“Out of the blue”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Luke 8:16-25 (Forward, p. 12) CEV p. 1068
It is nothing less than incredible—and tremendously frightening as well—just how quickly and suddenly things can change. Of course, we saw this front and centre with the Covid pandemic: one day all seemed well, and the next…’well, all hell broke loose’. Suddenly, everything was different! Same goes for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese sabre-rattling and purported ‘meddling’ in foreign politics. Sure, there were premonitions, tell-tale signs that things might be ‘afoot’, but if you are like me, with the Russian ‘incursion’ at least, it still caught be unaware. It came as something of a surprise. Yes, it did seem to come out of the blue, as it were.
In a sense, this is similar to what happened to the group of disciples out on the Sea of Galilee. The storm certainly caught them off guard. This body of water, like so many large inland bodies of water (Champlain, Superior, Wabamun and Temiskaming, to name only a few in North America) was prone to sudden and violent storms, storms that seemingly arose ‘out of the blue’. This risk factor was made all the worse by the high hills and deep ravines surrounding it and by the desert winds that come roaring down upon its surface, channelled and funnelled by those self-same ravines.
Now, in today’s account, we find that several of the disciples, being fishermen who routinely plied these waters in the course of their work, and who, thusly, were quite accustomed to its unpredictable and changeable moods, being quite frankly terrified. This ‘outburst’ had even them worried. And so, in great fear, and panicking for their very lives, they cried out in desperation to Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that we perish? We are about to drown”. But Jesus did care. Not only was He there with them; He was ‘in the same boat’, literally, but also did something about it.
And so it is with us: Jesus is well aware of the problems and challenges that come upon us, like something ‘out of the blue.’ And, not only that, He is there with us in them, truly Emmanuel, ‘God with us’. And furthermore, as with those disciples, He helps us when beset by those seemingly impossible situations, those unexpected, surprising things that seem to come at us ‘out of the blue’, as it were. Sometimes, as He did here, He stills the storms and quietens our raging fear and uncertainty, and other times, He simply brings us to the ‘other side’, brings us through whatever it is that besets us. Either way, we are not alone, never alone. Amen.
Forward notes: “They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’” (verses 24-25a)
“When I was a boy, my family loved to go to the lake and take a break from the desert summer heat. One afternoon, we had our little boat on the water when we saw thunderclouds appear above the hills. If you haven’t experienced a desert thunderstorm—we call them monsoons—there are a few things to know: they are unpredictable, intense, and move very quickly. We tried to outrun it, but the storm caught up to us while we were still in the middle of the lake. The wind and waves were so violent that we had to turn off the engine and wait it out. And unlike Jesus, none of us slept calmly through the storm.
“Jesus’s question to the disciples is funny because their decision to wake Jesus shows where they placed their faith. They didn’t know what else to do and hoped that Jesus could do something, anything, to save them. Maybe that’s the heart of Jesus’s question: Why do you wait until you’ve run out of options before bringing me your cares?”
Moving Forward “Try talking to Jesus—before a monsoon appears.