Sermon: "Storms"

Delivered February 14, 2010 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Mark 4:35-41

Click to download & listen to the sermon MP3

Well, I've got some news, too. I am a grandfather for the second time today. Woohoo! A very large Abby Schmidt was born this morning. I haven't seen her yet, but I know she's one of the most beautiful children in the world.

Well, we've just been through Snowmageddon, you know? As somebody else put it: Snowhard and its sequel, Snowharder. I want to just give some thanks right now to people like Brad, Jesse, and John, who put in phenomenal effort to get this place working. And then people like Mario and Art came in to take all of their great plans that they already made and remake them for this special situation.

And also, I'm already hearing that some of you served other people within this body and other people within your neighborhoods with the opportunities to serve, to dig them out, to provide help in a time like this. That, too, I really believe, honors God. And I want to thank you, just for being sensitive to that opportunity.

We've been getting ready for this Sunday, this Switch Sunday, for months. It began last summer. We were so concerned about planning it right, you know? Hearing from people to understand the impact of this, communicating well with others. You know, communicating well about plans. Knowing that a move like this creates some real anxiety for people, because, you know, life is changing, our commitments change. And so we tried to respect that.

And then a storm comes, and all that planning is shot. I mean, almost just useless. We lose thirty, forty percent of our parking space. We had such a great parking plan, I'm telling you. One day you're going to see it, you're going to see how elegant it is. It's not elegant right now, but hey, we're here. And I want to thank you for your grace to one another.

A storm comes, and all the things that seem so important, all the things that look like we had under such great control, start to fall apart. And we start to realize that there were some things that were really more important that were underneath it all. And that's all of a sudden what's on our mind because of the storm. The storm dominates us. And in bad storms, the really bad storms, we even fear for our lives.

Today we're going to be looking at a storm. Some guys in a boat, and a storm that was so bad that it threatened their lives. Now I've never been in a boat in a storm like that, but I've lived around water all my life, and for my first 20 years lived 20 feet below sea level. And so water was always around, and I can still remember a time, I was 13 years old, and I was coming back from Florida with by brother-in-law. A hurricane was out in the Gulf, it was pushing water in towards the shore. And this was before the expressway went through Mobile. And we're in Mobile, and we're on a little stretch of road that is normally only about two feet above high tide. You had to go on this road. It's the road except going all the way north.

When we came down and got on that stretch of road, it was under water. It was only an inch or two of water, but you could not see the road, and off each side, it went into the bay. And I can remember the terror I had as my brother-in-law drove into that. I'm wondering whether I was going to live. I was wondering, I mean the adrenaline is pumping inside of me. I'm fearing that the next moment might be my last, and I'm wondering, does my brother-in-law really know what he's doing? And if you would have known my brother-in-law, you would understand that was a genuine concern.

You've probably felt fear like that. It might not have been in a real storm like that, but there are other kinds of storms that assail our lives. We hear a diagnosis of cancer. We lose our job. A relationship explodes in front of our faces. An accident changes things forever. We're going to look in today's passage at one of those fear-filled moments.

The disciples find themselves in a storm, and in an anxiety scale of one to ten, they're pegged out on ten. They're afraid they will not live. And Jesus saves them by an act of mighty power. And so, as we look at this passage, we're going to see two things. We're going to first see the reality that storms come. And then we're going to take a few moments to ask the question... how then do we handle these storms when they do come?

So I'd like to turn to the book of Mark, chapter 4, beginning at verse 35, it's on page 916 of the Bible underneath the chair in front of you. Mark, chapter 4.

"That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, 'Let us go over to the other side.' Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, don't you care if we drown?'

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?' They were terrified and asked each other, 'Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!'"

Let's pray: Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that you reveal yourself through your word. That's what we want. We want a picture of you. We want you to speak, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

The story draws us to first the obvious point, that storms come. There's nothing unusual about the storm itself. Storms always came over the lake, Lake Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. Several of the disciples were fishermen. The boat they're in might belong to one of those disciples. So they had faced storms before. They knew what the fear was like, and they even had some skill in dealing with it. And the same is true about the other kinds of storms in life. We all face them, it's a universal experience. Nobody escapes them all. Storms come.

And following Jesus doesn't protect them from the storm. There's no bubble around the disciples at this moment that's keeping them dry. Some people try to tell us that good Christians don't get caught in storms. If we're Christian, we won't get laid off. Or if we do get laid off, we're going to find another job immediately. If we're Christian, we won't have serious illnesses, or chronic illnesses. We won't have emotional problems. Nothing will touch us. It's just not true. The disciples here are wet, they're exhausted, they're afraid, they fear for their lives. And Jesus, who commands the storm, is in the boat with them. But they're still wet, and they're still scared.

In fact, they're in the boat in the storm because of Jesus. Now some of those disciples weren't fishermen. This might have been the first time they were in a boat. And they're in this boat on this night in this place because Jesus said, verse 35, "Let us go over to the other side." Maybe even the fishermen might not have gone out on a night quite like this. Or if they did go out, maybe they would have stayed closer to shore. Whatever it is, they're in the middle of this place, in the storm, specifically because Jesus said, "Let us go over to the other side." Sometimes we face storms because we follow Jesus.

I get tired of people who depict Christianity as a crutch to protect us from facing the hard things of life or who depict Christians as weak, scared, or ineffective. Mark wrote this for Roman Christians, and the Roman Christians who first read these words were facing the arena. They were going to have to face wild beasts who were going to tear them apart for the entertainment of the Roman populous. And they were facing it because of Jesus.

The apostle Paul faced his own set of shipwrecks, he faced his own storms. So we find the apostle Paul clinging on pieces of a ship because he followed Jesus. Alec and KC Bersch faced an earthquake, and they're staying in Haiti in all of that hardship that follows because they follow Jesus.

There are Muslims in certain countries who are becoming Christians, and many of them lose their jobs, lose their families, and some even lose their lives, because of following Jesus. Jesus who commands the storms, commands us into some storms we would never have to face if we were just normal folk. Storms come.

But how do we handle these storms when they do come? Everybody faces storms in life, but how does a Christian handle the storms? Let's take a look at what the disciples did. The first thing we see about the disciples is that they have to wait on God's timing. Jesus, who commands the storms, is in the boat with them and he's asleep. Maybe he was exhausted. Maybe he didn't have a care in the world. But whatever it is, he doesn't jump up to help.

Haven't you ever felt at some point or another that God wasn't paying any attention to one of your storms? You're doing all you can to survive or manage the problem, your fear is rising, you're near panic or despair, and nothing seems to be getting better. And you wonder why God just doesn't seem to be there. We've all had that kind of experience. And the kind of feelings that we struggle with there are normal. What's critical is what do we do with those feelings as we wait?

The next thing we see is the disciples' big question that they ask Jesus. The disciples wake him and say, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" Great question. Jesus, who commands the storm, is in the boat with them, and he seems to be doing nothing about it, and their question to him is, "Don't you care? We're going to die here!" That's their big question, and I think it mirrors our own questions in our own storms. "God, don't you care? What's wrong with you, God? Why me?" I know we're asking those questions, because I've heard it from you, and I've said it myself to God.

So Jesus then answers their need. It comes out very quickly, just in a verse or two. There's no theatrics, really, he just stands up and gives a command, "Quiet! Be still!" At no point were the disciples more than three English words from the total solution to their problem. Jesus commands the storm, and he totally controls the outcome.

But then Jesus turns around and gives a big question back to the disciples. His question, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" After Jesus saves them from the storm, he rebukes them. They didn't handle the storm in the right way. So this is something we've got to notice. When we're in a narrative passage, when we're watching what people really did in a certain situation, we can't always assume that they're a model for our behavior. We've got to read more carefully than that, and here it's pretty obvious, because Jesus rebukes them. There is something wrong about how they handled the storm. What was it? What should they have done?

The mistake was not, in my opinion, in waking Jesus. Sometimes we're tempted to handle storms on our own, with only our own skills or power. We do everything we can to solve the problem, never thinking to call upon God, even though the boat is sinking. I don't think that response would have gotten commendation from Jesus. It was okay to wake him up. In fact, Scripture tells us over and over to call upon God in our day of trouble. Psalm 50, verse 15, says this, "And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." There's nothing wrong with asking for help. God calls us to ask for help. There's nothing wrong to ask for it, there's nothing wrong to plead for it. "Jesus, we can't do any more. Please help." The mistake was not in waking up Jesus.

Look what they did say: "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" "God, don't you care?" That's the disciples' error. It's not the adrenaline. It's not the fear or exhaustion. It's not that their judgment of the situation is that this is serious and their lives are in danger. I don't think God wants to pretend that things are better than they are. That's not Christianity, that's not mature life. Their fault, where they fell short, is that they would accuse God of not caring.

The fact is, storms will come. And far from being protected from every blast, following Jesus may sometimes add new storms into our lives. But, how we handle it? How will we handle it when we've run out of our resources and our anxiety meter is on eight or nine or ten? When we have no more answers? We're in bed, weak from chemotherapy. Our job application is rejected for the fiftieth time. We hear the words, "I want a divorce." How easy it'll be in a moment like that to accuse God of not caring.

But there's such good news in this short passage. There's one more question in the story. It comes in verse 41, "They were terrified and asked each other, 'Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!'" When the first readers got their copy of Mark, Mark didn't intend those Roman readers to just read this and say, "Yeah, man, he's really something. Cool." Mark was pushing at something much deeper than that. Something that we assume today but was a brand new idea then.

Mark is asking a question here, the disciples are asking a question that he passes on to us, that's already answered in Psalm 89, verses 8 and 9. It goes like this.

"O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you. You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them."

The one in the boat with them, the one in the storm with them, is the Lord God Almighty. Experiencing their dangers with them, not far away and untouched by their circumstances. And the disciples are faithless, accusing Jesus, the Lord, of not caring. And yet Jesus still delivers them, and I love that. I've experienced that. The grace of God, despite my grumblings, doubts, and accusations. That's how much he cares. He rebukes them, sure, but before, he rebukes the storm.

So maybe you're in a storm right now, and you've already accused God of not caring. The good news is that Jesus, although he rebuked them, he still delivered them. Jesus, who commands the storm, was there with them, and he is with you too. Now there's something we have to also remember before we're finished with this passage. The disciples got an answer that exceeded their expectations. Jesus stood, spoke a few words, and the storm settled.

But it doesn't always happen that way. The early Roman readers of Mark, after they read these words and were encouraged in their faith, they still had to go to the arena. The apostle Paul got shipwrecked because he was on missionary journeys. The storm wasn't stilled; he was delivered through the storm. Alec and KC still face dust and daily difficulties in post-earthquake Haiti.

If it's healing, we might not get the healing, the instant healing that we desire. We might not get the resolution in our relationship that so weighs upon our heart. That's a reality, too. A reality that every reader of Mark has had to face. But what we see here is that God has the authority to resolve our situations and to lead us through. And right behind that is the fact that God deeply cares. Jesus, who commands the storms, is still there in the boat with us.

Let's pray: Lord, right now, there are some of us here that are facing storms that are so much bigger than the snowstorms that we've experienced in the last week. Lord, there are some things that are deeply troubling us, that have us anxious, that have us fearful. There is so much we can lose. And so, Lord, I pray specifically for those brothers and sisters right now. We pray first for their deliverance, that you will still the storm. Because we know that you have that authority, and in our faith, in our hope, we hold on to you and pray for that deliverance.

But as they endure that storm, we pray that their faith will endure. Lord, if they've already accused you, Lord, we thank you for the forgiveness that's there, Lord, that you care, and you deal with our problems even as you deal with us and our incompleteness, and in our sin and selfishness. Grant them endurance. Grant them deeper faith. And ultimately, we pray that even in the storm, and through the storm, and out through the other side, your name would be glorified, our relationship with you would be deepened, and that we would know the comfort and power of your presence with us, Jesus, our Emmanuel, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org