upon us. But we know that ate the center of it all, in the deep recesses of our lives, Jesus is with us and he will bring the calm which opens us to the presence of God. We can fail and still be accepted. We can be wrong and be forgiven. We can be exhausted and be renewed. We can be fearful and find new faith. Through it all Christ will be with us as we venture out into life’s deep waters, into the uncharted territory of the future. We need not fear, whatever storms come our way, for God is with us.