Mark 4:35-41, CEB - Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said
to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” They left the crowd and took him in the boat
just as he was. Other boats followed along.
Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the
boat so that the boat was swamped. But Jesus was in the rear of the boat,
sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that
we’re drowning?”
He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the
lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened?
Don’t you have faith yet?”
Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is
this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
One of the details of this story that has always amused me
was how Jesus was asleep in the back of a boat in a storm with gale-force
winds. I know He was tired because they
were in the boat to try and get away and rest.
But how tired do you have to be to do that? In 2017, with eye of Hurricane Irma forecast
to go right through Pine Island (where I was serving as a pastor at the time),
I began to really worry. I worried so much
that I did not sleep well for two days before the storm arrived. We evacuated to Orlando, the storm turned,
went well south of Pine Island, and came much closer to where we were than it
did to Pine Island. Two trees fell around
the house we were in and the roof was damaged badly enough that it was replaced
later. I, however, slept through the
whole thing. I had gotten so exhausted
with lack of sleep and worry that I slept through a hurricane. But I was not in
a boat in the middle of the storm. No wind and water touched my person. So I repeat . . .how tired do you have to be to sleep in the
bow of a boat in the middle of a large lake in a bad storm? Or perhaps, how
completely unworried and confident do you have to be?
The other detail that has me puzzled concerning this story is
Jesus’s questions about being frightened and having faith. After just confessing the worry and fear that
I had with the threat of a hurricane, those questions sound rather condescending
and unhelpful. After hearing first-hand
reports from my friends in Pine Island concerning their experience of riding
out Hurricane Ian, I certainly don’t fault them for the fear and uncertainty
they felt. But I sometimes wonder if Jesus
does.
I don’t think so. The
response of the disciples to Jesus’s question is not one of people who have
just been shamed. The text describes their
feeling as being “overcome with awe.”
Not shame or humiliation. . . but awe.
Jesus calms the storm before he asks these questions. If He were condemning them, he would have
asked them before He calmed the storm. To
me, the exchange reads a bit more like this:
The disciples wake Jesus and scold him, “Don’t you care that
we are drowning?!”
Jesus, after silencing the wind and waves, asks “How’s your fear
and faith NOW?
Reading it like this, the disciples’ awe-filled response
makes more sense.
Jesus doesn’t shame us for our fear and lack of faith. He invites us to see His ways and gradually
let go of our fear and see our faith expand.
Later in the New Testament, these same fearful disciples go fearlessly to
their deaths because their faith was built up tremendously by seeing first-hand
all that Jesus did. As I look back over
my life, I am much less fearful than I once was and my faith is stronger than
it was when it began. This is because I
have witnessed dozens of miracles, been delivered through multiple storms
(actual and figurative), and I have seen God show up in crisis in ways that
leave me in awe.
The invitation is look for God to show up. And when God doesn’t seem to be showing up, we
might even, like the disciples, get a little cheeky and question whether He
cares that we are being threatened. But
at least we know who to go to when there’s trouble.
Question: How’s your
fear and faith right now?
Prayer: God, we
confess that our faith is not what it should be and our fear often gets the
best of us. Help us in our unbelief. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for people in SW Florida who are just now getting to begin to try and figure
out what to do next after Hurricane Ian.
Song: If You’re Going
Through Hell – Rodney Atkins
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