Mark 4:35-41

35On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But 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?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

“ Storm on the Sea of Galilee”. was pianted by by Rembrant. In 1990, it was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston Massachusetts. The identity of the thief, and the whereabouts of the painting remain a mystery. Thankfully, excellent digital reproductions allow us to appreciate this power peace of art.—which captures the drama and terror of the events depicted in today’s gospel lesson.

Last Sunday Jesus taught about the kingdom of God—likening it to the mustard seed, seemingly small and insignificant, but loaded with the potential of the greatest of all shrubs.

After Jesus taught the crowds, he tells his disciples to cross over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

Mark doesn’t tell us how the disciples reacted to this announcement, but he certainly tells us how they reacted when the wind picked up. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Not only do these words indicate that the disciples were not happy about the onset of the sudden storm, but, more seriously, would also indicate that they longer believed that he had their best interest at heart, that he simply didn’t care. Mark appears to be telling us that the disciples had, for those moments, lost faith in Jesus..

I think we should be sympathetic to their position. Jesus, was after all sleeping as the waves battered the sides of the boat, and death seemed moments. It must have seemed to them that Jesus was taking “sleeping on the job” to a whole new level.

Life has been described as a journey—a journey from conception, through birth, through an indeterminate number of years. Through it all, we are moving—moving through time, moving through space. The journey stops when we die.

It doesn’t take very long for us to learn that the journey is not straight-forward, and it is not free from turbulence.

We will all move through our share of storms, collectively and individually.

Some of those storms will hit—our boats will be rocked and take on water. The sense of certainty and assurance through which we will normally move through life will suddenly disappear, and it will feel we are sinking fast down into the cold dark water.

Then we will ask.

Has God fallen asleep?

Has God fallen asleep on all of the people who have suffered un justly at the hands of others through history?

Has God fallen asleep on those diagnosed with terrible diseases and their families?

Has God fallen asleep as nations have arisen against each other, and killed millions upon millions?

Has God fallen asleep as humanity has abused the natural environment?

Those are bottom-line questions we may feel are wrong or impolite to are questions that can rock our faith.  Those are questions that filled the heart and mind of Job—-the man who had lost everything, through no fault of his own, but because of a debate between God and the accuser. Job wants to an explanation. He feels entitled to an explanation. Job doesn’t get one. God, instead, considers him to marvel at the profundity of creation. And in being drawn into that contemplation, he comes to realize that there are things simply to profound for him to understand. 

But one things he comes to realize is God’s incredible, immeasurable power: He says to God: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

Here’s a little riddle for you: Why did the Messiah cross the sea of Galilee?

Give up?

 To get to the other side.

The purpose of Jesus bringing his disciples into the boat was to get to the other side of that ancient lake. The journey had a purpose, and that purpose was not to be thwarted.

In the midst of suffering and pain. In the despair of loneliness, it is easy to forget that you have been created with purpose. Each and every human being, born on this planet has been created in the image of God. Scripture teaches that the human life journey isn’t some kind of random, meaningless passage through space and time. We have been created to be in relationship with out creator, with each other, and creation. Sin has broken that relationship. But the good news is that the same God who created you has recreated you. Through the forgiveness of your sin, God has promised you eternal life. Through Jesus Christ, God has begun a new creation—a creation without the suffering, without the tears, without the death. This is hard for us to imagine, but it is what God has done.

Those disciples in that small boat, in the middle of that storm, could not have seen that this crossing was part of this overarching mission of God—the mission of divine forgiveness and the redemption of creation itself. They, like, job, did not have that perspective on things. They were, like us, only human, after all.

But we have an advantage. We have the perspective that those ancient disciples didn’t have. Jesus would die and Jesus would rise again, bringing the new creation into being. How can that happen, how can that be? Job holds the answer to that question: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”(Job 42:1-2)

No, God may not be doing the things we believe God should be doing. The disciples didn’t think Jesus should be sleeping. But God will be doing the things that God has promised. God has made a promise to You. You are called to trust that promise—the promise that you sins are forgiven and that will be given eternal life. It is not a promise that your life will be free of suffering or pain. But I is a promise that God will deliver you to the other side.

 Today we have heard the testimony of the Apostle Paul—the pain that he has endured moving through his journey, a painful journey, but not one without joy.

The greatest joy for Paul was, of course, being saved by Christ, and proclaiming salvation, through Christ, to the world.

Because of our limited human perspective, it is easy to see this world, and its limits, as having the final say in our lives. But the Gospel transcends the limits of the world, and the limits of our minds, the limit of physical reality itself. As Paul said: “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ”(2 Corinthians 4: 16).  The gospel reorients our hearts and minds to the new creation, to God’s coming kingdom, which is the other side of the lake, where God is leading us, where God is delivering us, where God is delivering you.