Whiteboard: Calm the Storm

After a long day of preaching and teaching, Christ Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them it is time to move on. 

"Let us go over to the other side."

They leave the crowd behind, climb aboard a boat, and head to the other side of the sea. 

As they are traveling a massive storm blows in. The winds and the waves that the storm kick up threaten to sink the ship and drown everyone aboard. 

The disciples are freaking out. 

And Jesus, well, he's sleeping.

Panic-stricken the disciples wake Jesus up and in their hysteria they don't ask Jesus for help, they don't plead for a miracle, they don't even tell him what is going on. No, they wake Jesus up and then they accuse him! 

"Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"

Without a word to the disciples Jesus gets up, he shouts down the wind and instructs the waves to be still...and the storm is over. Jesus turns to the disciples and asks, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Which is his way of hammering home the answer to their accusatory question: "Of course I care."

Maybe you've been aboard a boat like that before. Or maybe not. But I'm willing to bet that you've been in a storm like that. That there have been times when the waves have come crashing down and the wind is whipping all around and you are panic-stricken that you won't be able to keep your head above water. 

This Sunday in worship we will celebrate that through Christ Jesus we know a God who is with us even in the midst of the storm. We worship a God who is mighty and powerful, who can command the wind and the waves, and yet cares so deeply for you and for me!

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Mark 4:35-41 -- Jesus Stills a Storm

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he 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?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’