Mark 4:35-41
Jesus had been teaching by the sea, telling stories about lights hidden under baskets, scattering seeds, and the way in which they best grow. After the lessons, he told his students, “let’s cross over to the farthest shore.” Enough stories for now. The hearers are sated from his rich and mysterious words, yet the integration into living them has yet to happen. Then came a great storm.
Jesus is the only one sleeping on the boat, while his students were put to the test. He wasn’t softly and gently awakened—it was with full blown panic that he was torn from sleep by a desperate, screaming plea, “Don’t just lie there, do something!” A handful of those in the boat had spent the better part of their lives on the water. Seasoned fishermen, these cowardly lions! What was it about this storm?
“Peace, be still!” cries the sleepy, annoyed Jesus. Then came the admonishment like a thunder clap: “Where is your faith?” That authoritative voice, fully at rest in his body, has resonance with all of nature. The tempest is tossed back to his students.
I hear my mom’s voice in his, after I had failed to employ her good teaching: “I’ve had it!” she stormed. But she really hadn’t. She never left. Jesus isn’t leaving them either.But how hard this group of students is to wrangle…how noisy the classroom!
The pupils had become attached to seeing their teacher act—seeing him standing up front, in control. They had been spectators to a whole new kind of show…mesmerized, challenged, in love, and a little lost. Now, as nervous actors, they must move beyond the miracle of the quieted storm…beyond the mouth agape and the flood of questions that would rival the once raging sea. The focus is not on Jesus. It is on their faltering faith.
“Rest with me…rest in me,” implores the weary professor. In teaching them to rest in his presence, Jesus is hoping that they become present to themselves in such a way that having him awake isn’t even necessary. Self soothing 101. And from this place of peace, a person, a community, and a movement, can thrive in the midst of any storm.
I carry with me a sweet and common image: when I was little, and awakened from a nightmare or not feeling well, I would make the dark sojourn to my parent’s bed. On most of those nights, I didn’t need for them to be awake. Just to see them sleeping gave me peace to know that, in their presence, everything must be okay. That I could get the rest I needed to be strong and awake tomorrow, and that one day soon, their presence wouldn’t be necessary at all. In their stillness was my peace. It still is. And from that place of stillness, even storms will hush.
-Jim Marsh, Jr., Bread of Life Church
