Is this a serious question?
‘Why are you so afraid. Do you still have no faith’? Jesus has just been woken from a deep sleep in a dark, wind-battered, wave-swamped boat, full of frightened people. Shaken awake in the heart of a fierce storm, he calmly tells it to settle down. Behave. Sit! ‘Why are you so afraid,’ he says to people who, 10 seconds ago thought they were going to die . What’s his tone of voice? Is he having a joke with them, being ironic, loving, critical? Does Jesus still have a lot to learn about being human? Does he really expect us to be super-cool, super-calm, super-faithful all the time? We’ll come back to that.
As you know, storms can zoom over the mountains very quickly here, and seas, even on the Broadwater, can get tricky. Boaties get in trouble. There are times when the Volunteer Coast Guards have to do very dangerous work to rescue people and vessels.
Storms of life
This storm isn’t just meteorological, a storm in nature. It’s also a metaphor, representing all the storms that can hit us. Think how Covid surged around the world and changed our lives, only last year. Until last week, The Lutheran Church of Australia had General Synod planned for Melbourne in September. Guess what – they just postponed the face-to-face Synod until next year. This year there will only be necessary business and elections of a new national bishop, all done on-line. By the way – we still need a rep. We all have our own storm stories. Some of them have shaped who we are in very significant ways.
Jesus sleeping deeply
Jesus sets up the night crossing of the lake and promptly falls deeply asleep. Restorative sleep is such a blessing. Jesus was plain exhausted, after ministering to so many people for so long, dealing with so many expectations, and being constantly prepared to defend himself against determined attacks and put-downs.
He also must have had great trust in his disciples, with their boating skills. Perhaps he always slept soundly, knowing that he was always in his Father’s love.
After Jesus calms the storm, the disciples look at him with scared, amazed expressions. Who is this Jesus – even wind and waves obey him?’ Thinking about Jesus response to the disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid. Do you still have no faith?’. If he didn’t know how hard it is being human, he certainly knew that by the end of the gospel.
Jesus has to face his own perfect storm
Jesus has his own personal ‘storm crossing’ in chapters 14 and 15 of Mark. I’m talking about all the events of his crucifixion, where his faith got pushed to the utmost, and he experienced exactly what it’s like to be human, and feel you are not going to make it. He knew what was going to happen. He prayed in the garden, in great distress, asking his Father if there couldn’t be another way. He suffered massive abuse, a wall of rejection from the crowd, ‘Crucify him.’ He was teased unmercifully on the cross. ‘You thought you were so special. Someone loved by God. Better than us. You can’t even save yourself.’ Even the sun turned away, and out of the darkness he calls out ‘My God, my God, who have you forsaken me.’ Then he dies. There, in that cry, all our pain, our helplessness and hurt is caught up, and held in love and sacrifice. If Jesus didn’t know already, he certainly knew than, what it was like to place his trust in God, with nowhere else to go.
Jesus understands
The Jesus who says to us, “Have you no faith?” isn’t abusing us but encouraging us to hang in there. New life is on its way. Jesus was brought into new life at Easter, and he shares that victory with us, in all our storm crossings, failures, times of suffering, darkness.
We hold the faith for each other
One of the greatest things we do for each other, is together we have faith, when individuals can’t, because of what they are going through, or have experienced. We all have our own sins and failures. There is always some sort of shadowy stuff at work in our lives which derails us. We are not good at recognising, accepting and working with those parts of us. We all have our different times when we freeze, and can’t go forward. We need each other. Together, we are strong. We are far from perfect. But in Christ, every part of us is held and loved, the good and the not do good. There is a good growing wholeness to each one of us.
‘Why are you so afraid. Do you still have no faith’? I am utterly sure that Jesus never says that to us as a put down, or a rejection. He is calling us to discover that there is always more. There are times when our little ego self does have to be deflated, so that we learn to do things in a much deeper way. There are times when our eyes have to stop seeing only the problems, and our attention has to be turned to seeing Jesus who is with us. Jesus is totally at home with you. See yourself reaching down, waking him up. We don’t have faith on our own. We are part of the body of Christ, team. We have people around us who support us. We discover others who have also gone through very difficult times and have come out whole. Not unscathed, but whole. And a word of understanding and support from a person like that is pure gold.
We have Jesus who knows what the worst is, because he has experienced it, quite literally. We have good people around us. We have the promise of new life and a way through. Things will get better.