There’s a story that illustrates what we learn through this morning’s gospel reading very well and I struggled with all week to decide how to use it, or even to use it at all, but I decided to use it and tell it in two parts because it seems to really illustrate so well what we’re about to hear this morning. The scene is a hospital waiting room. A family is sitting in that waiting room, late at night, waiting for any news on their 17 year old son, who has been injured in an automobile accident. The son is in very critical condition as he is brought into the hospital and is currently undergoing surgery for his life threatening injuries. His family is Christians. As they wait, time seems to stand still, they feel absolutely helpless. They ride the roller coaster of silence and emotional outburst. One moment, the room is so quiet; you could hear a pin drop. The next moment the room is filled with uncontrollable crying, sobbing, and anger. They lash out at the drunk driver that caused this accident, leaving their son fighting for his life. This family is all alone in that hospital waiting room. We will come back to them in a little while.
Storms and severe weather have a way of leaving us in awe, and also fear. I was thinking about that this week, as I was coming home from visiting my grandmother in Winterset on Wednesday evening, and as I was leaving Winterset, the sky which had become dark with clouds suddenly lit up with bolts of lightening. I pulled my car off to the side of the road to watch that powerful lighting display and I was simply amazed at its power and also how hard the rain was coming down and the winds were blowing. Lightening is awesome, and fun to watch, but it can also be deadly and destructive. If you’ve ever seen lighting strike, you know it’s pretty scary. Just as a thunderstorm, ice storm, snowstorm, windstorm, tornado, and any other type of severe weather can be hard to survive and bring fear when we are caught in them, we have stormy times in our lives as well. Our gospel lesson for today describes a brush with death the disciples had at the hands of a mighty storm.
Although the disciples feared they might perish, they received help and deliverance from that storm-and miraculously so. This morning, I’d like for us to take a look at the meaning of this portion of Scripture by considering two questions: How do the storm and the attitude of the disciples relate to our lives? And through this crisis, who did Jesus show himself to be for us?
Jesus had been in a boat by the shore of the Sea of Galilee and had been teaching to a large crowd that had assembled by the shore. As evening comes, Jesus says to the disciples that they should go to the other side of the sea. Our text says they took Jesus just as he was which would lead us to believe that they didn’t make any special preparations for the trip across the Sea of Galilee. We can also assume that this meant Jesus was very tired from the day’s events, as we read a few verses later he is asleep in the boat. Either way, they probably assumed it would be a short trip across the sea and rather uneventful. The Sea of Galilee is situated in a basin, where cool air from the Mediterranean Sea is drawn down through the narrow mountain passes and that cool air clashes with the hot, humid air that is above the lake, which makes the Sea of Galilee very susceptible to sudden and violent storms. So it’s easy to assume that it appeared as is if it was going to be smooth sailing for this trip across the sea. However, once they got out onto the sea, things changed very suddenly. A furious storm comes out of nowhere, and the waves are breaking over the boat and that the boats were nearly swamped. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, when your boat or canoe is swamped, its full of water and about to sink or turn over, which is dangerous of course because the occupants of the boat can get trapped underneath the boat and the water and drown. Needless to say, things were not looking too good for the disciples and Jesus, and the disciples were in a panic, they were scared to death, thinking they might very well die out there on the sea that night. And what’s Jesus doing this whole time? Jesus is in the stern of the boat, sleeping on a rower’s cushion! Somehow or another, he was able to sleep through this whole storm! He’s finally awakened by the disciples who ask him “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
It’s easy for us to look at this particular story, and be simply amazed at the lack of faith the disciples had. Jesus even asks them after he calms the storm “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” We can even think the same thing. In the past when I have studied the Gospel of Mark both in a regular New Testament class and later when I translated Mark’s gospel in Greek readings with my favorite professor at Concordia, Dr. Daniel Jastram, its easy to read the gospel of Mark and ask these questions or think “these guys act more like the 12 stooges at times than the 12 disciples, you’d think they’d have more faith being around Jesus all the time.” Well, as easy as it may be for you and me to start picking at the disciples and pointing fingers at them, I hate to burst your bubble at this point, but you and I are guilty of the same problem. We do it too.
There’s an old saying, perhaps you know it pretty well yourself. Its one of my personal favorites and so much so, that a very special friend, Melanie, a little over a year ago made this little cross stitch frame that has a very prominent place on my desk which reads simply, “Let go and Let God.” You see, the disciples in our text could have simply relied on Jesus, knowing he was present with them in that boat, and that he would not allow anything to happen to them in the midst of that storm. However, the disciples quickly at the sight of the storm and as water continued to fill their boats and threaten to sink them, took matters into their own hands and began to panic. They didn’t trust in Jesus to guide them out of the storm. They referred to Jesus as Teacher, not Lord of their lives, or as their savior. Today, you and I are very similar in not trusting God to lead us when times get rough and things threaten to devour us or threaten to sink our boats. As an example, this week as I was preparing this sermon and had chosen to preach on the gospel lesson, I figured that I would have things pretty well in order by Tuesday or Wednesday. As it turned out, I was sitting up awake at 2:30 this morning worried sick that I was going to blow it up here today. I wasn’t sure if the message I have been working so hard on this week would be one that you could relate to in where you are at in your lives and help you to grow in your understanding and faith. Just then, I got an instant message on my computer from the very friend who made this little frame for me, simply saying “Stop the worrying, God’s going to take care of everything, so go get some sleep so you don’t put yourself to sleep on Sunday!” Okay, maybe you’re not so worried about having to preach a sermon on a Sunday morning. Maybe your storms are a bit different. Maybe you’re job situation isn’t certain, you don’t know if you will have a job in a month or a year from now. Maybe you are about to leave for college or return to college and you’re terrified of failing out of your classes or just being away from home for the first time. Maybe as a parent, you’re worried about your children’s future, or their health. Maybe you have an ailing parent or grandparent that you can’t stand to see in such pain anymore, their care is too much for you to handle anymore, or perhaps they have given up on living and it’s starting to take its toll on you. Or, you might be concerned about financial matters, making ends meet for the coming week or month. I am sure that I missed something that you might be worried about or a need you are concerned that may not be met be it physical, emotional, or spiritual. Satan, the prince of darkness, is very deceptive and hard at work, ready to devour us, especially in moments like these and he will tempt us to think we don’t need God, or tempt us to blame God for the hardships we have to endure as if they are a punishment. Hopefully many of you were here a couple of weeks back when I last was in this pulpit and we explored how strong Satan is and we discussed some of the ways Satan will work on us in an attempt to get us away from our Lord and Savior, and those things apply in this case, too. Remember, Satan stops at NOTHING to get you think you’re all alone and God doesn’t care.
I think it’s safe to say that right now, we here at St. Paul Lutheran Church are in a time in the history of this congregation where the sailing isn’t very smooth. The last year or so has been a very difficult time for us with falling worship attendance and short comings with our budget, among other things, and we’ve had to ask ourselves about the future and vision of this congregation. Why are we here? What are we doing wrong? How can we fix this ship that’s taking on water and turn it around? Did you catch a certain word, theme, or focus in each of those questions? That two letter word, WE. Now before I continue, I am NOT by any means trying to say that we should just get lazy and ignore our problems in hopes that they will go away or deny they exist. Sometimes in name of church growth, we put too much stock in programs, certain music or worship styles that certain individuals feel need changing, and these things in and of themselves are NOT bad or evil or of Satan. There’s my disclaimer. However, perhaps we’re so worried about what WE are doing or up to, or should or should not be doing, that we’re tempted and perhaps at times not meaning to, forgetting who is in the boat with us through it all, Jesus Christ. Programs are okay, and so are some ideas, but to put the focus on ourselves and say we must do this because the way we worship isn’t up with the times, or entertaining enough, forgetting that it is God serving us and feeding us here for example, that’s where sin takes over. In light of that, when we stop and think about things for a moment, we might realize perhaps that doing things simply because it worked for such and so church down the street, or its what one or a few people want or we’re afraid that they might leave, might become a hindrance because that way may not be what is best for the congregation in this place and time, or we might run the risk of infringing on the Word of God being properly proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered so souls can be saved, which IS what we are here for. When we remember and keep in mind who is in the boat with us and who it is that gives growth to the church, and who actually does the work of converting the sinful heart to repentance, perhaps it might not seem so scary to ask “Where is Jesus leading us?” “What is the Spirit stirring us to do and who are we being called to be here in this time and in this place?” Or even to witness to someone we know, knowing that in the end, it’s the work of the Holy Spirit through us that works the miracle of faith through our sharing God’s Word, both law and gospel, with them, letting the spirit open their heart to a knowledge of their being sinful and needing a savior, and then having the answer to that need, in Jesus Christ, who is in the boat with us. There, that’s not so hard or scary is it?
The root problem here has nothing to do with one particular thing that you or I could do that leads to storms coming into our lives and the lives of the church. The root problem for all of this is a three letter word, Sin. When I say sin, I don’t mean any one particular sin you or I have committed, like God is somehow punishing us for something we did or didn’t do. That’s another trap Satan would want you to fall into and believe so that you might be tempted to blame God for your problems and further your thinking that you have to do this and get out of it all by yourself. The problem I am talking about is what we call “Original Sin.” Every week when we gather here in this place, in the liturgy of the Divine Service, we confess to God that we are “by nature, sinful and unclean” and in the words of 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Psalm 51, David’s humble prayer to God for forgiveness and cleaning, we confess with David “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) Sin is something that is a part of our inner being, and has been from the time of mankind’s fall into sin in the Garden of Eden to the present day, and our sinful condition with the storms that it brings and the temptations Satan throws at us threaten to swamp our boats, especially when left to fend for ourselves, for we don’t have the necessary things in our boats to withstand the storms.
We are not prepared to calm the storms of our lives, but there is someone who has the power to deliver us from these storms. Jesus. In our gospel lesson, this violent storm on the Sea of Galilee is about ready to swamp the boats of the disciples and possibly lead them to drowning, but Jesus, likely half awake at this point, simply says to the storm “Quiet, Be Still!” Literally taken “Shut Up Put a muzzle on it!” He speaks to this violent and potentially deadly storm as if it were a ravenous animal about to devour someone. And what happens? The winds die down and the sea becomes calm. The disciples are now safe. They go from being afraid and feeling alone and as if Jesus didn’t care one moment to being in amazement and asking the rhetorical question “Who is this, even the wind and the waves obey him!” Here we see who Jesus is, the Son of God, the Lord of Creation. Satan may be the prince of this world, but Jesus is the King. Jesus knows what its like to be in our boats. He became a human being, just like you and me. He knows what it is like to be hungry; he knows what it feels like to be tired, he knows the sadness of losing a loved one, as he wept at the death of his friend, Lazarus. He understands how it feels to be afraid, remember, he sweat drops of blood in his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane asking that if it were possible to have what was about to happen to him taken away. He knows physical pain, which he endured on the cross. He knows loneliness, as even his own Heavenly Father forsook him on the cross and people mocked him. He became one of us, and lived without sin, in order that he could allow himself to willingly go to the cross, and be “eaten alive” by the ravenous animals that are so ready to devour us, sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus willingly took our place and died on the cross, then destroyed the power that these animals have over him and over us with his resurrection from the grave. These things may give us hardships and storms may brew in our lives at times, and sometimes we might be like Job and not fully understand why God allows suffering in our lives. However, these things are only temporary, and we need not have fear of them, because they can do us no eternal harm. With Jesus in our boat, we can only be destroyed only in so far as He can be destroyed and we learn in Romans 6:9 that this is simply impossible. Those of us who have been splashed with the waters of Holy Baptism know that not even death can destroy us. “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” (Romans 6:5) This Jesus, to whom we have been joined through water with the Word, is with us until the end. Therefore, our attitude is not one of fear, but confidence; not doubt, but trust. The disciples went on to put their trust in Jesus Christ. They went from cowards in that boat during that storm, to great men of faith, who put their eternal trust in their Lord and Savior, and proclaimed Him to be the Lord of their Lives, even if it cost them their life here on earth.
Let’s pick up the story I started to tell at the beginning of our sermon. It is safe to say that for this family sitting in that waiting room as their son is in surgery for his life threatening injuries, that this is one of the stormy times of their lives. They’re afraid. They’re uncertain. They’re angry. A nurse finally comes into the waiting room and she offers to pray with the boy’s parents for a few moments as they wait. The words of her prayer are these: “Quiet our spirits, Lord, and help us to see that in your great and powerful hands, all things are possible. Keep us close to your power, close to your love, and give us faith that lays hold of peace.” I know many of you want to ask me right about now so how does this all turn out? Well, I will not tell you either way what happened to that young 17 year old teenager that day. As you all know, and some of your have experienced, these things can go either way. I will share with you something the mother of that boy told her pastor 10 years later, “In all my life, I never knew such peace as in those moments of prayer.”
Voyaging in the ship of the church, we are buoyed up by the words and promises of God in Baptism. We are given new hope and strength, knowing that our captain is the gracious Lord, Jesus Christ. Eventually, the winds and waves will cease, but just as crucial is the turmoil inside the frightened and fearful Christian. Jesus has the power to bring peace to both. As we “Let God and Let God”, We eagerly await the day when he will bring us to our final port of call: the new creation yet to come, in which there is no sea. (Revelation 21:1)
