When the Wind Blows
Mark 4:35-41
by Jim Westmoreland
This last week, we had a couple of storms with winds, rain and lightening and thunder. Janet and I have a little dog named Samson the Lion-Hearted. He is an eight-pound Yorkie, who lives up to his name, especially in bad weather. Many, if not most animals, do not like bad weather, especially loud thunder, and they are frightened and hide by getting under something like the bed or behind a chair or couch. Samson's reaction to thunder is to want to "take on" whoever is doing it. To Samson thunder is an intruder, and he gets "mad" about it. Someone is in his territory. Barking angry warnings he races to the nearest door. With chest pushed out and head held high he is on high alert and goes on patrol between the front and back doors, barking, snorting and scratching his paws on the floor.
Contrast that behavior with a cartoon strip that shows Dennis the Menace in bed between his mother and father, with the blanket pulled up to his chin. Dennis says, "A little thunder doesn't scare me. It's just a lot of thunder that makes me afraid."
When the wind blows hard, when lightening lights up the whole sky and it seems like a blue-white daylight for an instant, when storms rage around us, we go into safety mode. We get inside and close the doors and windows. There is both respect and a healthy sense of fear for the power of the storm. There is also a primal kind of fear and vulnerability that we feel in the face of something that we cannot do anything about. We are helpless before its power.
Victor Hugo, who is famous for his novels, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserable, also wrote a story called "Ninety-Three." It tells of a ship caught in a dangerous storm on the high seas. At the height of the storm, the frightened sailors heard a terrible crashing noise below the deck. They knew at once that this new noise came from a cannon, part of the ship's cargo, that had broken loose. It was moving back and forth with the swaying of the ship, crashing into the side of the ship with terrible impact. Knowing that it could cause the ship to sink, two brave sailors volunteered to make the dangerous attempt to retie the loose cannon. They knew the danger of sinking from the damage from the cannon was greater than the fury of the storm.
That is like human life. When the winds blow about us, it is not these exterior storms that pose the gravest danger. It is the terrible battles and turmoil that can exist within us which can overwhelm us. The furious storm outside may be overwhelming but what is going on inside can pose the greater threat to our lives. Our only hope lies in conquering that wild enemy.
Remember that regardless of what happens, God will be with us. The Psalmist wrote: "When I am afraid, I put my trust in you." Well, let me ask you. Where else are you going to go? If the Dow drops tomorrow to 5000, God is still going to be the same. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker says that so many of the fears that we grapple with--fear of rejection, abandonment, failure, separation, and loss--are but manifestations of the one ultimate fear, and that is the fear of death. Perhaps he is right. How do we overcome that ultimate fear? By faith. Faith is the only antidote that will exorcise the demons of fear that can haunt us.(1)
The greatest antidote to the storms that both rage and boil and fester within us is the power of God's love, as revealed in Jesus Christ. He is our only hope of stilling the tempest that can harm our souls and cripple our lives. When the winds blow, it is the faith that he gives us as we believe in Him that makes the difference and transforms storms into peace and trust.
That's what the disciples learned this day on the Sea of Galilee. They thought the danger lie outside the boat. They would soon learn the real danger lie within the boat, within their own hearts. In a word, they lacked faith. And without faith their lives were at risk to the storms which would inevitably come. And come they did and come they will. So what can we learn from this boat ride in the storm?(2)
Jesus and his disciples have launched out upon a dark sea, one of at least four crossings of the Sea of Galilee (4:35; 5:21; 6:45; 8:13). In the boat with them, Jesus teaches (4:1), then lays down to rest. They had felt close to God, and, as Jesus rested, they resumed life in their usual way, talking among themselves. Then, the wind began to blow, the waves began to break against the boat, and suddenly the disciples feel very small, very weak, and very vulnerable. They cry out in great fear, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mk 4:38). Jesus awakes, rebukes the wind and the waves saying, "Peace! Be still!" and the disciples are saved.
This whole sea voyage was Jesus' idea (4:35). The world around them rages and threatens their existence. Jesus is serene, asleep in the boat. He is quite a contrast with their screaming fear.
Jesus rises, exorcises the wind, and there is calm (4:40). He has one question for them, "Why are you afraid?"
Then Mark tells us that the disciples were filled with awe, from which we get our word awful. They were afraid. They were afraid after Jesus had delivered them! Jesus therefore does not ask them, "Why were you afraid" but rather, "Why are you afraid?"
As Mark says, the disciples' response to this wonder of the stilling of the storm is literally, "They feared a great fear" (4:41), the NRSV's translation is not quite strong enough. That's when the disciples ask, "Who then is this?" Who is this that makes his own disciples so afraid? Who are these disciples who become so terrified even as they are being delivered from the wind and the waves?
Who is this? This is Jesus, whom the disciples first address as "teacher." But by the end of the story this teacher has become the Lord of the storm, Lord of the creation, Lord of the church. Who are these disciples? They are those who long to be delivered from their fears, but, even as they are being delivered, they feel fear at their recognition of the "awe-inspiring" Lord who delivers them.
When the wind blows, where do you go for strength and security? There was once a woman in a community who was well-known for her simple faith and great calm in the midst of life's many trials. There was another woman in this same community who, having heard of this woman of faith, wanted to meet her and find out the secret of her calm, happy life. As she met her, she said: "So you are the woman with the great faith I've heard so much about."
"No," came the reply. "I am not the woman with the great faith, but I am the woman with faith in a great God."
"Can you or I say the same thing?" writes Charles Settle in his Pine Bluffs, Arkansas, church newsletter. "Do we have great faith or do we have faith in a great God? Max Lucado once wrote that 'Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. Faith is the belief that God will do what is right!' Now that is faith in a great God! What will it be for us today? Will we demand an artificial God to whom we pray, 'Unless you come through this time, the way I want, I'm not going to believe in you,' or, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will we live by faith in the great God completely revealed in Jesus Christ?"(3)
When the wind blows, Jesus does not promise to calm every storm in your life. Jesus does promise to calm you in every storm of life.
John Wesley could hardly have been called a faint-hearted stay- at-home worrier. But there were times when even he lost his nerve. During one of Wesley's several Atlantic crossings, a frighteningly fierce storm broke out, pitching and tossing the ship about like a bathtub toy. While Wesley and others clung to their bunks and hid their heads, a community of Moravians, traveling to their new homeland, calmly gathered to hold their daily worship service and sing praises to God. Watching these Moravians, so apparently unperturbed by the howling winds and crashing waves, Wesley realized he was witnessing a truly "wind-proof" faith. From that moment on, John Wesley prayed that God would give him the ability to likewise ride out life's storms with as much confidence.
What made those Moravians so peaceful in the face of the tempest? It was the same trait that the disciples so woefully lacked in today's gospel text: an unquenchable trust in Jesus Christ.(4) When the wind blows, will we cower and complain, will we shout out in anger? Or, will we trust in the One who is Lord over whatever storm we are facing. Jesus will see us through the storm. Amen.
Century Christian Church, June 25, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
1. Illustrations newsletter, www.eSermons.com received 6-19-06.
2. Ibid.
3. Charles Settle, "Great Faith or Great God?" The Columns, No. 42 February 17, 1998, pg 1.
4. Homiletics, June, 1994.