The sea - the turbulent, unpredictable, wild, stormy sea. Our story begins with Jesus, standing on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, saying to the apostles, "Let us cross to the other side." As they crossed, the wind began to blow, the waves began to rise, and Jesus began to sleep.

Have you ever been in a storm at sea or on a wind-tossed lake? One sea captain describes a storm at Cape Horn at the tip of South America like this:

This mighty swell of waters that giant forces seem to be pressing upon us, this crowding together of millions of tons of turbulent water, creates a sharp piling up of eddies and backwaters in which the largest ship can become unmanageable. Current fights swell, and the rocks wait with the cold sea snarling impatiently around them. It is not an ordinary ocean swell rolling on and on as one is accustomed to see. These waves rush perpendicular as if cast up by an invisible power, and fall to run again on the same spot - savage ship stoppers going nowhere but all 100 percent against one.

In storms at sea there is a hellish concert in the rigging, a universal roaring in the air. "All hell breaks loose," they say. Sailors cannot hear one another except by shouting directly into one another’s ears. The air is grey with flying water. Mountains of water ... screaming winds ... and weariness. "What are we doing here?" sailors ask.

The raging sea, not the raging ocean storms of Cape Horn, but a nasty storm on the Sea of Galilee is the problem in our story. The question is the same: "What am I doing here?" The storm is the bind, the discrepancy, with which the Gospel story begins. The apostles, many of them experienced fishermen who have lived through many storms before, are frightened by this one.

Jesus, asleep after an exhausting day, is awakened with the words, "Teacher, don’t you care?" The friends of Jesus who spoke these words knew that what they said wasn’t true. Of course Jesus cared. They had seen him care for others. They had felt him care for them. It’s just that at this moment, as they fought for their very lives and Jesus slept, it appeared that he didn’t care. They got sucked into the illusion of the moment, forgetting the deeper truth of their experience. Then they accused Jesus with a question: "Teacher, don’t you care?"

That is the question we naturally ask in the storms of life. That is the question asked from the human shore of the sea.

The Human Side of the Sea

"Don’t you care?" That is the feeling which the apostles had when the storm threatened them as Jesus slept. That is the feeling which many have as they face the storms of life, cry out to God for help, and there are no immediate answers. The ambiguity of the human situation is that at the worst times, it may seem that God is asleep.

For example, a child was born to a friend of mine recently. In her forties, she had raised several children and although she had had many problems with them, at least, she felt, they were finally on their own. Then she found out that she was pregnant. Then the child was born retarded. She felt deserted, deeply disturbed, and depressed. She felt angry at someone, something.

When we feel that way, having no one really to blame, we sometimes blame God. My friend knew in her heart that God had not deserted her, but her feelings overcame her knowledge. She felt that God had left her alone. She felt that God was either punishing her for something she had done, or that he was asleep and did not care about her. Many can identify with those feelings. Many have experienced unjust suffering.

Job was an upright man. You all know his story. Even those of you with little biblical training have heard of Job. He is the prototype in our culture for unjust suffering. A man of God, doing his duty faithfully, tending his farm, taking care of his family, worshiping faithfully, praying regularly. And then, whop! He turned the corner and along came a Mack truck and down he went.

Then insult was added to injury. Not only did Job’s health break, but his children died, his wife turned on him with accusations, and his friends implied that he must have done something wrong to deserve all this punishment. Still he maintained his faith, hoping that the storms would soon end and that peace and calm would be restored. Then the day came - and who can blame him? - when Job turned his resentment outward and, with no one else to blame, Job dumped on God.

Job’s friend, Elihu, said of him, "Job opens his mouth in empty talk, he multiplies words without knowledge" (Job 35:16). In the storms of life, we all enter into speculation and accusation, multiplying words without knowledge. Fear can take over the territory once firmly owned by faith. Projection - blaming others and/or blaming God - can become the "empty talk" of the soul which feels deserted. "Am I being punished? Is God asleep?"

It was the breaking point for old Job. It was also the turning point.

God answered Job out of a whirlwind. "Out of the storm, the Lord spoke to Job" (Job 38:1, TEV). "Stand up now, like a man and answer the questions I ask you," said the Lord. (Job 38:3, TEV). One translation reads, "Brace yourself, and stand up like a man" (NEB).

After all he has been through, now must Job fight God too? It appears so. For the recitation of the mighty acts of creation appear to be the Almighty putting Job in his place.

* "Where were you when I made the world?" (38:4)

* "Who decided how large it would be?" (38:5)

* "Do you know all the answers?" (38:5)

* "Who closed the gates to hold back the sea?" (38:8)

* "Job, have you ever in all your life commanded a day to dawn?" (38:12)

It goes on and on for four chapters. By the end of it, you anticipate that the man who was burdened by his troubles and suffering will be buried by the tirade of questions from his maker.

Instead, there is a reversal, a turning point. Job crossed over to the other side.

The Other Side

Jesus said to the apostles, "Let us go across to the other side." Literally, he was talking about the opposite side of the Lake of Galilee. Symbolically, he was inviting his followers to a new perspective.

What happened when God raised his questions with Job instead of just listening to the questions and accusations of Job? The reversal came. With it came healing and wholeness. That same reversal happened to the followers of Jesus when Jesus stood up and commanded the wind and waves to stop.

Job lost sight of God because of what was happening around him and to him. Job lost sight of God when his own questions became doubts and his doubts began to harden into cynicism. Job lost sight of God when he listened to his friends and his wife and his own questions.

Job crossed over to the other side when God said to him in the storm, "Brace yourself and answer the questions I ask you." The questions did not bury Job. They raised him from the dead. The questions of God brought Job from the wrong side of the sea to the right side. The questions of God worked the great reversal by getting Job’s attention centered on something good, something great, something so overwhelming, that Job lost his self-consciousness and became aware of the holy. Thus he was restored to health.

"Whatever gets your attention gets you," said E. Stanley Jones. Give your attention to your problems and they will get you. Give your attention to God and he will get you. That is the other side.

The same thing happened to the apostles in the boat when they woke Jesus from his sleep with their question, "Don’t you care?" It was a perfectly natural question. Against an illusion of such magnitude, the Lord raised to his full height, turned to the storm and commanded the wind and the waves to be still. As the very elements obeyed Jesus, seeing in him the very fury of God, Jesus then turned toward his friends, with the questions, "Why are you afraid?" "Have you no faith?"

The ultimate question is: "Who stands in the middle?" Whoever asks the questions determines who stands in the middle.

When the storms of life assail us we turn to God. At least, we think we turn to God - but often this turning is no turning at all, for we are still in the center asking the questions. That is the wrong side of the sea. "God, why did this happen to me? Are you punishing me? Are you there? Have you deserted me? Don’t you care? Are you asleep?"

Saint Paul the apostle, as he writes to his friends in Corinth who have found faith but are in danger of going back to former ways of thinking, says, "From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view" (2 Corinthians 5:16, RSV).

There you have it "from the human point of view" - that is, the side that we humans seem incapable of leaving. We are in the center, asking the questions, feeling that we are uncared for, asking, "What are we doing here?"

That question comes at the apparent breaking point. But the breaking point may be the turning point, because we no longer see things just from the human point of view.

There is another side. It is with God in the center, raising the questions: "What do you mean, ‘Don’t I care’? Look at my creation. Look at my Son your Savior. Look at me and what I’ve done. Why are you afraid? Where is your faith? Now that I have your attention...."

Therefore, friends in Christ, "Let us cross to the other side."