This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa, on June 24, 2018. It’s based on Mark 4:35-41. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson.
Mark 4:35-41
35When evening had come, Jesus said to the disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. Already being filled entirely, already being filled full. This word (gemizo) is used only a handful of times in the New Testament. Most notably, in John, it is used in relationship to miracles.
When the wine runs out at the wedding in Cana, Jesus performs the first of his signs, instructing the servants to fill the water jars with water, which he then turns into the best wine of the whole celebration. And later in John, after Jesus has fed five thousand with only five loaves and two fish, the gathered leftovers filled up twelve baskets.
In both situations, Jesus provides what is needed in abundance: water jars filled to the brim with wine, baskets filled up with leftover bread. The marriage feast is preserved, the hungry crowd is fed, and Jesus is revealed as the one who has come to bring life abundant.
Here in the gospel of Mark, however, it is not wine filling the jars and bread filling the baskets. Instead, it is the waves produced by a great storm that fill the boat full with lake water. And later in Mark, this same word (gemizo) is used to describe the bystander who runs and fills a sponge with sour wine to offer to Jesus on the cross. Instead of bread and sweet wine in abundance, the gospel of Mark gives us flood water and sour wine, fear (Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?) and forsakenness (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?).
I would prefer to live in John, linger at the wedding dance and hold my wine glass high in a toast to life abundant and love without end. I would prefer to eat my fill of loaves and fish, knowing that my neighbor beside me is also fed and nourished, provided for and satisfied. And there are days that this seems possible. Days when it’s easy to see Jesus at work; days when it’s easy to be his follower; days when it’s easy to believe.
But so many days, lately, seem like a page out of Mark. The flood waters and the sour wine are relentless. The fear and forsakenness are front and center. So many of God’s beloved are weathering storms that are turning their lives upside down.
Maybe you’re in one of those storms right now. Or maybe you’re watching, helpless, as the waves beat against the boat of your beloved ones, or as the storm threatens to destroy the lives of those you know only through the news stories that make you weep out of sorrow and frustration. The taste of suffering—yours, theirs—is bitter. It’s the taste of faith shaken, the taste of fear and forsakenness. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
I appreciate these scenes from Mark, because they assure us that we are not alone in our questioning. Not only the disciples, but Jesus himself, asked hard questions in the face of boats filled with water and sponges filled with sour wine, in the face of death, in the face of loss. And I think it is in the response to these questions born of fear and forsakenness that our hope is found.
In the face of this great storm—confronted by disciples who doubt his care and compassion for them–Jesus awakes, speaks, and brings a great calm. It is no longer the storm that is great. Now it is the calm that Jesus creates that is great. He rebukes the wind and speaks to the sea just as he has previously rebuked and spoken to unclean spirits.
So what is the message for us here? What does Mark want us to know? There is no chaos, no evil, no storm, no despair that can withstand the word of Jesus when he speaks with the authority of God and says, Peace. Be still.
And later, when the sponge is filled with sour wine and it is Jesus himself who doubts God’s care and compassion, it is God who responds. When Jesus, in his own despair on the cross, feels the absence of God and his own forsakenness, it is God who acts. It is God who wakes Jesus up from the sleep of death. It is God who raises him to new life, so that all God’s beloved might be set free from fear and forsakenness in the face of storms that turn our lives upside down.
Who is this Jesus that we’ve been called to follow, the disciples wonder. We wonder. Who is this Jesus, that even the wind and the sea obey him? Who is this Jesus?
This Jesus is the one who cares that we are perishing.
This Jesus is God’s love embodied for us, who with a word brings peace and stills the storms.
This Jesus is our risen Savior, who having freed us from sin and death compels us to cross to the other side, wherever that might be, no matter what storms we might encounter along the way, to share God’s liberating grace with all those threatened by fear and forsakenness.
This Jesus is the Jesus of Mark and the Jesus of John.
This Jesus is the one who welcomes us to his table, nourishing us with good bread and sweet wine, his very self, so that we might be his body in the world—feeding and nourishing our neighbors out of the abundance that God has given, so that all might be satisfied, safe and secure.
This is the Jesus we follow. Amen.