June 23, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Job 38:1-11; Mark 4:35-41
Jesus, Just as He Is
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Our readings today reflect on the awesome power of nature and God’s domain over all that God has made.
The reading from Job captures the moment when God responds to Job’s persistent complaint. Don’t you wish that God would give a direct answer to you?
Well, maybe not, if we get an answer like the one Job got! “Where were you, Job?” God asks. “Were you there when I laid the foundation of the earth? Hmm? Did you place the morning star in the heavens? Did you set the boundaries for the seas?”
Job was something of an armchair quarterback, second guessing all of God’s actions. But God’s line of questioning quickly reframed the situation. Here is the divine one who brought all things into existence! It was God’s wisdom, it was God’s limitless imaginings that measured the scope of the earth, sea and sky!
And today we also hear the account of an experience which demonstrates Jesus’ tremendous power over a raging tempest. No mortal being wields such ability.
The disciples had been frightful, fighting against the waves. The storm pitched up and down. Water splashed into their boat, threatening to submerge them. Even these seasoned fishermen thought this might be the end!
But after Jesus commands the storm to cease, AND IT OBEYS HIM, now they’re really filled with fear! Our text reads, “they were filled with great awe.” But the Greek actually says, “They feared a great fear.” Who can do that? Who can command a storm? There’s only one answer. Only God.
Water is a common theme throughout the Bible. And the stories almost always tell how water can overwhelm us.
• At creation, the spirit hovers over the surface of the primordial, chaotic deep. But God’s voice brings order and life.
• Later, it seems like that primordial deep reasserts itself at God’s command, in a tremendous flood. Noah and his family build a massive ark, which will preserve them and a remnant of creation, until once again the waters recede.
• The Israelites find themselves cornered against the great Red Sea. Pharaoh’s army charges towards them. But then God creates a way where there was no way. The waters part and allow the Israelites to escape from certain doom.
• In the story of Jonah, our main character hops a boat that will carry him as far away from Nineveh as possible. But God causes a storm to brew. It threatens to tear the ship apart. Jonah is tossed into the sea, and the tempest immediately ceases. But Jonah is swallowed by a giant sea creature who barfs him up on the shore.
So today’s story about the raging Sea of Galilee demonstrates these chaotic waters that threaten to do us in. The sea represents those forces greater than ourselves. So many of our metaphors hearken to deep waters:
• We’re in over our heads
• The troubled waters
• We face a sea of troubles
• To be underwater in debt
• We’re drowning in work
• There’s a flood of emotions
Water carries with it an existential threat. The sea epitomizes all the things larger than ourselves. The Breton fisherman’s prayer portrays our situation so poignantly: O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.
Who can save us from the storms of life?
Jesus had taught the crowds all day. Towards evening, he and his disciples got into a boat to cross to the other side of Lake Galilee. Mark tells us the disciples took Jesus with them “just as he was.”
Jesus, just as he was. What does that mean? Jesus, as they understood him to be? Jesus, their friend? Jesus, dog tired after a long day of teaching?
Well, they were in the boat with Jesus, just as he was – the Jesus they knew and also the Jesus beyond their knowing. Jesus – just as he was – went with them.
They thought they knew their friend. But when the storm suddenly arose and the waves threatened to do them in, they would come to realize that Jesus was so much more than they thought. Jesus was someone who was more powerful than the storm. Jesus was lord over the wind and the sea. Jesus commanded, and the winds stopped. This was Jesus, just as he was!
When we go about our days, do we take Jesus along with us, just as he is?
First of all, let us remember that he takes us, just as we are. Jesus doesn’t set standards for us of heroic proportions. It’s not like when you go to the midway at the Northen Wisconsin State Fair. Beside every ride there’s a figurine that states: You must be THIS HIGH to take this ride. Jesus doesn’t set an impossible bar of faith.
He took his disciples, just as they were. When faced by the storm, they lost their courage and their faith floundered. But Jesus didn’t reject or scorn them.
Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict many a doubt
fightings and fears, within, without.
First of all, Jesus takes us, just as we are. Jesus receives us with our faltering faith and compromised outcomes. So let us take this Jesus. May we take him in all his acceptance and compassion and understanding.
And let us also take him as the one who is more powerful than all the storms in our life.
Corrie ten Boom wrote about her experience as a young Dutch woman who endured the horrors under Nazi rule. She and her family lived in the Netherlands, where they helped to hide their Jewish neighbors from persecution and death. Eventually, their actions were revealed. Corrie and her family were arrested. Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbrück Prison Camp. Her sister perished, but Corrie survived. She recorded her experiences in her book “The Hiding Place.”
Corrie had a deep, abiding faith. Through their time of hiding Jews in their house, Corrie took Jesus with her, just as he was. While enduring the privations and misery of Ravensbrück, she took Jesus with her. Mourning her sister’s passing, and the death of so many others, she took Jesus with her.
Corrie ten Boom’s life passage took her through unimaginable tempests. But she summed up her experience with these words:
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
The disciples came to see Jesus more clearly, just as he was. Over the course of his earthly ministry, they were there every step of the way. They witnessed his lordship over wind and wave. They saw his power to heal and to raise the dead. They felt his wide embrace, even though they were flawed and weak. And they were there on Easter morning, when they saw he was victor, even over the grave.
This is our Jesus, just as he is. Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to our known savior.
