Second Sunday before Lent Luke 8:22-25 Genesis 2:4b-9; 15-end

The account of the disciples in a boat on the lake during a storm and Jesus calming it, is only 4 verses long in Luke – Matthew describes it in 5 and Mark in 7. But that is not the point. The description of the event is very straight forward, but the implication is not – or at least it is remarkable. In my Bible footnote it is simply stated that ‘power over the elements is a divine capacity often celebrated in the Psalms and other texts.’ So far so good. We also have a passage from Genesis 2 paired with today’s reading and there we read a summary of the creation of the earth and the heavens, with human beings as God’s final act of creation. And it was all very good.

So, that is what we have for today: Jesus calming the storm while in a boat on the lake during a bad storm, and a summary of creation. We could simply state that indeed power over the elements is a divine capacity and so Jesus is showing his divinity especially in this act of calming the storm. But you may want a little bit more than that! The account in Luke ends with: ‘He [Jesus] said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him!”’

Water, as we read in Genesis chapter 1, is an image of chaos, of the state of affairs before God touched it for life and purpose. Water is still with us; life is not possible without it and we depend on it. Without water we die. So there is this strange contradiction within the very substance of water: chaos and purpose – death and life. The disciples, when they were in the boat with Jesus and he was just asleep in the midst of the storm, were afraid for a reason. Usually, in a bad storm, a boat is at the mercy of the power of the waters. And, as every seafarer knows, you should never underestimate the power of water, be it at sea or on a lake. Wind and water, then, were threatening the boat and the boat was filling with water, and the people on board were in danger. I would probably have been afraid too. So I perfectly understand why the disciples went to wake Jesus up and were shouting: ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ In Mark they are recorded as saying: ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ I can’t imagine that Jesus did not care; but he was asleep, totally trusting, or even knowing, that all would be well and that the elements could not touch him and those in his care. We cannot know, either, whether the boat would have simply landed safely after a while; that is just not the way that the story goes. But we may well note one thing: the disciples had but one thought: to wake up Jesus and get him to engage with the situation. They may have hoped that he would do something to avoid a disaster but even if they didn’t even think that far, the act of going to him and getting his attention was the right one. And so, Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased and there was a calm.

We may not be sailors and we may not be in a storm of this kind. But we may be in other ‘storms’ of life, metaphorically speaking. We may be afraid and desperate. The best thing to do is to engage God. We always have him at our disposal. He is our loving Father, and he longs to speak with us his children. Not only when we are afraid and in a pickle, but like any parent and child on a natural basis. So let’s keep that in mind and speak with him. So that we too may enjoy the calm that he gives. Amen.