Mark 4:35 to end 8am. 21.6.09
This story of Jesus calming the storm creates visions of all kind of disasters in life
We heard how Jesus was tired
and it takes about an hour to cross the
As the wind got stronger the waves got higher and water started to go into the boat, it tossed about and began to sink. The disciples were scared. Who can blame them? and there was Jesus, fast asleep. Well the disciples began to get fed up, they were scared and Jesus, their leader, was fast asleep. They woke him, probably quite angrily for they felt Jesus didn’t care about them, didn’t care if they drowned.
But of course Jesus did care, he didn’t say ‘go away I’m tired, can’t you see I’m sleeping. Jesus got up arose and said to the sea ‘Peace be still’ the wind ceased and the sea became calm again.
All through the Old Testament the sea was associated with evil powers and in Mark’s mind Christ’s calming of the storm was an example of Christ’s power over supernatural evil, it showed he had power over all evil.
In the Old Testament the Jewish people had clung to the fact that God could save them, that God the Creator had control over everything, and through Jesus Mark saw they now had a real person among them who could do the same.
For everyone there are sudden storms in our life. Perhaps we feel no one understand us, we loose our job, we become ill or someone we love becomes ill, and we begin to feel scared, we feel alone, we feel that no one is bothered. But there is one person who is always bothered who always cares for us and that is Jesus. Jesus may not be able to make the problem go away but he does help us to cope with it.
And of course this has been proved by countless people since Christ’s time and before. When Mark was writing this Gospel the Church faced persecution and today there are still countless Christians who are persecuted for their faith. But what keeps them going is the knowledge that God is with them, that he suffers with them and will never leave them, and they can feel his power in their lives giving them the strength to carry on.
Bishop Ishmael’s wife is
joining us at the 10am service this morning and will join in a question and
answer after the service, and surely the church in
In the 3rd century Tertullian wrote ‘The little ship offers us the figure of the Church, for she is tossed by sea (that is, the world) and by the waves (that is, persecutions and temptations), with the Lord Patiently sleeping, as it were, until awakened by the prayers of the saints he checks the world and restores tranquillity to his own.’
Christ lived on earth and he knows how it feels to be scared. And if we trust him he will help us, help us to understand what is happening, he will help us cope, he will calm the storms of doubt and fear in our hearts. That is why we call Jesus the Prince of Peace because if we pray to him to help us, he will come into our hearts to comfort us and help us cope with all the storms of life. Amen