Mark 4:35-41
While they were sailing Jesus fell asleep.
- A windstorm swept down on the lake.
- The boat was filling with water.
- And they were in danger.
- They went to him and woke him up…shouting:
- “Master…Master…we are perishing!”
- And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves.
- They ceased…and there was a calm.
- He said to them: “Where is your faith?”
Jesus and the disciples are caught in a storm at sea.
- The text says they were in real danger.
- Their boat was filling with water.
- So…if they were going to pieces it was not due to neuroses or an anxiety disorder.
- It was because their boat was about to sink.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Well…we are wired for certain responses when our lives are in danger.
- Adrenalin is released in our brains.
- Our heart rate increases…our pupils dilate to let in more light.
- And we become hyper-aware of what’s happening around us.
- We do not really choose to react like this.
So…it is kind of unfair that…amid a sinking boat Jesus turns to his disciples and says:
- “Where is your faith?”
- It feels like an accusation.
- Is Jesus saying that if we have enough faith…we can somehow transcend our animal brain chemistry?
Both New Age and Prosperity Gospel thinking would have us believe that if we just have enough faith…
- Or if we just think positively enough.
- We will draw only good things to us.
- But honestly…life does not work that way.
- We know that bad things happen to all people.
- And to think that storms happen because we did not think enough positive thoughts.
- Or practice the right kind of religion…is just spiritual vanity.
So maybe when Jesus said to them where is your faith…he said it not as an accusation…but as an invitation.
- An invitation to reflect on where God is amid storms.
- So…Jesus invites us to reflect on what it means to be alive on the other side of a situation.
- A situation we thought might kill us:
- A divorce…an illness…the death of a parent or a child…the loss of a job…depression…middle school.
- It can feel like it is going to kill us.
- But if it does not…then we get to ask questions like:
- In what did I have faith? Where was God? What did I fear?
- Because faith and positive thinking are not some kind of magic formula for a storm-free life.
- But faith is a way to find some calm.
So…here is what I mean:
- I am in the middle of a storm:
- A money problem or a relationship crisis or a medical emergency.
- And I say: “I am perishing here…God”
- I am sure I am perishing.
- But when I look back on it six months or a year later…
- After everything worked out or did not work out.
- But I am still alive and the world did not end and I think:
- “I do not know why I was so messed up”.
Well…I want some day to get to the point where I can trust God in the moment and not just in the past.
- Maybe things will work out and maybe they will not.
- But I can either have a sense of God’s love during the whole thing…
- Or I can be so out-of-sorts I forget God’s love is there.
Because here is what I believe:
- Our God…whose love is powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead…
- Simply will not be separated from me or from you.
- Not by a storm…not by a crisis…not by a pandemic…not by a war and not even by death.
- The love of God in Christ may not separate us from the storm.
- But the storm cannot and shall not and will not separate us from God’s love.
- Be still…and know that I am God (Psalm 46).
- That is what I have written on a big wooden sign as I enter my home from the garage door.
Every afternoon…after putting her daughter down for her nap…she moves to the garden in the backyard…and just sits.
- She enjoys the flight of a butterfly… considers a bee hovering over the garden…loses herself in the clouds above her.
- Then she returns to her little one to find her ready to charge through the afternoon.
- And…thanks to her moments of stillness…Mom is re-charged…as well.
The morning is filled with phone calls and meetings.
- Like most engineers…convincing…motivating…fixing…adapting…tracking…and computing and completing are what he does.
- But at lunchtime…he walks to a nearby downtown church to catch the 12:10 music and worship time.
- For thirty minutes he hears Christ speaking through the Word and music.
- The gift of stillness covers him with the breath of the Holy Spirit.
- He goes back to the office for the afternoon feeling whole again.
Like most teenagers…his life is filled with confusion and questions and discoveries and realizations and anxiety.
- Sometimes the rollercoaster of being 16 becomes too much.
- So…he closes his door…lies back on his bed…and puts on his headphones.
- But the music is not the usual.
- It’s a vinyl record played on a turntable.
- Soft jazz that quiets his nerves and soothes his spirit.
- In the music he finds the sanctuary of stillness.
Jesus’ words are addressed to us this morning:
- Peace! Be still!