We are continuing today with this fourth chapter of Mark, where Jesus is teaching a large crowd. Crowds of people have been growing and following him around desperately, hungrily. They need something from him, they want something. And this is, perhaps, a thing that resonates for you. You might be reading this today because you need something, want something from Jesus.
There is a detail about this section of Mark’s gospel that seems kind of important. Jesus and his new disciples are beside a lake. And the swelling crowds of people have come again. This is the new normal for him. There is no place, evidently, that Jesus can go where the crowds are not. It is as though he has been backed up against the lakeshore with no place to go.
Jesus looks at the mass of people. Then he turns and looks at the lake; there is a boat. He looks back at the crowd pressing in on him, then he looks at his disciples and says, “Let’s get into the boat.” The only way for Jesus to get any space between himself and these crowds was to be in or on the water. So they sat in the boat, pushed off a little from the shore, and he spoke to the crowds gathered on the lake shore.
The lake was his stage. The boat was his pulpit.
This went on some time, it appears. He would speak to the crowds, then try to speak privately with his disciples, and back and forth, until night came. By night there was no sign of the people leaving, so he said to his disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side.”
Mark says they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And when he says just as he was, I believe he means thoroughly exhausted. At this point, Jesus needed someone to take care of him.
It is moments like this one when we might remember that Jesus was a human. That is something we easily forget but shouldn’t. He bore all the same frailties that we do. He did not have unlimited stores of energy. He did not have the ability to give and give and give without taking a moment to refill his tank. He was not immune to stress and distress and all the same kinds of feelings we are prone to. When someone is on your last nerve. When the demands are too high. When something happens that you cannot fix.
His disciples may be blissfully unaware, because they are just taking it all in. They’re on the receiving end of his giving. They listen. And every once in a while, he asks them to do something easy – something they already know how to do. like, get me that boat. Now let’s take the boat out on the water.
It’s possible that this was the moment when they first recognized what he was going through. And that he actually needed something from them at this moment. And maybe they feel some pleasure in it, because it is gratifying to be able to give a person something they need, isn’t it?
This is still the easy part of discipleship, when someone just tells you what to do and you know how to do it. But sooner or later, something more is going to be asked of you. You’ll be expected to step up, to do something hard. To cross over into adult discipleship.
Like right now.
Jesus says to them, “Let’s go across to the other side,” and so they do. They know how to manage boats, because they have been doing it most of their lives. Jesus is tired, they can see. He needs to get away from the crowds and this is something they can do for him. So they take him with them in the boat, just as he was. They arrange for him a nice cozy spot in the stern.
And all is well – for a minute.
Then the mother of all storms comes up. A great gale arose, the waves are beating into the boat, the boat is being swamped. These fishermen are utterly terrified. While Jesus sleeps peacefully upon the cushions.
And this troubles them even more. Because they are feeling so alone in this storm.
The disciples frantically try to steer safely across the stormy sea, to the other shore. They don’t know if they will make it. They don’t know if they will live through this night. And there is Jesus, sleeping like a baby on his cushions. The wind and the sea are raging all around. He sleeps. And these disciples are enraged.
So they wake him. Because, how dare he sleep at a moment like this. Why isn’t he up and sharing in their terror? Why isn’t he trying to help them keep this boat afloat? Does he not even care? They might die this very night out on the sea. Doesn’t Jesus even care?
Once again, I think perhaps this is a question that might resonate for you. If you have had to endure a terrible thing. You prayed for a miracle, for a cure, for mercy. You cried out to God – and you heard no response. Silence. And nothing.
Don’t you care, God? Are you even there?
It is a lonely feeling, to feel that God has abandoned you. You call out into the wind and you hear no answer.
But I want to turn your attention to Jesus at this moment. And remember that he has every human feeling just as we do, including the feeling of being abandoned by the one he needs. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These words are from Psalm 22, and they are the same words Jesus cried out from the cross.
Jesus had every weakness you and I have. But there is something Jesus had in that moment on the stormy sea that none of the others had – Jesus held fast to the peace of God. The peace that passes understanding held him grounded and safe.
When they shouted at Jesus to waken him, he opened his eyes and saw. He rebuked the wind. He commanded of the sea, “Be still.” And the storm calmed.
When I was just beginning pastoral ministry there was a phrase that I heard a lot, something I was supposed to strive for: to be a non-anxious presence. Ideally, the pastor walks into your living room and radiates peace. The chaplain walks into your hospital room and calms the atmosphere of your soul. The non-anxious presence. Jesus was a non-anxious presence in the boat that night.
His disciples were dumbfounded. They got what they wanted, but never imagined could happen. They said to one another, “Who even is this guy?” What they were on their way to learning is that he was the prince of peace. The power of the almighty God was in him.
This was their first adventure into grown-up discipleship, where something was expected of them, something more than what they were used to, something that would challenge their comfort and certainty. What they would come to know is something that each one of us needs to know: that the peace we need to get us through all the storms of life is found in Jesus. Lying there, protected on the cushions in the stern of the boat, Jesus was harboring in his body the greatest strength – the peace of God. A treasure that is readily available to each of us.
And it must also be said that the life of discipleship will require it, once we get beyond the elementary level. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, he describes many of the trials that Christians will face. And, while he didn’t include it in this list, Paul could have added shipwreck to the trials he has endured, more than once in his time.
The thing that Paul learned is also the thing that we must learn if we are to follow Jesus: He will not take away all the storms. He will not take away all pain and suffering. What he will do is give us what he has: the peace to carry us through.
Then we have the knowledge that we are not alone – not ever. We have the certainty that Christ is indeed with us and he offers us the peace that will calm the storms of our souls, will keep us from falling overboard in haplessness and fear.
As Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”
We have a lot of difficulties that would lure us into forgetting this. There are the personal storms of our lives and there are also the terrible uncertainties of this world we live in. And we are swamped with fear. War and politics, the real and increasingly dangerous storms in this changing climate that leave millions of people homeless and many more dead. While we do not have solutions to these overwhelming difficulties, we do have an answer. The answer for us, disciples of Jesus, is to find that peace which can ground us in faith –
faith to know the next right thing to do.
When you find yourself at sea, reach for the peace of Christ. It will be your sure guide through any storm.
