Mark 4:35-41
4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."
4:36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 4:37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
4:38 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?" 4:39 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.
4:40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"
4:41 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?"
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After two thousands of years, we are still waiting for Jesus to do job for us, to stop the evil storms. Actually, he appointed us to do the job, and we may look around what kind of job we have done till now or what we have accomplished so far. Our score, our account, our performance had been and is very disappointing as Christianity and as Humanity.
We can hardly say which account is worse, because we are supposed to think that Christianity should uphold higher standards than humanity in general. However, we can not say that time to time Christianity in general would be able endure any scrutiny regarding general morals, religious ethic or even simple social norms, as dark ages followed dark ages, and almost always, even today, without a doubt, it was our own fault.
It can be an astonishing story that Jesus stopped the thunderstorm, but it may be even more astonishing that Jesus expected his disciples to stop the wind, meanwhile he slept peacefully. He knew very well that they poised to fail, but this was like an exam requirement. It was not an extreme demand from him, requesting the impossible, but it was a demand, coming from the teacher, that students, you were appropriately trained for this, and it is time to show your faith and stop the storm!
Some people say that what kind of storm it could have been on that such a palmful lake like the lake of Gennesaret in Galilee. There is a story in the novel entitled “The Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea” written by James F. Cooper, when a real seamen called master Cap belittled the very possibility of a real storm on the Lake Ontario until he saw one with his own eyes, that how life-threatening they can be. The same with the lake around the disciples of Jesus.
Although Lake Gennesaret is considerably smaller than the Atlantic ocean or even the Mediterranean Sea, but its storm was still like the wrath of nature, terrifying and life-threatening. Not many people are aware, that beside the great danger of lightnings, people can be drown not only by sinking, but by just swimming even in a small lake, because the strong wind pushes the water molecules into the air, and the breathable air right over the water becomes so water infested, that people only by inhaling that air they get so much water in their lungs that it can cause fatal pulmonary edema. Thus, none should belittle any storms anywhere.
However, the disciples underestimated the power of faith in general, and their own faith in particular. Jesus, though he knew their limits, he still rebuked them for not having enough faith to stop the storm. One of our problems with stopping of storms, that we think that only Jesus can do it, and we do not have the ability to do the same. The case is quite the opposite. Although any miracle or supernatural occurrence is a gift of God, still the channeling of God’s power happens through faith. As stronger the faith is, as stronger the channeled power. Often the channelled power is strong enough to move mountains or stop hurricanes or revive dead people.
Once upon a time there was a great sage in Galilee called Eliezer ben Hyrkanus. His teacher, Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, who rescued the Torah teaching after the distruction of the Jerusalem by the Romans, testified about him: "If all the Bible scholars of Israel were to be placed on one side of the scales and Rabbi Eliezer on the other, he would weigh them all down."
It came to pass that Rabbi Eliezer was excommunicated for upholding unpopular opinions and was accused with heresy aka dissenting teachings from the majority of the rabbis.
A story in the Talmud recalls that when Rabban Gamaliel who was responsible of the excommunication of Rabbi Eliezer, was travelling in a ship, when a huge wave, like a tsunami arose to drown him. ‘It appears to me,’ Gamaliel reflected, ‘that this is on account of none other but R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus,’ as God punishes those who mistreat others. Thereupon Gamaliel arose and exclaimed, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! You know full well that I have not acted for my honour, nor for my paternal house, but for Thine, so that dividing disputes may not proliferate in Israel! At that the raging sea subsided.
To stop the raging sea, to heal the sick, or just like at the time of prophet Elisha to repel a whole army of the invaders, were supernatural actions, and also matters of faith, as it is written about the Syrian siege of the Israeli city of Samaria that “So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians. (and). . . behold, there was no one there. For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and horses, the sound of a great army . . . so they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their . . . camp as it was, and fled for their lives.”
Jesus appointed his disciples no less than to change the world, and comparing this task to the stopping of a tornado is quite a small issue. This call of Jesus is still alive, but when we look back to scrutinize the last 20 centuries, we should be very saddened what we would see. Close to nothing became reality we hoped for as a Christian nation, as disciples of the Christs, as hopeful citizens of the Kingdom of God. The major reason for that, because we were always waiting for divine intervention, and we let the evil forces run amok for two millennia.
It is also extraordinarily sad, when we can see the unthinkable amount of crimes against humanity that were committed in the name of Christianity, and just in the 20th century two world wars were fought mainly among nominally Christian countries.
Deadly waves of deadly storms after each other, practically in every generation without a pause since Christ has proclaimed the Gospel. Before the Flood, the sins of humanity had covered the Earth. Between the Flood and the Birth of the Christ the sins had covered the Earth. Since the birth of Christ till now, sins have covered the Earth.
Jesus commissioned his disciples to preach the Gospel, the heal the sick, to resurrect some of the dead, to stop the deadly storms and to change the world. It needs a little faith. May the God’s Spirit enable us to effectively pray for Faith, as little as a mustard seed, in order to change the world.May the Lord’s name, who is to come, be praised by our deeds,
Amen.
