“With us in the midst of storms”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, January 20, 2023
Mark 4:35-41 (Forward, p. 83) CEV p. 1031
How this story has resonated with me over the years! I say this because, to be quite honest, the behaviour of Jesus quite simply ‘bugged me’. It bugged me in three ways:
a) First off, the disciples were out in a boat in the middle of the lake because Jesus told them to. There were there, and in trouble, because of His specific instructions. I have often thought, foolishly I guess, that when we are doing God’s work and fulfilling His will, we should be free from troubles and difficulties. But, alas, that is not at all how it works! None the less, I have sometimes been bugged by this.
b) Secondly, Jesus is there but is asleep, seemingly obviously to their predicament and fate, and seemingly uncaring. Certainly, He was doing nothing about it! And that is exactly how it often seems with God and the troubles of our world or the troubles of the church. We can well ask and wonder what God is up to, what God is doing about all of it, because He doesn’t ‘appear’ to be doing a thing.
c) Thirdly, about Jesus’ reproof and rebuke over the disciples’ fear and lack of faith. Many of them were fishermen, they knew what the fury and vengeance of the lake’s storms could be like, the boat was already filling with water and about to sink, and nothing was being done about it. What in the world was untoward about their being afraid? That response was normal and quite to be expected. And, certainly, they didn’t have any track record, any previous experience about Jesus being able to rectify the problem!
Well, while I probably had good reason to be ‘bugged’, irritated, by Jesus’ behaviour in this account, there was one detail that I missed. If the ship had ‘gone down’, had sunk, Jesus would have gone down with it and probably drowned. But, somehow, He was not worried about this: He had placed Himself and His welfare, His fate, in the hands of Almighty God, and that was enough.
So, the lesson I derive from this account is this: Jesus is there with us in our troubles and misfortunes, whether we realize it or not. That means that He shares these things with us, experiences them, and goes through them just as we do. Jesus is indeed with us in the midst of our storms. He is our fellow traveller, our fellow sufferer. And what He does through all this is not only accompany us, but also trust His loving Father to see Himself—and us—through it. He trusts that the Father has a loving and good plan for Himself—and us, and so, for Him, that is enough. I pray that it will be enough for us as well. Amen.
Forward notes: “But Jesus 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?’” (verse 38)
“In 1878, at the height of the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, five Episcopal nuns stayed to nurse the ill while half of the city fled to higher ground. The Sisters of St. Mary had been sent to Tennessee from their motherhouse in New York to begin a school for girls and a church home for the poor. The epidemic interrupted their plans, and the sisters stayed to tend the sick and the dying—believed to number 200 a day—in the city.
“Mother Constance was among the first who died at St. Mary’s Cathedral, along with three other nuns and two priests. The Sisters of St. Mary in Sewanee in Tennessee are descended from the Martyrs of Memphis. When we cry out to God, ‘Do you not care that we are perishing?’, Jesus answers with his presence. Just as the Memphis sisters did not abandon those in need, Jesus is right here in the boat with us.”
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