Well, that was interesting. Not how I planned to spend most of my Saturday. Last night when I went to bed, there was a tightness in my throat. I thought, “Uh oh, I can’t be getting sick. It’s Saturday, for heaven’s sake!” But, sure enough, I woke up with chills and achy all over, the tightness had become a full fledged sore throat, I was dizzy when I got up, and just felt lousy. Great, I thought, I’ve got too much to do, it is still Saturday!
I realize that you have to be a pastor/preacher to understand the level of panic in that statement. It’s Saturday! I can’t be sick!! Could be worse, I suppose, it could have been Sunday morning. Except that if it was Sunday, I would have forced myself to get up and go. Since it was Saturday, I could panic. So I did. Well, long enough to stagger back to bed, where I slept all morning long. Finally staggering out around 1:30 or so. Feeling a lot better.
OK, as storms go, it was a minor one. A sudden squall that caused a little course correction and a reorienting of my plans for the day. But nothing like as devastating as many face on an all too regular basis. We are in the midst of a storm. Or storms, personal and individual storms, corporate and national storms, storms of all sorts. It is sometimes hard to see the sun shining through given the thickness of the cloud cover. It is sometimes hard to see the hope in the midst of the despair. And yet, hope is what we are needing, what we are longing for. Hope that comes not from the end of the storm, but from the presence in the midst of it.
Mark 4:35-41 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
If you back up a couple of verses you see a context that just might change our experience of this story. Jesus had been teaching, and leaving many a furrowed brow behind him, as he seems keen to do. And then verses 33 and 34 say that he was always teaching in parables. Even when they didn’t understand. And he only explained things to his disciples in private. And you think well, that isn’t fair. The disciples get an explanation, the people get confusion. Until you get to this story and you realize that understanding makes demands on us. But more on that next week! For now we are caught up in our storms. And begin see what is required of us as followers.
First of all, Jesus says, rather simply it seems, “Let’s go across to the other side.” And off they go. But we need to pause for a moment and consider what is on the other side, and it is the other side of. On the basic level it is the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Not a large body of water in world terms, but significant enough to give pause to the fishermen and boaters of that day. Most fishing was done close to the shore. It is possible, indeed likely, that the four fishermen had made a substantial career on that lake and had never gone across it. That crossing represented a foray into the unknown. Scripture is full of images of the sea as the representative of chaos, or that where God is not. When Jonah was running away from God he went to sea. In some ancient coastal cultures, whenever fishermen were heading out to deeper waters there was a ritual performed before they left that was essentially a funeral - a chance to say goodbye for what would very possibly be the last time. And when, or if, they returned there was a celebration that had little to do with the catch, it was more like resurrection. So, when Jesus said follow me a couple of chapters ago, what he really meant was put your life at risk.
And he didn’t say, sail out a way to get away from everyone. He said go across to the other side. He had a destination in mind. But on the other side was “them.” Jesus was heading to non-Jews. He was leaving the land of people like him and venturing off among strangers. Go to the other side is almost a threatening kind of statement to them and to us. We don’t like going to the other side - whether it is the other side of town or the other side of the tracks, or - for politicians - the other side of the aisle. The other side is where foreigners dwell, the ones we don’t know and don’t like if we were to admit it. The other side is where the habits are strange and the behaviors are worse. The other side is where the folks we stare at, and shake our heads and tsk under our breath. Let’s go across to the other side. And off they go.
OK? One verse down! Then it says they gathered up and took off. But that Jesus went “just as he was.” What does that mean? To be honest, I don’t know. But Mark who is so sparing with words wouldn’t include something just as a throwaway. So, there is something here, some clue, some foreshadowing. Jesus is always showing us how to live, how to be. That was his main purpose in spending time among us. He got frustrated when we focused all our attention on the spectacular, the miracles and the healings. He wanted us to see something else, something deeper, more significant. And perhaps his statements at the end of the passage - to jump ahead for a moment - came about for the same reason. He was upset that those closest to him were missing something vital, some clue about life. And maybe that clue is revealed in the statement that Jesus went “just as he was.”
Maybe the invitation is to live within ourselves. To be centered in who and what we are and to be satisfied with that. Maybe our security in the end comes not from something or someone or some condition outside, but maybe it comes from within. Maybe his rebuke to them was not that they were afraid to die, but that their fear was translated as “Don’t you care that we are about to die?” It was their misunderstanding about the gift of faith that bothered him. Don’t you care? Because if you cared you would do what we want when we want it.
Here’s my point - since the end of the page is looming and Maddie says I write too much anyway - storms follow us wherever. The promise of the Christian life is not for constant sunny skies and clear forecasts. Storms will come, you can count on it. The question is what will you do in the midst of the storm. When you live your life, fulfill your obligations, make something of yourself, even when you set out to retreat and be built up for the tasks ahead, storms will come. Faith is not a ticket out of the storm. Sometimes it feels as though we live from one storm to the next. But the question remains, what will you do in the midst of the storm? Or maybe better, who will you be in the midst of the storm?
Commentators will tell you that Mark’s proclamation here is a reminder that Jesus is stronger than the storms. And if Paul is right, that it is “no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me” then there is no storm that can make me less than I am in Christ. Which means that in spite of the fear and the sometimes panicked activity in the midst of the storm, I can find a place of calm. I can be, like Christ, just as I am. Even in the storm.
So, our prayer is not that there will be a miracle and the storms will suddenly cease. Or actually, we do pray for that, and nothing wrong with that. But whether the storm passes or not does not determine the strength of our faith. Does not need to govern our fear. Fear not, for I am with you. Even in the storm.
Shalom,
Derek
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