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?” Mark 4:35-41
In our gospel lesson, the disciples are in a small boat on an angry sea. The wind is howling, and the waves beat into the boat so that the boat is filling up with water. Meanwhile, Jesus is in the stern of the boat, asleep on a cushion. The disciples go to him, and wake him, and say to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”
At that point Jesus wakes up, rebukes the wind, and says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”
And the wind ceases, and there is a great calm. And in the calm Jesus says to his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith.”
The disciples do not answer him. That would require the use of the 2nd person. Rather they speak about him, in the 3rd person, probably in hushed tones so that he cannot overhear them, and they say to one another, “Who then in this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
Now the stilling of the storm is one of the so-called nature miracles that the gospel writers use to establish the identity of Jesus.
In this passage the disciples address Jesus as “Teacher.” Early in Jesus ministry, people were calling him a prophet. Just before the crucifixion they were still saying that he was like Elijah, or John the Baptist, or one of the other prophets. Yet, these nature miracles remind us that Jesus is far more than just a teacher and a prophet. Let’s compare and contrast Jesus with a prophet.
Moses was the first and greatest prophet. Moses is the archetype of all prophets, for he spoke God’s Word to the people of Israel, and through him God performed mighty acts on Israel’s behalf. In the book of Exodus, Israel comes upon the Reed Sea and the Armies of Israel are in hot pursuit. Moses, stretches out his hand over the sea and commands it to part. And the text says:
And the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. Exodus 14:21
According to Exodus, Moses stretched out his hand and the wind and sea obeyed the LORD.
According to St. Mark, Jesus spoke and the wind and sea obeyed Jesus. The implication is unmistakable.
People ask me if I believe that Jesus stilled the storm and performed other miracles like this. I do. Like St. Paul, I believe that Jesus was “designated Son of God, in power, through a Spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4) (Note: Originally, “Son of God” meant “Messiah”, but eventually it meant far more, and that far more is reflected in Mark’s gospel. Mark 1:4 is certainly informed by this text!) Having accepted the idea that God raised Jesus from the dead, I have always found it relatively easy to accept a minor miracle like Jesus stilling the wind and the sea.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that to believe in the resurrection, and deny the minor miracles is like “swallowing a camel and straining out the gnats.”
Of course, for most of us, the real question that underlines this passage is not whether Jesus stilled a storm on the Sea of Galilee, but whether he, and the God he calls his Father, are in the business of stilling the storms that rage and blow in our own lives, and in the lives of those we care about.
Just this week I saw an old friend from Greensboro. She told me that one of her oldest and dearest friends is having a crisis of faith. Her friend’s story goes like this. About ten months ago, her husband lost his job. It was a good one, that at his age, he will not likely be able to replace. Then about six months ago, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and not long after, she died. Then there were several behavioral issues with her children. Then just three weeks ago, she lost her job. My friend said that her friend has been a devout Christian since childhood, but she is starting to wonder if God cares.
If I may use the language of this passage, she is one of those disciples who is a bit surprised to be facing a storm even though she long ago invited Jesus to get into the boat with her.
My friend was good enough not to ask my advice about her friend, but I have given her friends situation some thought, and it has made me think about my own situation, and yours. How can we prepare ourselves for the storms that are coming?
First, we must make the most of fair weather.
I have heard Billy Graham advise more than once that we cannot expect God to take our sins and failures, if we do not also give God our talents and our successes. In the same way, we cannot expect God to help us on those dark days when the storms of life come upon us, and the sailing is difficult, unless we are willing to acknowledge God when our days are sunny and bright, and the sailing is smooth.
William Barclay once preached the funeral of a carpenter who was also a devout Christian. Barclay said that the man “built his Christianity into his houses.” That is, he practiced his faith every day. Then he pointed out that though the man suffered much during his final illness, it had caused no crisis of faith because “he had thatched his roof before it started to rain.”
The time to batten down the hatches and adjust the canvas on the ship of life is during the fair weather before the big storm hits. The writer of Ecclesiastes saw this when he wrote:
Remember your Creator in the days of youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
The more time we spend with God, the greater our confidence in God. If we invite the Master into our boat when we are young, then he has lots and lots of time to teach us what we need to know to navigate in rough weather.
Second, we can do our best to avoid bad weather.
They’re two ways to do this. First, we can learn to predict when that rough weather is coming.
One evening, when I was serving with Battalion Landing Team 3/6 on board the LPA Francis Marion, I stood with the ships XO, watching a beautiful sun set. He said:
Red sky at night; sailor’s delight.
Red sky in the morning; sailor take warning.
It was the first I had ever heard of that; but I would later learn that the wisdom is very ancient. Jesus himself knew the truth of it, if not the rhyme of it. In Matthew 16 He says:
2When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.” 3 And in the morning, “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.”
We don’t’ always need a weather station to predict the weather.
Nor does it take great wisdom to determine that the weather of our lives always gets rougher as we approach a period of transition. Weather gets bad as we go from childhood to adolescence, and as we go to adolescence to early adulthood. Men are notorious for hitting a patch of rough weather at midlife. As we hit our sixties and seventies most of us feel like the sunny days are getting fewer and fewer. Likewise, we hit rough weather, between jobs, or just after the birth of a child, or after the loss of someone we love.
Of course, a real crisis can hit at anytime, and we don’t have much control over it. Much of life is outside our control.
However, at least some of life is under our control. We can’t always predict when rough weather is coming, but we know that if we sail in a certain direction, through dangerous waters, a storm is sure to hit. One of my favorite books is Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast. Among other things, it describes a perilous route from the East Coast to California in order to trade pick-up a load of hides. They hit rough weather as they rounded Cape Horn. Even today, if you try to sail around the Cape, you can expect bad weather.
I was ordained in 1977. That is more than thirty years ago. In that time I have met with many people who were in a patch of rough weather. Sometimes that weather came up, “out of the blue.” But at other times, they should have known that they were sailing into a bad place.
Sin is always hurtful, and our sins have a way of finding us out. “Cast your bread on the waters, for you will find it after many days. ” (Ecclesiastes) “Those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.” (Job 4:8) “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)
It sounds old fashion, but the Prophet Hosea says that if we will sow righteousness, we will reap the fruit of God’s steadfast love. (Hosea 10:12) James adds “And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
Righteousness is the state of being faithful in our relationships: to God, to family, to friends, to promises, to one another, to ourselves. Jesus says we ought even to be righteous toward our enemies. He says, “whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) One way to avoid many of the storms of life is to live a faithful life.
Third, when a storm comes, we must try not to take it too personally.
The disciples accused Jesus of not caring, even though he was in the same boat with them. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God who got into the boat of humanity with us. He got no special treatments. Do you remember what the writer of the Hebrews said about Jesus?
“Though he were a son, yet he learned obedience through what he suffered.”
And remember what the author of 1st Peter said to the people of his day who were not yet suffering. He wrote to them saying:
“Listen brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised by the fiery trial ordeal that comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s suffering, that you may also rejoice when his glory is revealed.”
I have a friend who is in his early sixties. He has had a good life, while watching those around him suffer. He once said to me, “Worth, I know that someday, the other shoe is going to drop, and it is going to drop on me.” When it does, I hope I can say, “Why not me?”
Scott Peck says, “Life is hard, but the moment we know that life is hard, it ceases to be as hard, because we know that life is hard.”
I am not saying that we should ignore the cry of others.
The toad beneath the harrow knows,
Each tooth point where the harrow goes;
The butterfly that sits upon the road,
Preaches contentment to that toad.
If people say they are hurting, we must take them at our word. I am simply saying that, if we are able, we must not take the troubles of life too personally. Some of life “Just happens.” God does not send the misfortune, and when it comes he is there to help us through it. That leads me to a final point.
Finally, when a storm comes, we must remember that it is one storm among many.
We have seen rough weather before. We will see rough weather again.
When the storm comes, we must try to remember that if we live long in this world, we are going to safely navigate a great many storms in life. God does not always deliver us from rough weather, but God often delivers us through rough weather.
A favorite preacher tells the story of making an unusual gift to his children. When they were just leaving home, he gave them a beautifully framed motto that contained only four words, “This too will pass.” He advised them to look at it on good days, and on bad. “This too will pass.”
Consider the case of the Apostle Paul. In 2nd Corinthians 11 he writes:
24 Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.
If you are going through the storm, believe that God will bring you safely to the other side. He may not deliver us out of the storm, but he will deliver us from it, and we will be stronger for it. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Once we have passed through the storm, in the calm after the storm, invariably we hear the voice of Jesus, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” And we feel those of small faith indeed.
Finis