The Shaking

Mark 4:35-41

May 21, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

We have had some storms lately, haven’t we? It’s been a very stormy spring. In fact, near the end of the week before last Sunday, there was doubt about whether we’d have power for worship or not—electrical power, that is. Holy Spirit power is never in doubt. It’s always “on.” But around town, and very close by, the storms did a lot of damage. I read on Facebook about many of you being out of power, or having trees down. We didn’t experience any of that at our home this time, though so far in our time in Terre Haute, the storms have taken down a basketball goal and several trees in the back of our property. And for many people, the storms have produced anxiety. When storms come upon us quickly, like the last one we had a week and a half ago, they can produce uncertainty, surprise and fear.

The same was true for the disciples of Jesus two thousand years ago. We’re continuing to explore the life of Jesus through the eyes of Mark and, really, though the eyes of Peter, the disciple, who shared his stories and remembrances with Mark. Those stories became the basis of the Gospel we have now, the Gospel we’re exploring in this series called “Stretch Marks.” You might remember, we’re using that term because all throughout this Gospel, we’re encountering a Jesus who isn’t content to leave us as we are. Rather, he wants us to become more like him. He wants to stretch us beyond the place where we’re comfortable, and that is certainly true in this morning’s story, the tale of a bad storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Now, when we approach this account, we have to keep in mind one fact: many of these disciples were experienced fishermen. In other words, they spent their lives in, around and on this small harp-shaped lake. They knew the contours of the land, and they knew the dangers of encountering a storm while out on the sea. Likely, they had been through storms before because they were common in Galilee. Storms were known to turn these ordinarily calm waters into a tempest, as the Sea of Galilee is not only well below sea level, but it’s also situated in a bowl, surrounded on all sides by hills and mountains. The winds would rush down the northern and eastern valleys, become compressed and then released onto the Sea with tremendous force (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, pg. 115). You didn’t enter into a life of fishing if you weren’t familiar with the storms and what to do when they came up suddenly. And yet, Mark says, these experienced Galilean sailors have never seen anything like this. This huge storm that comes upon them threatens their boat and their very lives. It’s a “great” storm; that’s the first “great” in this passage: a great storm.

There’s a reason for that, hidden in the text, and it’s because this was not a normal storm. When Matthew tells us about this event, he uses the word “seismos”—a word from which we get our word “seismic,” describing an earthquake. Mark simply calls it a “great wind,” but even in that English translation we’ve lost something. It’s a “mega-wind,” it’s a wind like they’ve never seen before. And that’s because this is not a natural event. Implied in the language is a demonic attack; Satan finally has Jesus and all his disciples in a small little boat on the open sea. With one swift attack, he can destroy them all. That’s what “seismos” means—a shaking, a demonic attack on the lives of the disciples (cf. Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 70).

Let me give you an idea of what this might have looked like. In the mid-1990s, the Sea of Galilee’s water level got so low that a first-century boat was discovered mired in the mud near the shore. The boat was rescued and preserved through a process of what I call “pickling”—over a period of years, they removed all the water and replaced it with silicone to hold the wood fibers together. Today, this so-called “Jesus Boat” is on display at a place called Nof Ginosar, where some of us will see it in less than a month. Now, there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus would have ridden in this particular boat, but it’s a boat like he would have ridden in on this night and others. Just looking at the shell, you can begin to get a sense of how small the boat was. Thirteen men, most likely, crammed in this boat facing a storm of demonic proportions, a storm that, as Mark says, threatened to swamp their little boat.

And Jesus is in the back, in the place where a distinguished guest would be seated, the place where there is a cushion and a carpet (cf. Barclay 115). Jesus is tired. He’s been busy ministering to people, and as the boat begins to cross the lake, he get sleepy and falls into a deep enough sleep that he doesn’t even notice the storm. I’m a light sleeper, and just about any noise at night will wake me up, so I can’t imagine being asleep soundly enough to not even notice a storm like no other. But Jesus is asleep so soundly that it takes the disciples, in fear, shouting at him: “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (4:38).

Now, what do you suppose they expected him to do? There are two storms on the Sea of Galilee in Mark’s Gospel, but the second one isn’t for two more chapters. (That’s when Jesus walks on the water and again demonstrates his power over nature.) But at this point in the Gospel, Jesus has only healed people and taught about the kingdom. They have no reason to believe he can do anything about a demonic, ferocious storm, a shaking of their lives and their boat. What did they expect him to do? I doubt they knew. They just wanted him to be with them in their fear, in their storms. There is something about a fear shared that sometimes, somehow becomes a fear lessened.

Mark’s original readers would have understood storms. Maybe not the sort of literal storm that was happening to the disciples, but they were facing the beginning of a different sort of demonic storm where they lived in Rome. Mark, most scholars think, was written to believers in Rome sometime in the mid-to-late 60’s AD, sometime around when Nero was emperor of Rome. Nero wanted to expand his own palace on the Palatine Hill, but below that hill was the Circus Maximus, an arena that had the largest wooden structure ever built. It could seat more than 200,000 people in Nero’s time. On July 19, 64 A.D., a fire began there but it spread quickly by the wind until, five days later, ten of the fourteen regions of Rome had been impacted by the flames that scientists estimate may have been as hot as 1100 degrees Fahrenheit. There were reports of men walking through the city tossing lit torches into open doorways who told people, “We are under orders to allow the flames to spread.” Quickly, attention turned toward Nero as the cause of the fire (though Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned; the fiddle had not yet been invented), and he needed a scapegoat. Nero was able to turn public opinion to a new enemy: the Christians. And so when Peter writes to his friends in Rome, he tells them, “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you” (1 Peter 4:12). He’s writing about a literal fiery trial, a storm that has resulted in brothers and sisters losing their lives. Peter and Paul, in fact, are both killed in the first wave of persecution that erupts after Nero’s fire (cf. Card 22-24). So Mark’s readers knew fear. They know how quickly a storm could come on them—in this case, a storm of persecution resulting from a false accusation.

And, I’m certain, so do you. You know how quickly storms can rise up in your life or in the lives of those around you. Sometimes there are storms of sorrow and grief as we say goodbye to people we loved. No matter how long the illness or how deep the suffering, we are never ready for that storm to crash over our boat. And the storm doesn’t end with the funeral or the graveside. The storm often continues to crash against the boat, even as others who are not in the situation with you tell you that you should be “over it” by now. Friends, there is no timeline for grief; each person faces the storm differently. I remember a conversation I had with a widow whose husband had died suddenly several years ago, and she said to me, “You know, people seem to expect that I should be over his death by now, but honestly, it gets harder every year.” Everyone heals differently. If you’re in the midst of that storm, let me say this to you: it’s okay. Seek healing, but allow God to heal your broken heart on his time and on yours, not on anyone else’s. Sometimes our storms look like grief and sorrow.

Other times, our storms look like illness and pain. The storm sometimes shows its approach, like black clouds gathering out to the west. Sometimes we know it’s coming and other times it’s as sudden as a doctor’s diagnosis. My dad felt perfectly fine several years ago when he went in for his annual physical. But when he left the doctor’s office, he was a cancer patient. Thankfully, it was a cancer that was easily curable and now, more than five years later, he is cancer-free. But not everyone’s story goes like that, and not every storm passes that quickly. We have people in our congregation who have been battling the storm of illness for many years, some who seem to be getting better when the storm rears its ugly head again, and some for whom chronic pain is a lifestyle. We undoubtedly have some who have kept their illness or cancer a secret, not wanting to draw any attention to themselves. In a church our size, if the statistics are right, there are somewhere around 20 people struggling with cancer right this minute. And there are still others who can’t remember a time when they felt well or when the storm wasn’t raging. Sometimes our storms look like illness and pain.

Then there are the times we face storms of problems, problems that include all sorts of different issues, problems that cause doubt, uncertainty and tension. There are little problems that come along every day, obstacles that we encounter, which is why Jesus once reminded us, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). Or, as the Revised Standard Version puts it, “Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” But when little problems mushroom into bigger ones, we can find ourselves in the midst of a great wind, a storm. Some folks face the storm of prodigal children, or other forms of broken families where something has been said or done in the past and it tears natural relationships apart. Sometimes years go by without each party speaking to the other. Sometimes families are broken because one person chooses to separate from the rest. We had a family friend who passed away, and it was then I discovered that one of the granddaughters had done just that. “We’d love to contact her,” they said, “but we don’t know where she is.” The storm of heartbreak, no matter what the relationship is, never seems to go away. Other storms may center around finances. Too much month at the end of the money. Bills that pile up beyond our ability to pay. Creditors who call incessantly and refuse to work with you. Having no idea where the next dollar is going to come from. Financial issues consistently rank at the top of stress assessment scales and can cause a storm that we can’t imagine ever getting out of.

Another storm-problem prevalent in our culture comes out of struggles in marriages, a storm that sometimes results in divorce and broken families. Now I don’t have time and this isn’t the place to get into all the reasons why this sort of storm happens, but let me just touch on a few for the sake of understanding the storm you might be going through, and I want to do it by sharing a bit of the journey Cathy and I have been on. Yesterday, we celebrated twenty-eight years of marriage; I know some of you have been married much longer, but for people in our generation, that’s a long time. And I can tell you that we’ve lived what the statistics say is true: marital satisfaction comes in waves. When you’re first married, it’s all about just the two of you, and the polls all say marital satisfaction is high. Then you get busy with jobs and careers, and kids come along, and usually somewhere around the ten-year mark, the realization hits: this is hard. It’s a lot of work to be married. There were times about that point in our lives when it might have seemed easier to just throw in the towel, but our vows and our faith kept us together. There were a lot of days of storms in the form of arguments and disagreements, and me reconciling this crazy belief that marriage shouldn’t be hard with the reality that it is. And then, the polls tell us, as children grow up and move out, marital satisfaction begins to rise again, as you have more time for each other. We’ve found that to be true as well. The storms become less frequent, so for those going through a storm of marital stress, let me say two things: first, bluer skies will come if you hold on. And second, Mount Pleasant is preparing this fall to launch a new initiative for married couples, to strengthen and protect marriages. Be watching for more information on that, especially if you are in the midst of that type of storm.

Then there are storms of anxiety. William Barclay puts it this way: “The chief enemy of peace is worry, worry for ourselves, worry about the unknown future, worry about those we love” (116). Behind much of the divisiveness in our nation and our culture is a worry or a dread, a sense that things aren’t going the way we want them to, and that comes out in destructive ways when we don’t know how to adequately respond to the storm of worry. Another destructive way it comes out shows up as worry leads to depression and depression leads to hopelessness. The end result of that slide is sometimes suicide, a topic that has been on the forefront of discussion again thanks to the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. I have not watched the series, but I know it deals with teen suicide, and a girl leaving behind tapes detailing the reasons she killed herself. The debate that centers around the series is not whether the conversation about such issues is worth having (it is); the debate is about whether or not that particular series contributes to the discussion in a healthy way. Suicide is currently the second-largest cause of death for teenagers, coming in behind only accidents. A storm of hopelessness and anxiety can have devastating results not only for the person around whom the storm swirls but also for family, friends, neighbors and church family.

There’s one other category of “storm” that I want to just touch upon, and that’s a storm of faith, or a crisis of faith. I’ve known people when some of these other storms come into their lives it causes a doubt, a questioning, a crisis in what they have always believed. Something about that makes us uncomfortable, and sometimes people in that situation turn away from church because—well, honestly, everyone there seems to have it all together and we don’t want to look foolish. Well, friends, I can only speak for myself, but rest assured: I do not have it all together, and I will tell you that those who have questions and doubts are welcome here. Doubt is not the enemy of faith; questions do not distance us from God. Doubt and questions are often what spur us on to deeper faith. I saw this discussed, in all places, on primetime television last week, near the end of the show Madam Secretary. The character played by Tim Daly is a religion professor who sometimes consults with the government on religious issues. Just before the scene you’re going to see, they’ve dealt with a doomsday cult and their twisted vision of religion and the book of Revelation. But what struck me about this clip is the honest way he is able to give voice to the storm that surrounds his faith. Take a listen.

VIDEO CLIP: “Madam Secretary” Faith

So storms in life come in all shapes and sizes. They look different for each person because God has made us each differently. What is a storm for some may only be a minor inconvenience for someone else. But I want to hasten to say that not every storm that comes into our lives is demonic in origin. I don’t want to imply that by comparing our life storms to the one on the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes we cause the storms ourselves, and blaming the evil one is to give him too much credit. Sometimes it’s the circumstances of our lives that cause the storms; it’s pointless and fruitless to speculate on the actual cause of the storm. A meteorologist can point to all the causes he or she wants for the storms that rip through our landscape and that doesn’t change the fact of the storm, nor does it interrupt the ferocity of the storm. Not all storms in our lives come from the evil one, but the evil one can use the storms of our lives to shake us, to “seismos” us, and to pull us off course—especially if he can keep us from remembering what the disciples knew.

Mark doesn’t tell us, but I wonder how long it took the disciples to remember that Jesus was asleep in the boat. How long did they try to fight the storm on their own? And yet, when they do come to him, when they remember that he’s with them, it changes the whole story. A story that might have ended in them drowning or in their boat being destroyed instead ends in the second “great” of this passage: a great calm. Once they wake Jesus up, he speaks to the wind and the waves. In the midst of the shaking, Jesus says, quite literally, “Be muzzled!” (cf. Card 71; Lane, The Gospel of Mark [NICNT], pgs. 176-177). It’s more than a request; it’s a command. The same voice which spoke creation into being now commands that same creation to be silent. And creation knows its master, because the wind dies down and it was “completely calm” (4:39). A great calm, when Jesus speaks into the storm.

And that, for me, begs the question of why I wait so long before I invite Jesus into the storms in my life. He’s in the boat with me; he has promised never to leave me or forsake me (cf. Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5), so why do I wait so long to invite him in to calm the storms of my life? Is it because we have become so self-reliant that we think we can conquer the storms on our own? We seem to think we will somehow be seen as “weak” if we don’t handle it all on our own—and this goes for inviting Jesus into the storm with us as well as asking for someone to walk through the storm with us. Even for people of faith, when we are being shaken by the storms, often our last resort is to ask Jesus what we should do. However, again William Barclay offers wisdom here when he says, “The real tragedy is not that we do not know what to do, but that often we do not humbly submit to Jesus’ guidance” (116). Barclay goes on to say that “to ask his will and to submit to it is the way to peace at such a time.”

The peace or calm in the midst of the storm, then, leads to the third “great” in this passage: great fear. It’s sort of amazing to find that great fear here, at the end of the story. We would have expected it more at the beginning, when the storm is ramping up. But it’s only after Jesus intervenes, after he calms the storm, after he does what they didn’t expect that Mark says the disciples are “terrified” (4:41). Not just surprised. Not just scared. Not just a little overwhelmed. Terrified. The word is “phobos,” but it means more than a “phobia.” It’s utter fear, terror, awe. Now the wind is calm but the disciples are all stirred up because Jesus is suddenly someone other than who they thought he was. “Who is this?” they ask. “Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (4:31). He’s not just a nice, quiet, rabbi-teacher. He’s the Lord of all, storms included. It reminds me of that famous scene, one of my favorite scenes, in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. The children, having newly arrived in the land of Narnia, are trying to figure out who Aslan is, and in conversation with a couple of beavers, they learn that Aslan is the Great Lion. To this, Susan expresses a bit of fear in approaching such a beast, and Lucy asks if he is safe. “Safe?” Mr. Beaver responds. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you” (Lewis 64).

The question Mark wants us all to ask and to answer throughout his Gospel is the same one the disciples ask in terror while still in the boat: “Who is this?” He’s not safe, but he is good. He will ride through the storms of life with you and he will be the one to bring you safely home. Maybe the reason we fail to turn to him so quickly when the storms of life come is because we’re not sure who he is. Is he safe? Is he really good? Will he accept me or will he turn me away? Or maybe the reason we fail to turn to him is because we’re not terrified enough of Jesus. We treat him like a buddy, coming along for a ride, or like a vending machine, just there to give out whatever treats we think we want today. Maybe we’ve forgotten that he’s the king of this kingdom, that he’s the one who commands the wind and the waves. Maybe we’re just not terrified enough to truly trust that he is the only one who can see us through our storms.

So, this morning, we’re going to enter into a special time of prayer and face our storms. Up here in the front, I have a tub of water—sort of a miniature Sea of Galilee. John is going to come and play some music for us as we enter into a time of silent prayer, and in your bulletin is an insert with a little boat on it. If there is a storm you are currently in the middle of, or anticipating, or afraid might come, I invite you to come forward and write a word or two to describe that storm on one of the boats. Then, in prayer, let’s give our storms over to Jesus, allowing him to speak peace in the midst of our storms. Once you’ve prayed, then drop the boat into the water as an action representing your invitation to Jesus to be your calm in the midst of great fear. What are your storms? What is shaking you currently? And will you allow Jesus to terrify you by speaking peace to the storm? Let’s be in an attitude of prayer.