When my sister and I were teenagers, my mom was worried about the people with which we were friends.  Every so often, she would remind us to choose wisely.  “Bad company destroys good morals,” she would say.  Or, “You’re defined by the company you keep.”  Or my personal favorite:  “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.”  Like most parents, Mom wanted to protect us from those that might get us into trouble.

In that light, I wonder if anyone every warned the disciples about hanging around with Jesus.  Oh, I know that is almost heretical to ask, but if you read the New Testament you find that Jesus is always getting his friends into trouble.  In Matthew’s Gospel, for example, they get in trouble with religious leaders for eating with sinners, breaking the Sabbath rules, and failing to wash their hands before dinner.  And, of course, they end up fleeing from religious and political authorities in the garden when Jesus is arrested, lying about knowing him, and hiding out after he’s crucified.  And in the Book of Acts, Jesus’ friends are arrested, jailed, forced to flee, and even martyred.  In short following Jesus is not all sunshine and rainbows but wind and waves, as we see in today’s reading.

Jesus had been teaching people on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee when the crowd grew so large he commandeered a fish boat—a vessel about 26 feet long and eight feet wide—in which he could sit.  From there he spent the day teaching those on the shore about the kingdom of God.  He did so through parables, those stories that compare very common items or situations to God’s realm.

One might figure that when evening came Jesus would dismiss the crowd, have the disciples row ashore, and go home.  But instead, he decides they will cross to the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  For experienced fisherman like Peter, Andrew, James and John that eight mile trip would be no big deal, even at night, but the Sea of Galilee can be tricky.  To the north is Mount Hermon and to the east is more or less desert.  And when the cold air from Mount Hermon and the hot air from the east collide over the sea the storms can be quite severe.  And that’s what happens that night.  The wind begins to blow, or, more accurately, it begins to swirl like a tornado around them.  And the waters, which are generally calm, begin to pummel their vessel.  Before long, their boat is taking on water and in danger of capsizing. The sea, which Jews had always associated with chaos and even demonic powers, threatens to destroy them.  Their lives are in danger of being swept away as they desperately clutch the rudder or frantically bail the water.  And, of course, they are terrified.

And do you know who they blame for their trouble?

Jesus. 

They would have been content to go home that night and sleep in their own beds.  They didn’t need to cross the Sea of Galilee.  The eastern shore was Gentile territory anyway.  They didn’t want to go there.  But Jesus decided they would do it, and because he did they were in the dark of night, fighting for their lives against the overwhelming forces of nature.

And what makes it worse is that Jesus isn’t helping.  While they are struggling to survive, Jesus is curled up on the raised stern, his head on the pilot’s cushion, sleeping like a baby.  No wonder the disciples awaken him.  No wonder they rebuke him.  “Teacher,” they say, “do you not care that we are perishing?”  Or, as the Moffatt Translation puts it:  “Are we to drown for all you care?”  They are not just cold, wet and terrified, they’re mad.  Jesus has gotten them into trouble, and he doesn’t seem to care what happens to them.

Being a disciple of Jesus can be like that.  Oh, I know there are preachers and ministries that suggest that following Jesus is the key to health and wealth.  They tell people that when you confess Jesus as Lord life becomes smooth sailing.  But it doesn’t.  Often when we get into the boat with Jesus we sail into trouble. 

Don’t think so?

When you get home Google Eric Liddell, who refused to run on a Sunday in the 1924 Olympics because of his faith.  Or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose allegiance to Jesus would not allow him to bow down to Hitler’s Nazism.  Or Kelvin Cochran, the Atlanta fire chief who lost his job for publicly commending Jesus Christ in a book he wrote.  Following Jesus got them into trouble.

Or imagine the storm within a Muslim family when a member converts to Christianity.

Or imagine the tempest likely to follow when you tell your 13-year-old’s soccer coach that Christian camp is more important than the tournament he wants the team to enter.

Or imagine the turmoil when a new Christian can no longer go along with the dishonesty long practiced in her workplace.

Following Jesus often means trouble.  And if you are in the middle of that storm, if you’re frightened, if you aren’t sure you will survive, then it’s not too hard to imagine thinking, “Jesus, do you not care that I am being ridiculed, imprisoned, fired?  Am I to be cast out of my family, benched, or demoted for all you care?”

Yet it is in those times of trouble that an all too common failing appears.  It is the failure of doubt, or, put differently, it is the failure to trust.  Specifically, it is the failure to believe that the one who leads us into the storm is the one who can lead us through it.

When the disciples went to Jesus with their accusation, his response was simple.  Our reading says he “awoke,” but that doesn’t quite capture the scene.  The word used means to “rise up” or “to extend to one’s full height.”  So Jesus stands up nice and tall, and then “rebukes the wind and says to the sea, ‘Peace!  Be still.’”

The language is telling because it recognizes the sea as the abode of chaos and demonic powers.  Mark says Jesus “rebukes” the wind and the sea.  “Rebuke” is the term he usually uses to describe what Jesus does to demons or illnesses caused by evil spirits.  For example, when, in the first chapter of Mark, a man with an unclean spirit confronts Jesus, he “rebukes” it, “saying, “Be still, and come out of him.”  That is very similar to what he says to the wind and sea:  “Peace. Be still”—or literally, “Be muzzled, and stay muzzled.”  Those are words which one would say not to the elements but rather a demonic force.

And, of course, the wind and sea obey.  But it wasn’t the case that the wind slowly began to die down and the swells began to lessen.  The wind “ceased,” literally, “chopped off,” and “a great calm” came upon the sea.  In fact, so dramatic is the change that the frightened disciples are stunned.  “They are filled with great fear,” Mark says.  More accurately, “they were greatly awed.”  And they begin to ask one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

Why?

Because they knew only God reigns over the wind and waves.  It is not just that God called the land and the sea into being at the creation or divided the Red Sea during the Exodus.  The Psalmist had testified to God’s unique reign over the wind and waves. 

In Psalm 65, the poet praises the God of salvation “who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples.’

In Psalm 89, he says, God, who is mighty, “rules the raging of the sea.”

And in Psalm 107 he tells of sailors that “cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.  He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.”

The disciples were beginning to realize that Jesus was more than they had once thought.  They were beginning to realize that he possessed the power of God.  They were beginning to see that the one who had gotten them into trouble was the one with the power to get them through it. 

And that would be important because there were storms still to come.  Their Lord would be betrayed, arrested, crucified, and die.  They themselves would be harassed, jailed, stoned, and martyred.  And yet when those winds and waves buffeted them they possessed the memory of Jesus doing what only God could do, and they could trust that he would see them through.

So can we.

Christ brought Eric Liddell through the pressure put upon him by Great Britain’s Olympic Committee, earning a gold medal in another race on another day.  Shortly afterward, he left for China, where he would spend the rest of his life proclaiming Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was martyred for his faith, but the doctor at the prison where he was executed would say:  "I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer...kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer....In the almost 50 years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” [i] Bonhoeffer knew that even in death Christ would see him through.

And Chief Cochran?

His religious discrimination lawsuit against the City of Atlanta will soon go to court.  Whether he wins or loses, Cochran says his goal is that “God would be glorified.”  Do you think he could say that if he didn’t know that Christ was going to see him through no matter what?

That has been the experience of followers of Jesus throughout history.  Oh, we’ve faced all kinds of storms.  There have been emotional, family, financial, political, and social storms.  There have been storms of disease, persecution, and temptation.  And yet those who have faith in Jesus Christ, those who trust in him, have discovered time and again that we need not be afraid, for he is more powerful than the troubles that assail us.

Maybe right now your life is sunshine and rainbows.  If it is, give God thanks.  But chances are you are in the midst of a storm or soon will be.  The wind and waves batter us all sooner or later.  And in that time you might be tempted to fear.  You might be tempted to doubt Jesus’ love.  You might be tempted to ask, “Do you not care that I am perishing?”

When that time comes, remember the disciples that day on the Sea of Galilee.  Remember how they moved from fear of the storm to fear of the Lord.  Remember how they moved from alarm at the power of the wind and the waves to awe at the power of Jesus.  Remember how they moved from the failure of doubt to the security of trust.  And join them.  Stop looking out and look up.  Turn your eyes away from the troubles and to our Lord Jesus Christ.  Trust that the one who leads you into life’s storms will be the one to lead you through them.