The perfect storm

Here's the thing.

We figure that we're a pretty advanced people.  We're a pretty smart bunch, who have control over a whole bunch of things. We are able to figure stuff out, do math, have calculators and tvs, use computers and the world wide web, all that stuff is wonderful and great.  And we fall back on that stuff because we have spent
our entire lives standing on the shoulders of giants.  Every generation learns a bit more than the one before, which is why a century ago, people were mainly riding in steam locomotives, and now there are essentially none.  We have advanced to a time in which even things like fax machines are seeming to be horribly out of date, and so we have a bit of a snooty attitude about the people who lived in the past as though they were a bunch of dummies.  Which they were, obviously, but probably not any worse than the dummies who live today.  

For the thing is, that for all our science and advancement, we still haven't figured out how to make sure that storms stop when we want them to stop.  As advanced as we are, we are still subject to the whims of the weather.  We can't stop any of that nonsense.  And when it comes to that, the people who live right on the land, whose lives and livelihoods are tied to the land and the weather, they know it much better than we who are sedentary city dwellers do.  

I know that we look down on the people of the Bible as being bottom dwelling bronze age goatherders, but honestly, the disciples would have been savvier about the weather, and related issues, than I am.  What do I do when it rains?  I go inside, and I wait for it to stop (or I ride my bike, one of the two), and that's what I do every time.  And beyond a slight scheduling inconvenience, that's as bad as it gets.  But the disciples, especially Peter, Andrew, James and John, they knew what it was to be in a storm.  They knew what it was like to be tossed by the wind and the waves.  For them, there was to be no retreating back into a house, no hopping in the car and turning on the wipers, if they were out on a boat, they were going to have to wrestle against the storm just to get safely back to shore.

This is what makes the miracle of Jesus walking on the water as important as it was.  Because it happened right before people who really knew what it would mean.  The men who were desperately rowing against the
storm knew they were in trouble, and knew, quite clearly, that they were unable to do anything to change it.  All they could do was to work within the rules that they had been given, but could do nothing to change the situation that they were in at the time.  

And there comes Jesus, walking to them upon the waves. Doing what was clearly impossible for human beings to do.  Strolling towards the boat calmly, as though nothing was wrong.  And he approached the disciples, he did so with assured, demonstrated mastery over the elements of earth.  And he walked towards the disciples, who thought he was a ghost.  

And it was at that moment that Simon Peter asked Jesus that if it was truly him, that he should command Peter to walk across the waves to him.  And Jesus commanded it.  So Peter got out of the boat.  And this is where things started to go wrong for Peter.

Peter, walking towards his Lord on the waves, when he saw the wind and the waves, and the storm, began to sink.  He began to sink because he knew, as any good sailor does, that walking on the waves is impossible.  And knowing that, he began to sink.  He took his eyes, his attention, his focus, and his faith off of Jesus, and placed all that on the waves and the wind and the sea.  And then he tried to hold himself up, eventually realizing that he couldn't.

And if you start to sink, you start to drown.  And drowning, well, it's a major problem, and a difficult thing to rescue people from.  For you see, if someone is drowning, and they start to sink, then the worst thing to do is to swim out to them and rescue them just on your own..  They'll drag you down extremely quickly, and try to use you as a life raft.  All they can think of is trying to survive, trying to take the next breath, trying to make sure they'll survive the trip to shore.  And they will grab onto whatever they possibly can, in order to use it to survive.  And this is why we can't swim out to each other!  We're all in the same sea.  We're all in the same storm, and obviouly none of us can make the storms cease just by speaking.  It's not possible for us. The best way to rescue someone from drowning is to have feet firmly planted on the ground, and toss them something that will help, something like a pole or a rope, but if they're too far away, then how on earth can you get out to them?  

Well, when Jesus was walking on the water, he was showing a couple of things.  First of all, his mastery over all the elements as the eternal God who made heaven and earth, who set the limits for the seas, and so on.  He showed himself to be the same as the God who calmed the storm in Jonah's day, the same God who parted the Red Sea, and the River Jordan, the same God who made it rain in Noah's day, and stopped that same rain after 40 days.  But he also showed that this is the God who, whether incarnate as a man or not, is
not tied up and tied down and dragged under by the storms and waves that afflict us.  This the the issue behind Jesus as a savior, is that he isn't subject to the same whims and whiles as we are as human beings.  He is the only one who can rescue us from where we are drowning in our own personal storms, because he's the only one who is not pulled under by these storms.  He comes to us, walks across the surface of the storm, walks to us above the turmoil, above the weeds that drag you down, above the riptide that drags you out, and as your strength falters and you can't take one more breath, He reaches out, plucks you out of the water, places you in the boat, and makes the storm to cease. 

And then he says something very simple.  The same thing he says to all of us.  The same thing he says to all of us when the storms seem very real, when death and disaster and calamity and fire and pestilence and unemployment and financial desperation surround us, he says something very simple.

'O you of little faith.  Why did you doubt?'

When we see the grace and strength and power of God, the power to transcend any and all storms of our lives, the power to go beyond what is making us sink and plummet, the power to go beyond what is causing us to disappear beneath the waves, the power to rise above it all, and to pull us out of it.  This is what Jesus continues to say to you now, you know.  As the storms rise all around you, as you look to the wind and the waves and begin to panic, as the water rises and it's all you can do to just keep your lips above the surface of the water, and that's when you need to keep your eyes on the one who doesn't sink.  All your struggling, all your waving of arms and tilting of your head has accomplished nothing.  That's when you absolutely have to keep your eyes on the Christ who is above it all, the only one who can save, the only one who can rescue.  He can rescue because he's not part of the same system we are, he is in the world but not of the world.  And so the wind, the waves, the turmoil, the struggle, the seaweed and death itself, no longer has any dominion over him.


PJ.