316 Just As He Was

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Just As He Was” originally shared on June 19, 2024. It was the 316^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Do you ever look around and wonder if Jesus is asleep somewhere? If he cares about us? So did His disciples, at least once. Today, we’re going to find out how Jesus answered them. And us.

   Jesus attracted big crowds as long as he was handing out free food and health care.

   One day, early in his public ministry, Jesus was teaching a large crowd of people who had come to hear him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He had already done miracles, casting out demons and healing the sick, and people wanted to hear what he was about. And maybe some thought that he might do something for them.

   The people in the back, straining to hear him, pushed forward until Jesus was being pressed toward the water.

   So, he got into a boat and taught from there.

   Later, he answered questions from his disciples, including the 12, about what he had said. He had been teaching all day, and then this happened, in Mark 4:35-41,

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 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?” 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. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 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?”

   We don’t have to look very far to see storms today.

   There are windstorms and excessive heat warnings across the country.

   There are the storms of war between Ukraine and Russia, between Israel and Hamas and between supporters of Israel and supporters of Hamas, and threats of war from China and North Korea and from Iran.

   There are storms between Republicans and Democrats, storms between supporters of more secure borders and supporters of more open borders, supporters of more foreign aid and supporters of less foreign aid.

   Then there are the inner storms over concerns for democracy, national security, the economy, and civilization itself.

   There is the instability around us that comes from the growing disparity between the rich and the poor and the shrinking middle class, how Artificial Intelligence will affect what it means to be human, the decline of our churches, the decline in public morals and values and education, and concerns about health care insurance, and the standard of living.

   There are the waves of fear we feel over violent crime, economic insecurity, the prospect of war, environmental decline, whether we will have fire insurance or health insurance, and over the sadness we feel concerning the legacy we may leave for our children.

   COVID-19 variants are making a comeback, and we all remember what a storm that was.

   And fire season has begun with a bang!

   We don’t have to look very far to see ourselves in the same boat with the disciples and in their response to the storm.

   Have we not also considered the storms around us and wondered if Jesus was asleep, and if he really cared about us?

   We know that he cared about the disciples.

   The problem for them wasn’t the storm. The issue was how the disciples interpreted their place in it.

   The world is not the way God created it to be. Human hubris and disobedience brought evil into the world and they still do. Storms happen in this fallen world. People suffer.

   The question is, what do we do in the storm? Do we rely on what is around us or do we rely on Jesus?

   Sally and James and I were in Alaska on a celebration trip years ago after James had finished law school.

   While we were in Ketchikan, we were taking our own off-the-beaten-track tour on foot when we came to Creek Street.

   We felt drawn to the first building, the shop of a local native American-Alaskan artist named Norman. We bought some art from him and talked with him in his shop for a long time.

   Norman spoke with us about his faith. He spoke of a time when God spoke to him, when he was on a commercial fishing trip with a friend.

   He said that he had to work lots of jobs to cobble together a living in Alaska, but that one job he did not like doing was fishing for crabs. Crabs are bottom feeders and will eat anything. A buddy of his prevailed on him to help him fish for crabs one day, though, and a storm suddenly came up on the ocean and Norman made a mistake in the way he tied himself to the ship.

   He found himself pitched over the side and disconnected from the ship. His heavy winter clothes soaked-up the cold water, became saturated, and started to pull him under, down to where the crabs were, his worst fear.

   His inexperienced friend tried throwing him a rope, but the sea was too rough and he kept missing. He didn’t know what to do.

   Norman was unable to propel himself closer to the ship and he thought, “I don’t want to die this way.” He knew what was on the bottom of the ocean: crabs that would pick his body clean to the bone.

   But then, he said, he heard a voice, not through his ears but in his true self.

   It said, “Norman, tell your friend to tie a life preserver to a cleat and throw it to you. Then sit on it and rest.”

   He called to his friend and the friend did just that. His friend tried to pull Norman toward the boat but couldn’t.

   Just then, the seas rose and threw Norman toward the ship. He grabbed the gunwale and pulled himself in.

   Norman said that he never questioned the source of that voice. It did not originate from within him, though that’s where he “heard” it. Norman said that some man had scoffed at his conclusion and thrown him out of the man’s shop, but Norman had a clear sense that God had cared for him.

   Jesus’ disciples were still trying to figure out who Jesus was when the storm arose, while at the same time being among the closest people He knew on earth. They wanted to know, “who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

   They knew things about Jesus, they had seen things and heard things, but they still didn’t know Jesus.

   They might have gotten a clue from the fact that when Jesus wanted to move on from the shore, he just left, “just as he was”. He made no preparations, stored no provisions, and did not look around for a bigger boat.

   They wouldn’t really know who Jesus was when he gave his life on the cross. They wouldn’t really know who he was after he took his life back again and rose from the dead and appeared to them. They wouldn’t really know Jesus until they received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, when the Church was born, the Church in which Jesus still makes Himself known.

   When the storm started, the disciples rebuked Jesus and accused him of being indifferent to their circumstances.

   Jesus didn’t rebuke them. Jesus rebuked the wind, and he talked to the sea. He says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceases, and there was a dead calm. A dead calm.

   And then he rebuked his disciples.

   He doesn’t rebuke them for being afraid. He rebukes them for why they were afraid.

   “Why are you afraid. Have you still no faith”, Jesus asks.

   Well, who could blame them? Jesus at this point had done some preaching, some healing and had cast out some demons. But there were a lot of people doing what Jesus was doing. Jesus even warned against false Messiahs! Who could say if they were real or counterfeit, or if their cures were genuine or were mainly psychosomatic?

   But control over nature? That’s a whole new ball game.

   And where had Jesus been in this crisis? Right there in the boat with them.

   He calms us in our life’s storms with the peace that passes human understanding.

   The “miracles” of Jesus point to the past, to what God intended life to be, and to the future, to the perfect world that is to come. They are reminders to put our trust in God.

   Meanwhile, we live in a fallen world. Christians are not exempt from life’s storms. Jesus certainly wasn’t. Jesus died to restore the relationship with the one true living God for which human beings were created. But not all have heard the good news, and we still live in a world that is not the way it’s supposed to be.

   His disciples didn’t have quiet lives. All but one died a violent death because of their faith.

   We don’t know what the future holds for us, but we do know Who holds the future.

   Next time you’re in a traditional church building, look up. The ceiling above the area where the congregation sits will most likely have exposed beams.

   That’s not an architectural accident.

   That part of the church is called the Nave. The word “Nave” has the same root as “naval” or “navy”. It’s made to suggest the bottom of a boat, like Noah’s ark and the fisherman’s boats of the New Testament. It’s a reminder that we haven’t yet reached our destination, but that we are on our way, and that Jesus is with us all the way.

   The disciples asked, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus gave his answer at the cross.

   The builders of ships like the Titanic know that there is always a storm bigger than any boat.

   The good news for us is that God is bigger than any storm.

   The issue isn’t what is outside of us, but Who is within us.

   All we need is Jesus.

   We are who we are in Christ because we came “Just As I Am” to receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ, who modeled the daily living relationship of the Christian life when he sailed out to sea just as He was.