[1] Job 5:17
[2] Job 11:13-20
[3] Matthew 28:20
[4] Mark 4:41
June 22, 2003; Proper 7, Year B
The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector
Molly and I can literally identify with what the disciples were feeling in our gospel reading for this morning. We were vacationing on Lake Wawasee in Indiana about eighteen years ago, and as you might expect, we were fishing. On this particular day four of us were in a twelve foot boat across the lake from where we were staying when we noticed dark clouds coming. We pulled anchor and started for the cottage, but before we got there the wind started blowing and the lake got so rough that the waves were coming over the bow of the boat. Well before we reached the cottage we were bailing water out of the boat with anything that we could find. To say the least it was a very unnerving experience, one that I would not like to repeat. Through that experience I have some idea of the type of fear that the disciples must have had in our Gospel reading for this morning.
But then, I believe that the Gospel story we have just hear is about more than literally being in a boat when a violent storm erupts and we call upon Jesus who is sleeping through it all to save us before we perish.
Most, if not all of us, have experienced times in our lives when a violent storm of one sort or another has gathered and the fear that we are about to sink or perish overwhelms us. It is not an uncommon experience. It can occur when we lose our job; when we become seriously ill, possibly with a life threatening illness; when we lose a spouse, … almost anything that threatens to disrupt or destroy our life. It creates a fear within us because we are overwhelmed, having lost our sense of control, and feel all alone. Then the questions can arise – What have I done to deserve this? Where is God? Why isn’t he here to save me?
Most of us know the story of Job. The devout God fearing man who lost everything that he treasured, except for his faith. Yet even Job vacillated between his sure faith and times of despair when he thought God had abandon him. And his friends certainly didn’t help matters. They told him that his suffering was God’s way of disciplining him and that it would eventually lead to prosperity.[1] That his misery was due to his sins, which they so kindly identified for him, and that if he would just repent his sins everything will be ok.[2]
Fortunately we have come to a healthier understanding of God and realize that he does not inflict suffering as a way of testing or disciplining us. We also realize that while sins do often have consequences, God is not sitting up in heaven doling out punishment on us for what we have done. The God that we believe in is a God of love and mercy, and while we may face hardships and tragedies, we know that God is there to give us strength in our darkest moments.
Job struggled with everything that was happening to him, yet his faith in God remained steadfast. He questioned, even challenged, why this was happening to him, and where God’s justice was – to which Job got the response we have just heard this morning. It seems a bit impersonal, the questions about where Job was when the world was created, and what did he know about the nature of things. Yet Job had put the blame on God for what had happened to him.
It’s only when things go wrong, very wrong that we look for someone else to blame. The story of Jesus calming the storm can make us feel that we are invincible against any storm that comes our way because Jesus Christ will save us. All we have to do is call out to him and he will rescue us. Yet we have come to know that that is not what happens to people of faith. We are just as susceptible to losing our jobs, going through a divorce, getting sick, having death claim someone very close to us, and even dying ourselves as other people. So what's the use in believing in Jesus Christ? Some of you can probably answer that question better than I can. What does it mean to have faith? How important is it that we are praying for you, and that Marilou or I are with you before you go into surgery? Studies have show that people of faith and people who are prayed for come through surgery better and recover quicker than people who do not have faith and are not prayed for. There must be something to this faith business.
Even when recovery from an illness is not possible, we have something to grab on to, that others without faith in Jesus Christ do not. It sometimes may not seem like much when we would rather have a cure, but the presence of Jesus, his peace, is with us, along with the promise that we will not perish into nothingness. Our faith doesn’t exempt us from life’s tragedies, but it can certainly help us get through them.
I believe that is the lesson of our Gospel reading this morning. When we are overcome by a sense of hopelessness and feel all alone, Jesus is there. I believe that Christ is never absent from us. He is in the boat with us wherever we are. It is a promise that he made to his disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[3] Yet, when storms come, whether out of fear or lack of being able to control the situation, we can forget that God in Christ is present with us. How often do we find ourselves in a storm and God becomes the last resort? Only when we have exhausted our own resources do we finally call upon God to help us. When I read the story of the calming of the sea, I wonder if Jesus was really asleep or whether he was just pretending in order to see what the disciples would do. I wonder if the disciples, who were experienced sailors, had tried everything they knew to deal with the storm, and when that failed, they cried out as a last resort for Jesus to save them.
The disciples did not seem to totally comprehend what it meant to have Jesus in the boat with them. When Jesus calmed the sea “they we filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” They had called out to him in their fear and he brought calmness and peace in the midst of a raging storm. He showed them the power of his presence, and they were astonished.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”[4] We know who it is because we have called him by name, it is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. When raging storms gather against us may we not forget to call upon him so that he can give us his peace and courage to see us safely to the other shore.