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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today’s Gospel Reading’s account of Jesus’s stilling a literal storm is often too quickly made to refer to Jesus’s stilling our allegorical (“figurative”, or “metaphorical”) storms. That interpretive move is too often made so quickly as to miss the main point of today’s Gospel Reading. To be sure, the same Jesus, Who rebuked wind and wave on the Sea of Galilee, is capable of calming the turbulent afflictions in our lives precisely because He is God in human flesh. But, Jesus’s identity as God in human flesh is arguably the main point of today’s Gospel Reading, along with what His disciples’ response to His identity should have been and so also what our response to His identity should be, namely, the response of faith. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, giving due weight both to His identity and to our response, in the end, we can be sure that “Jesus stills our literal and allegorical storms”.
No matter what other allegorical storms may have been going on in their lives, for the disciples that day on the Sea of Galilee, the great windstorm that arose was quite literal: the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. Perhaps exhausted from having taught the parables that precede this narrative in St. Mark’s Gospel account, Jesus was in the stern (or “the back” of the boat), seemingly implausibly asleep on a cushion (confer Marcus, ad loc Mark 4:37-39, p.337, who cites Cope, Matthew, p.97). The disciples woke Jesus up, at least somewhat confident of but still questioning His concern for them, which prompted Jesus to question them about both their cowardice and their seeming lack of faith.
What about us? Are we confident of Jesus’s concern for us? Or, do we question His concern for us? Do we question His concern for us because we do not think Jesus responds quickly enough? Or, do we question His concern for us because something that we regard as bad happens at all? Are we cowardly in the face of whatever we might perceive as a threat? Do we demonstrate or actually have a lack of faith? Not only should the disciples not have been afraid even though Jesus was asleep, but one commentator says—correctly, I think—that the disciples also should not have been afraid both even if Jesus had not been in the boat and even if they had perished in the storm (Lenski, ad loc Mark 4:40, p.202), and the same is true for us: essentially, we should not be afraid of any-thing or any-one other than God Himself (Matthew 10:28).
The patriarch Job had accused the Lord of being unfair and questioned Him (TLSB, ad loc Job 38:1-40:2, p.833), and, in today’s Old Testament Reading (Job 38:1-11), the Lord questioned Job, specifically about Job’s words without knowledge and about Job’s understanding of creation, such as of the limits given to the sea. In the whirlwind that Job experienced, he came face to face with his own humanity (TLSB, ad loc Job 38:1-40:2, p.833); in the whirlwind that the disciples experienced, they came face to face with their humanity (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Mark 4:39, p.48), and, in the whirlwinds that we experience, we come face to face with our humanity. Yet, far worse than any literal or allegorical storm that we face now is the hell that we deserve to face for eternity on account of both our sinful nature and all of our sin.
The Lord, Who set a limit for the proud waves, also set a limit for Job’s pride; the Lord humbled Job; the Lord humbled the disciples; and the Lord seeks to humble us, calling and enabling us both to repent of our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. With St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Corinthians 6:1-13), working together with Christ, I appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain; behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. Repent and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15)!
The same Jesus, Who as God in human flesh rebuked wind and wave on the Sea of Galilee, as God in human flesh defeated the powers of death and the devil on the cross. Because Jesus was human, He could die on the cross, and, because Jesus was Divine, His death on the cross was sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. And, truly, Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. The powers of death and the devil are associated with storms like that of the Gospel Reading, and, in stilling the storm, Jesus showed Himself to be greater than the powers of death and the devil. Jesus as God in human flesh not only had and has power over nature, but He also had and has the ability to forgive sins. The Divinely-inspired St. Mark in the Gospel Reading says that, after the miraculous stilling of the storm, the disciples were filled with great fear—we might say “great reverence”, the kind of “fear” or “reverence” that follows God’s revealing Himself; we might even say “great faith”, though the disciples’ question about Who Jesus was arguably only comes close to but does not quite grasp or confess His identity (Beckwith, CLD III:181). When we repent of our sins and trust God to forgive us for the sake of Jesus—not just as a miracle worker but as God in human flesh, Who died for us—then God does forgive our sin. God forgives our sin of questioning His concern for us, of acting cowardly in the face of whatever we might perceive as a threat, and of demonstrating or having a lack of faith; God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God loved the world by giving His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish eternally but have eternal life (John 3:16).
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus’s Word turned the great storm into a great calm and resulted in great faith, and His Word in all of its forms likewise effects miraculous results for us who believe. The Word with the water of Holy Baptism rescues us from death and the devil (Small Catechism IV:6). The Word with the pastor’s touch of individual Holy Absolution frees us from the sin that we know and feel in our hearts. And, the Word with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, which are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us, give us forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. The same Divine power, that worked through the flesh of Jesus to still the storm that day on the Sea of Galilee, works through all of these humble means to effect a far greater rescue now.
Having given due weight both to Jesus’s identity as God in human flesh and to our response of faith to that identity, we can and do—as four of today’s five hymns do—make the interpretive move that, just as Jesus stilled the literal storm that day on the Sea of Galilee for His disciples, so also He stills literal and allegorical storms for us. Precisely because He is God in human flesh, He is capable of calming the turbulent afflictions in our lives, and both the literal and the allegorical storms can be equally real to us. Jesus stills literal and allegorical storms for us, even if that stilling does not happen right away—even if that stilling does not happen until His return on the Last Day or until our physical deaths, whichever comes first. Until then, we do not question God’s concern for us; we do not act cowardly in the face of whatever we might perceive as a threat; we do not demonstrate or have a lack of faith, and, if we do, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of those and all of our other sins, as well as of our sinful natures themselves.
The Psalm that is the basis for today’s Introit (Psalm 107:29-32; antiphon: v.28) almost seems to prophesy of the events of today’s Gospel Reading, though the disciples’ giving the Psalm’s response of thanks and praise is not explicitly narrated in the case of the Gospel Reading (compare Matthew 14:33). May that response of thanks and praise not be lacking from us. “Jesus stills our literal and allegorical storms.” In the Psalm’s words, we cry to the Lord in our trouble, and He delivers us from our distress. In response, we thank the Lord for His steadfast love (His “mercy”) and for His wondrous works to the children of men; we extol Him in the congregation of the people and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +