Mark 4:35-41[1]
I’ve mentioned several
times recently that faith isn’t easy. Faith is a choice to look at life from
the point of view that God’s love is the ultimate reality, and not death. That’s
not always easy for us to do, especially when someone close to us has died. Faith
means opening ourselves to a relationship with God that will change us from the
inside out into people who live all of life for him. That’s not easy to do
either. It can be frightening to open ourselves to that much change. Faith
means that we decide to let go our illusions of control and surrender our lives
into the hands of only one who can truly make a difference. That’s also not
easy, especially when life seems to “fly apart” on us.
I think for many of
us, one of the facets of life that makes faith difficult is that so much of
what happens makes it hard to believe that God is the one who is truly working
in our lives and in the lives of all people to make a difference. We are drawn
to believe that we live in a world created by a loving God. And yet every day
we see bad things happening to good people. All too often those bad things
happen to the people we love, or even to us. This poses perhaps the greatest
challenge to our faith. In the face of the fact that “the wrong seems oft so
strong” how can we continue to trust that “God is the ruler yet”?
I believe our Gospel
lesson for today addresses this problem, but perhaps not in the way you might
think! The story of Jesus calming the storm is one that is familiar to most of
us. But if we look closely, I think we may be in for a few surprises. The first
surprise is that while the disciples are battling a “great windstorm” such that
“the waves beat into the boat” and it was being swamped, Jesus was asleep (Mk.
4:37-38)! Some have said that this was a demonstration of Jesus’ “serenity …
due to his trust in God.”[2] That doesn’t make much sense to me. In Mark’s gospel, this episode takes place
at the end of a full day of teaching the crowds that were thronging to him. I
think he was asleep because he was exhausted!
The next surprise is
the way the disciples spoke to Jesus: “Teacher, do you not care that we are
perishing?” (Mk. 4:38). That’s not the way you would expect those who were to
become the apostles and leaders of the church, and who would eventually be venerated
as “saints,” to speak to Jesus! John Calvin tried to “excuse” the sharpness of
their language.[3] Several of the disciples had made their living by fishing the Sea of Galilee.
They knew how dangerous the storms were. They knew how easy it was for a swamped
boat to sink. I think what they said reflected the fact that they believed they
were about to die!
I would say that the
ultimate surprise in this story is the fact that when Jesus woke up, he
“rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’” (Mk 8:38), and wind
and the waves were calm! Now, that might not be so surprising for us. We’ve all
heard this story so many times that we know that’s how it’s “supposed” to turn
out. But I would say that the disciples who were in the boat with him were stunned.
They did not expect Jesus to be able to command the wind and the waves, because
that’s something that only God can do in the Bible![4]
I think that takes us
back to the “surprise” in the way Jesus’ own disciples responded to him. I
think their panicked remark, “don’t you care that we are perishing?” was a very
true-to-life statement. It reflects the very real danger they faced! In Mark’s
Gospel, Jesus’ response to them is perhaps equally sharp: “Why are you afraid?
Have you still no faith?” (Mk. 4:40). I would say that the implication is that
they didn’t! And the way the episode ends is with the observation that “they
were filled with great fear” (Mk 4:41, not “awe” as in the NRSV!). We don’t
expect those who would later become apostles and the founders of our faith to
respond to Jesus with fear!
I think Mark tells
this story in such a surprising way on purpose. I think he knew that there were
people in the community of faith for whom he wrote his gospel who were facing
challenges that pushed them beyond the limits of their ability to believe. I think
he wanted to reassure those believers in his day that their struggles with
faith were normal, because even the twelve struggled with faith! But beyond
that, I think Mark wanted to remind us all that, no matter what may come our
way, Jesus was and still is the one whom even the wind and the sea obey.
For centuries
(literally!) we have been told that the point of this story is that Jesus calms
the storms of life. And sometimes he does. But the problem is that sometimes he
doesn’t. And that’s when faith can be challenging for us. I think we can hold
onto faith even in those times, however. The authority and power that Jesus
demonstrated on the Sea of Galilee was the authority and power that God had
given him to make God’s rule a reality in the lives of the people. And Jesus is
still the one who works in our lives to bring about God’s purposes. We may not
understand why God’s purpose doesn’t always translate into calming every storm
we have to experience. Our perspective on what God may be doing in and through
our lives is limited, and we don’t always know what’s at stake. But I think we
can entrust our lives, come what may, to the one who commanded the wind and the
sea and they obeyed him. As the hymn reminds us, “the waves and wind still know
his voice.”
[1] ©2021 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 6/20/2021
for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] A.
Y. Collins & H. W. Attridge, Mark: A
Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, 260.
[3] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of
the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1 p. 424-25. He basically
says that allows that they “could” have expressed faith if they hadn’t let
their fear get the best of them.
[4] William
F. McInerny, “An Unresolved Question In The Gospel Called Mark: ‘Who Is This
Whom Even Wind And Sea Obey?’” Perspectives
in Religious Studies 23 (Fall 1996): 259. See Gen 1:6-7; 6:17; Isa 43:16;
Ps 65:7; 74:13; 77:19; 89:9; 104:6; 106:9; 107:29; and Job 9:8; 26:12; 38:16.
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