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The Message for June 21, 2015
Mark 4:35-41
Fear Not
The Rev. Dr. R. K. Miller
Larry was living the American Dream. He had a great wife, two wonderful children, a beautiful house in a relatively safe neighborhood. He had a well-paying job that anyone would want to have. One day Larry came to work and found out that his job had been eliminated. He was being let go. It didn’t take long for things to go from bad to worse. The bills were growing higher and so to was the tension between Larry and his family. They were going through what could be called, “The Storms of Life.”
Have you experienced storms in your life?
- Times when things weren’t going so well...
- Times when your problems seemed overwhelming...
- Times when everything seemed out of control...
- Times when your faith seemed to be challenged...
- Times when you felt like you were drowning in a sea of chaos and conflict...
If you are alive and breathing then you’ve probably faceda storm or two. Storms happen!
It was a routine flight for a Jet Blue Airliner –Flight #194 from Las Vegas to New York with 155 passengers on board. The plane lost control of two of its hydraulic systems just after takeoff, causing the plane to lurch sideways erratically and make steep abrupt turns.
The pilot declared an emergency to everyone on board andthen radioed back to the Las Vegas airport for an emergency landing. Unfortunately, that model plane cannot dump its fuel, so the pilots had to circle the Vegas Strip for nearly three hours until enough fuel was burned off to allow a safe landing.
One passenger told the reporters that “People on board were freaked out.” A crew member tried to calm the passengers by smiling, saying that if she wasn't scared they shouldn’t be either.” It helped a little. One passenger summed up the experience saying that plane became a vomitorium for five hours. Everybody was sick.
I’m guessing a lot of people met Jesus on that flight –and many people probably learnedhow to praytoo. For some people that flight changed their lives forever. A crisis will do that. I’m also guessing that nobody on board blamed the pilot for the systems error. They probably didn’t question his motives to get them safely through that ordeal either. He did whatever it took to get them through that storm.
Storms are part of life. Storms happen! Jesus and his disciples were no different. They faced storms too. Listen to their story from Mark chapter 4…
(Read Mark 4:35-41).
The disciples knew the Sea of Galilee like nobody else. They spent their lives fishing on it. They knew about the violent storms that suddenly appear, and suddenly disappear on it. So their panic and reaction to this storm gives us a clue about how bad it really was.
I picture an open fishing boat with low sides for hauling in the nets of fish by hand. They are being tossed about by the waves with water coming in over the sides faster than they can bail it out. They are in danger of going down. And yet, through it all, Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the stern. That should tell us something about Jesus.
Isn’t that how we feel sometimes when the storms of life hit us? We get caught up in a financial storm, a healthcare storm, a relationship storm, a church storm and we’re tossed about, bailing like crazy, and it feels like Jesus is simply sleepingsomewhere -- unaware and unconcerned about our problems. Or worse yet, we think we’ve done something wrong and Jesus is punishing us with our problems.
This storm got the best of the disciples. So they did the normal and natural thing – they panicked. They expected Jesus and everyone in the boat to react in the same way – to panic. But Jesus doesn’t panic.
I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. I’ve learned that being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t mean that storms won’t come. As a matter of fact following Jesusoften times takes us right into a storm. Notice the disciples were doing what Jesus told them to do. He is the one who said that evening – “Let’s cross over to the other side.”
Some people think that once they become a disciple or become a church member – they’re exempt from the storms of life – especially the storms of conflict and chaos.
In the church and in our lives, we try to avoid the storms of conflict and chaos. We see them as unholy. Truth is – storms happen even and especially when we are following Jesus!
Following Jesus, doing God’s will, is not a life of leisure and smooth sailing. We will encounter storms. The disciples seem to be learning that the hard way. They are afraid as they encounter this storm on the Sea of Galilee. But Jesus is resting peacefully in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. Did I mention that?
When they see that Jesus is calm and not panicking, their fear leads to anger. It seemed to them that Jesus didn’t care. Here they are in the boat facing a terrible storm doing whatever they can to get through it and Jesus is sleeping.
On a boat – the person at the stern has an important job to do – to steer the boat or at least get an oar in the water to help stabilize the boat. But Jesus is sleeping. He is sleeping at the wheel, so to speak. They yell at him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing.” In other words –“Come on! Help out a little!”
Do we not react in the same way at times? When we are in the middle of a storm, being tossed about, feeling overwhelmed by it all, do we not wonder, “Lord, do you not care?”
The disciples did the right thing by turning to Jesus BUT their expectations of him were totally off the mark.
Notice how Jesus responds. He rises above their panic and anger with calmness and gentleness. Like a pilot on an airliner with the hydraulic systems gone. Jesus doesn’t get caught up in their anxiety and panic. He doesn’t get caught up in their storm. He rises above it. He rises above the chaos and the conflict.
Jesus did what he does best. He calmed the storm. The winds and the waves obey him. “Peace! Be Still!” Jesus brings peace in the midst of the storms of life.
Teaching moment right after the storm. Jesus says to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
That’s the point of this story. Jesus turns their question around. He reveals their lack of faith. They are focused on the storm. They are focused on what Jesus was not doing. He was not doing what they thought he should be doing. They doubted.
They are busy fighting with the storm and yet Jesus is busy resting. I can almost hear them trying to tell Jesus what to do. “Jesus, you are in the stern. You are supposed to be steering the boat. Get hold of the rudder. Start bailing. Do something.” So Jesus does the unthinkable. He calms the storm and then questions their faith.
Not if but -- when we face the storms of life Jesus will help us through them and then he will question our faith especially when we feel he isn’t doing what we think he should be doing.
Doubt is not the opposite of faith, fear is. Fear is great motivator for all the wrong reasons. Fear drives us to focus on the negatives and not the possibilities. Jesus provides the possibilities. This story teaches us to keep our fears in check and to live by faith. Fear not!
That is hard to do because we live in a world (and in a church) that fosters fear, not faith. Fear is everywhere. We carry the baggage of fear everywhere we go. We may check it at the door when we come into this place for worship but then we pick up that baggage on the way out and take it with us.
I challenge you to leave your baggage of fear here with Jesus. Why? Because when the storms of life come, our fears make the storms worse. The shooting in South Carolina this week fostered and focused on the fear and not the forgiveness the families of the victims focused on.
- It’s easy to fear for our safety in our homes and on the highway.
- It’s easy to fear for our health.
- It’s easy to fear our security.
- It’s easy to fear for our children in their schools.
We seem to be living with chronic anxiety. We are anxious about so many things. We are worried about so many things. How do I know that? Three reasons...
- When a storm comes, people (self included)react instead of respond.
- When a storm comes, people (self included) tend to blame others because they aren’t doing what we think they should be doing even if we are somehow responsible for the problem.
- When a storm comes, people (self included) look for a quick fix to ease our anxiety.
Listen to the news or read about it and you’ll want to go hide somewhere. Most of our news is based on fear -- we hear or read about one storm after another. What is this world coming to? Sadly the news feeds our fear.
I challenge you to live by faith. Jesus has the divine power to calm the storms of life. Jesus shows his disciples that they did not have to be afraid in the midst of the storm. And neither do we.
Storms happen! Storms come and go. Storms have no power over Jesus. He has power over the storms of life. Fear Not! Trust Jesus.
That’s what Larry did. He trusted Jesus and everything changed. He found a new job, and rediscovered his relationship with Jesus and his family and his church. Larry learned to keep his anxiety in check.
He put it like this. “When everything was going great, I thought I could do it all on my own. I thought Jesus was only there to help in times of trouble. But when the storms hit my life, I began to read the Bible and I come to worship. I found out that Jesus is always with me. He is with me in the good times and bad times. I need to trust him with my very life everyday.”
Larry is on to something... Storms happen. Storms will come and storms will go. Soremember this – Jesus has power over the storms of life. Fear not! Trust Jesus! Amen.