THEN THE WIND CEASED
Mark 4:35-41
Then the wind ceased,
and there was dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid?”
In ancient days, the people who
mastered the seas controlled the world. By conquering the Mediterranean Sea,
the Romans ruled not only the seas but also the continents upon them. This is
one of the reasons the Romans became so powerful, so terribly powerful. We
should take notice then, that the disciples in the boat with Jesus on the Sea
of Galilee, men who had spent most of their lives on the open water, fishing in
all kinds of weather, they are skilled sailors, yet they are overcome with fear
when a storm blows up while they are sailing “across to the other side” (Mk
4:X) at Jesus’ request. While it’s only conjecture, I wonder if some of them
might have been moaning, “Why did he want to cross at night! Jesus! Couldn’t he
have waited till morning? Then we could at least see what was about to kill us!
We might have had a fighting chance!”
This is a sermon
not about having a fighting chance—it is a sermon about knowing who Jesus
Christ truly is. The disciples, even after they have come through the storm,
still don’t know who Jesus is! They have traveled with him, broken bread with
him, witnessed water being turned into wine, shared Passover, and they had
stood fast by his side and set quietly at his feet, listening, yet they were
still confounded enough to ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the
sea obey him?”
Many believers
and non-believers alike are still confounded today; we wonder, “Who then is this? Who is this Jesus?”
Let’s look at v
38 more closely. By what name do the disciples address Jesus? Teacher. They
call him Teacher for good reason: they’ve been with him day in and day out;
night in and night out. He’s teaching them about God and God’s plan for
salvation that is alive in Jesus. So it is natural for them to call him,
“Teacher.” However, calling Jesus “teacher” teaches us that the disciples do
not know who Jesus truly is. I think that this is not a case of mistaken identity,
it is a case of misunderstood identity!
If you’re in a
life-threatening storm on the sea, do you want to talk to the teacher of your
class, or do you want to speak to the captain of the ship? Could a teacher save
a group of fishermen from drowning when the fishermen could have saved
themselves? They’re the ones in the boat with the most experience! Wouldn’t this
scenario of misunderstood identity be like going to the high school football
coach and asking him to perform open-heart surgery on you? Our lives—our whole
lives (this one and the next)—depend on knowing who Jesus is.
In 2007, a man
dressed in jeans, t-shirt and a baseball cap set out his violin case in the
middle of Union Station during rush hour. He played his violin for 30 minutes
and collected $32. That in itself was amazing, because if you watch the video
of this occasion on YouTube, you will see that thousands of people passed by
him, rushing for their trains and paying attention neither to the man nor to
his music. He seemed just another of the
hundreds of street musicians who play in subways each year.
The man was Joshua
Bell, a violin virtuoso; many of you have probably heard him or at least heard
of him. Bell was asked to participate in this social experiment staged by The Washington Post and reported in a
feature article by Gene Weingarten: would people pay attention to a famous
musician if he was playing in a subway station rather than a concert hall?
“The renowned
violinist posed as a street performer in the Metro to see if hurried commuters
could recognize beauty in their midst. He wore a baseball cap, stood by the
escalators in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station in D.C., and opened his violin
case for tips. (The case, by the way, that houses his multi-million dollar
Stradivari violin.) To make a long story short: almost no one noticed him.[1]
The Washington commuters
misunderstood the musician’s identity just as the disciples’ had not gleaned Jesus’
identity: neither group recognized beauty in their midst. And sometimes it
seems to me, and maybe you’ve noticed this too, that we dismiss the full power
and presence of the holy. How is it that so many Christians treat Jesus like a
street musician rather than the divine virtuoso of salvation that he is? Is it
perhaps because they believe a lie—that Jesus does not care for them?
When the
disciples wake up the sleeping Jesus in the stern of the boat. They do not say,
“Save us, Lord!” They ask, “Jesus, don’t you care that we are perishing?” We
ask similar questions of the Lord. “Jesus,
don’t you care that I am hurting right now?” “Jesus, can’t you change this
diagnosis?” “Jesus, don’t you care that Christians are being murdered in their
own churches?”
Friends, the
power in the Christian faith is dependent on our understanding, correctly
identifying who Jesus really is. And one of the things this story tells us
about Jesus is found in verse 41: Jesus is Lord over the sea—even the wind and
the sea obeyed his commands. Therefore, if Jesus has such control over the sea,
then he has control over the world. In John 16:33, Jesus says, “In this world
you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Are you afraid today? “Have you still no
faith?” In John 16:33, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But
take heart! I have overcome the world." If Jesus is not the Son of God but
just a really good teacher, or an insightful prophet, or a highly moral man as
many of us have heard Jesus described by folks who prefer to keep Jesus
earthbound and miracles are out of the question, I invite you to check out the Joshua
Bell Experiment on YouTube.
“A 3-year old
boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look
at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to
walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several
other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to
move on quickly.”[2]
The children
recognized the beauty of the music the man in the subway was playing. They didn’t
care that he wasn’t dressed like a virtuoso; they didn’t hear the din of the
crowd. The children strained against their parents’ pull just to hear one more
note, one more beautiful sound because they had what the adults did not: an
understanding that the man was the source of the holy sound. What they were
hearing, feeling, experiencing was truly beauty.
Jesus is truly
the Savior, the Savior who cares for us. When he is in the boat with us, we
need not worry about the size of any dangerous storm that may threaten us. The
size of our problem is never bigger than the God we serve. God gave us his only
Son for our salvation. In Christ, we shall not perish, for Jesus is the Savior
who cares—really cares. And his love for us is truly beautiful. And unlike the
wind, his love shall never cease. Amen.
June 21, 2015/First Parish Federated
Church of South Berwick, ME/The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor.
