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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. (Amen.)
“Alberto”, the first named storm of the 20‑24 hurricane season, which, as you may know, runs from June 1 to November 30, came and went this past week without ever reaching hurricane status, though “Alberto” is still being blamed both for four deaths in Mexico and for coastal flooding in Mexico and the United States, in Texas and in Louisiana. There is a similar sort of storm in today’s Gospel Reading, in fact, the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark calls it a “great” storm, and he narrates how it is followed by a “great” calm and “great” fear. That triple use of the adjective “great” is said to indicate that there is more going on than meets the eye: “that the disciples are threatened by a devastating superhuman power, but that a greater power than it comes upon the scene in the person of Jesus, [W]ho conquers it and inspires overwhelming awe” (Marcus, ad loc Mark 4:35‑41, p.336). This morning, we consider primarily today’s Gospel Reading using the threefold theme and threefold structure, “Great Windstorm, Great Calm, Great Fear”.
So, we begin with “Great Windstorm”. Apparently, Jesus had been teaching parables all day, sitting in a boat on the sea, with the whole crowd beside the sea on the land (Mark 4:1-2). We heard the end of that teaching in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, with the parables of the growing seed and the mustard seed (Mark 4:26-34). Then, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, when evening had come, Jesus exhorted His disciples to go across to the other side, and, having left the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was, and other boats were with them. Against the Old Testament background of the accounts of creation, the flood, God’s “conversation” with Job, the crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah’s voyage, and the like, St. Mark then tells us that a great wind‑storm arose and that the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and the disciples woke Him and asked Him if He cared that they were perishing.
Oh, Jesus cared that they were perishing, alright, and the form of the disciples’ question indicates that to some extent the disciples knew that Jesus cared that they were perishing. The disciples at that moment may or may not have been truly perishing from the “Great Windstorm”, but, apart from the love of God expressed by God’s giving His only Son to save the world through faith in Him (John 3:16-17), the disciples would truly perish from their sinful nature and all of their sin. Jesus eventually asked the disciples why they were so “afraid”—or, perhaps better, “cowardly”—and whether they still had no faith—or perhaps not enough faith not to be “cowardly” (confer Luke 8:25; compare Matthew 8:26). Even the experienced fishermen among the disciples apparently were cowardly, and none of them trusted their “Teacher”, as they called Him, enough to be able to save them at least from the “Great Windstorm” even while He was asleep. The “Great Windstorm” recognized and obeyed Jesus better than the disciples did.
The “Great Windstorm” recognized and obeyed Jesus better than we do. We are just as cowardly and without faith as the disciples. We may not be threatened by a “Great Windstorm”, but we at least think that we are perishing in other ways in which we are not truly perishing, and we may not think at all about the way that we could truly perish. In fact, when we repent and believe, as the Holy Spirit enables us to do, then we do not perish eternally, as our sinful nature and all of our actual sins deserve, but, for Jesus’s sake, we are forgiven and have eternal life. We go, as it were, from the “Great Windstorm” to the “Great Calm”.
As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, having been awakened, Jesus rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And, the wind ceased, and there was a “Great Calm” on the sea. The disciples later asked one another Who Jesus was, that even the wind and the sea obeyed Him, but by then they had to know that He was God in human flesh. As God’s “monologue” to Job out of the whirlwind in today’s Old Testament Reading made clear, God alone rebukes or otherwise commands wind and sea (Job 38:1-11). The Son of God in human flesh may sleep on the cushion in the stern of a boat, but He is no less still the Son of God, Who, the psalmist says, neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4). Yet, God’s power is made perfect in weakness (confer 2 Corinthians 12:9). After living the perfect life that we fail to live, Jesus on the cross died the death that we deserve for our failure to live that perfect life. Jesus died in our place, as our substitute, and then He rose from the dead, in part showing that God the Father had accepted Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf. As we repent and believe, God forgives us through His Word in all of its forms.
In the beginning, the Word spoke the seas into existence (Genesis 1:9-10; confer John 1:3); that day on the sea, the same Word rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And now, that same Word forgives our sins. That same Word is read and preached to groups such as this group. And that same Word is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. Like St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Corinthians 6:1-13), pastors today appeal for us to not receive the grace of God in vain, they endure afflictions—in St. Paul’s case those afflictions included at least three shipwrecks (2 Corinthians 11:25; confer Fenske, CPR 34:3, pp.27‑28)—and they put no obstacle in anyone’s way so that no fault may be found with their ministry of Word and Sacraments. So forgiven by those ministers through Word and Sacraments, and so with life and salvation, we are at peace and can be still, for we have a “Great Calm” because God has given us “Great Fear”.
As we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, after Jesus asked the disciples about their cowardice and lack of faith, the disciples were filled with “Great Fear”. Regrettably, the English Standard Version that we heard read translates two different Greek words that in this case have opposite senses with the closely related English words “afraid” and “fear”. I mentioned earlier that the first word is maybe better translated as “cowardice”, and this second word in this case is maybe better translated as “awe”, or as the “reverence” of faith. Through Jesus’s miraculous sign of stilling the storm, the Holy Spirit enabled Jesus’s disciples to believe that Jesus is God, as the Holy Spirit enables us to believe that Jesus is God, through the miraculous signs of His Sacraments. Like David in today’s Psalm (Psalm 124:1-8; antiphon: v.8), we realize that if the Lord were not on our side, we would be swallowed up or swept away (confer Fenske, CPR 34:3, pp.27-28). In fact, we have no reason to be cowardly, even if we perish in time, for, in Christ, we will not perish in eternity. As we sang in today’s Entrance Hymn, so we can always sing: despite extreme weather, international war, national politics, broken families, declining health, or whatever else, “Within the kingdom of His might / All things are just and good and right: / To God all praise and glory!” (Lutheran Service Book 819:2).
“Alberto” has come and gone, but meteorologists are already watching what may become the next named storm in a hurricane season that is expected to have more named storms, more hurricanes, and more major hurricanes than usual. “Great Windstorm, Great Calm, Great Fear”: as the Son of God in human flesh was present with and delivered the disciples, so the Son of God in human flesh is present with and delivers us, from whatever temporal perils we face, to eternal life.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +