He Stills Storms Still: A Meditation (Part 2)
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 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?”
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.
He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
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?”
–Mark 4:35-41
Lots of things are sure to happen in 2020. Some you can count on, while others will surprise. One thing you can count on for sure though is that there will be storms. What does that mean for the Christian? And what types of storms do we need to be aware of? Last time, we looked at the storms that are outside of us. Today, we look at the storms inside of us. Unfortunately, these two types of storms have a habit of hitting at the same time.
We see this in the text above, where the storm hits, and the boat begins to fill with water. Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep. If there is a better metaphor for how many people feel about God, I haven’t found it. Countless people facing unmentionable horrors have cried to heaven for help or answers only to hear the sound of silence. This causes many to ask if God is even there, but the much more disturbing possibility is that he is there but doesn’t care. Many people believe this to be the case today. If God is there, why isn’t he doing anything about this storm? If you’ve ever thought this, you are not alone. Jesus’s disciples, when faced with the imminent possibility of death, ask the question of the ages when they ask, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Jesus’s response is both remarkable and apparently frightening in itself. The original languages have much to teach us here. They tell us that Jesus rebuked the wind and waves individually, much like a parent scolding two separate children, who listen. This raises an interesting set of frightening questions: “Is God real yet uncaring, or he is all too real and standing beside you in a fishing boat?” Jesus doesn’t have to call on a higher power because the highest power is already there; whatever power the wind and waves had, they had it on loan from this Jesus. Coming face to face with that sort of power is terrifying because all too often we have seen those who wield power turn out to be more malevolent than benevolent, more corruptible than incorruptible, and more likely to dominate than to serve. Thus, the question, “Who is this?” now has an anxiety-producing addition, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” In truth, you can already see the disciples wrestling with what title to give Jesus based on this new information, for even they can see that this is no mere “teacher.” As C.S. Lewis puts it in his great apology for the Christian faith, Mere Christianity:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [1]
But the question still hangs in the air: “Do you not care?” Maybe the real question is, “If God is real, is he good?” It is, therefore, of no small consequence that Jesus doesn’t send the disciples into the storm alone, but rather goes into it with them. The core of Christianity is a God who doesn’t stay distant but comes close, using his power not to subjugate but to serve—even if it means dying on a cross for the most unworthy, pleading to God for his murders' forgiveness.
Which leads us to our final storm, the place where the storm without and the storm within meet: the storm of faith. This is the storm that will carry us through 2020, and it’s the storm we will explore next time.
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[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 52.
