Why are you afraid?

The warm sun, the soft puffy clouds, and the gentle breeze out of the north, all lulled us against the approaching evening storm. 

In fact, the whole day had been a beautiful day of fulfilling ministry by the sea side. Sea side?  Well, we have always called Kinneret a “Sea” mostly for the tourists, It was really just a big lake, only eight miles across at the widest point. Unlike a real sea, you could easily see across to the opposite shore with no problem, but it was home and occupation to many like myself. But that life was behind me now.

We had been busy all day trying to serve a very large crowd of demanding folks, most had come to the shore for nothing more than a celebrity sighting. Even so, Rabbi Jesus was very patient, and spent the entire day sharing with them compelling stories and deep truths that they were not going to hear anywhere else. On days like this I always liked to watch the crowd for their reaction to His unusual teaching. Studying faces, observing body language, and listening in on private conversations when I could, I would try to evaluate how effective Jesus was being. The other guys and I had heard most of the teaching He was sharing today on previous occasions, even so, and I can’t explain why, I found that even the most familiar story he would teach always seemed to strike me in a new way every time I heard it. On this day, by my skilled but unscientific survey, I estimated Jesus had only really reached less than ten percent of the listeners. The others seemed mostly preoccupied, unmoved, or mildly disappointed that they had wasted a good day to hear some childish stories about farming. I have always thought that if Jesus would just speak more directly, more clearly, and not use so much imagery and so many figures of speech, people might actually respond better. Whenever I tried to gently suggest my ideas to Jesus, he always just smiled and thanked me for my suggestion. I never felt He took my advice. In fact, He seemed truly unaffected and never discouraged by the poor response of the people He taught. When we would ask privately, He always took the time to explain things clearly to me and the other guys, so I knew he knew how if He wanted to. 

To us, His unwavering confidence was overpowering, and it compelled us to follow His lead without question, even when we didn't understand His methods.  It was this same unexplainable compulsion to follow without question that must have blinded us to the warning signs pointing to the ordeal we were all about to experience. Most of us were fishermen; most of us had grown up around this lake. We knew how quickly a storm could developed here and we were familiar with all the portents for such a storm better than most. Even so, when Jesus suggested we cross over to the other side of the lake, we didn't even think about it. We ignored our training and without question, we found ourselves just getting the boat ready to go. Looking back on it, I do remember noticing the obvious warning signs that were all around me. The wind was picking up, the temperature dropped ten degrees in the past half hour, the clouds were thickening, and the sky was getting dark a little too early. I saw these things, I just ignored them. No one questioned Him; there was no discussion. We just prepared the boat like it was any other day. Maybe I could blame it on exhaustion.

We started our ministry pretty early in the morning and had been hard at doing “the work” all day long. By the end of the day we were all dead tired, and Jesus was probably the most tired of us all. In fact, He looked so bad that I suggested he lie down in the back of my boat and my brother and I would take responsibility for getting us to the opposite port. I was anticipating an uneventful crossing, six miles or so. Normally this trip would take us a couple of hours at the most.  The water was a little choppy but we should make good time to the other side with this favorable north wind.  We had only been out about a half an hour, and we had been making good time against a rapidly building head wind, but soon the wind shifted. The skies opened up and the rain came down like it was being poured out of a bucket. The shifting wind grew stronger by the second, and soon it was pushing our sail down so low we were no longer able to keep the keel in the water even with the whole crew sitting on the windward gunnel. The boat listed heavily to the side causing water to be sucked in over the leeward rails. The hold was filling rapidly and so I had to drop and lash the sail to even right the boat slightly against the wind.  The sea was being crushed by the wind folding it into tall fluid hills and deep rolling valleys. Every time the boat would fall and rise again, the waves would curl and crash over the side of the boat, adding to the rain, and continuing to flood the hold of our vessel up over the sole. The gear and tackle that hadn't already washed over the side was now furiously floating around our feet as if it were looking for a way of escape. I had done all I could but It became obvious to me that this time, we weren't going to make it to the other side. The boat was filling up so fast, I was sure we would capsize in the next few minutes and in all likelihood some, if not all of us would perish in 40 feet of water.  This vessel was my responsibility, I should have known better. I was half frustrated, half angry, half fearful, and probably half perturbed at Jesus who had come up with this terrible idea in the first place.  And now, somehow He slept soundly on a pillow which kept him just above the water in the stern. I knew he always took things too lightly, just like I had been trying to tell him before, but this level of apathy was over-the-top. He never listened to me. I had devoted my life to Him, I left my family and livelihood for Him and at his request have now sacrificed the lives of eleven other men by mindlessly obeying his uneducated command to sail at night, ignoring all warnings, and against my better judgment. Who was the sailor here? I was! Who was a carpenter and a preacher? He was!. He should have asked MY opinion when it came to sailing, He should have listened to My advice. Why didn’t he ask me? Now we were all going to die. I suddenly realized that this is what blind obedience gets you. I should not have trusted someone else; I should have looked out for number one. If I had, we all would have lived longer.  “Somebody shake Him” I shouted furiously over the deafening noise of the storm. "Hey! Teacher! Wake up! Don’t you care that we are about to die?". What’s the use? I crumpled into a heap at the foot of the mast, closed my eyes, and waited for the end.

Little time had passed before I felt unusual movement in the boat. I hesitantly opened one eye. There was Jesus stepping over piles of pitiful soaked men, trying to work His way to the bow. “He’s standing up! In this storm!”, “He’s going to be the first to go into the sea”, I thought to myself. “Hasn't he learned anything from me about sailing?” I wondered if he was trying to be like Jonah by throwing himself into the sea to save the rest of us. But that was just a story, and this is real. Wasn't it just a story? Confused and frightened, tears poured from my eyes as I realized in a few minutes I would never see this wonderful man again, and in this storm there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to close my eyes again, but I couldn't take them off of Him climbing onto the empty anchor seat in the bow where our anchor used to be. 

Then something wonderful happened. Jesus standing tall on the prow, bracing his legs against the sides of the bow and leaning into the violent raging storm, He raised his hands to the skies, as if to get the storm’s attention. Then, like the hush that comes over a room when the conductor raises his baton, that Goliath like storm hesitated, momentarily distracted from his fury as if he suddenly sensed something had dared to stand in his presence.  It was as if the monstrous storm was turning his savage head to confront a contemptuous little man standing on the prow of a tiny boat, demanding to be heard.  For an eternal moment, it was as if the entire world stopped breathing, frozen in time. If there were any sounds at all they could not be heard. The twelve of us in the boat held ourselves motionless, wanting to huddle closer together but fearful to even blink, and fixated on what was about to happen. In the eerie hush, Jesus slowly took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak.  He calmly addressed the storm with the same gentle, yet strangely compelling, tone that He always used when He spoke to us, like when He said earlier, “Let’s go to the other side”. In that moment, He simply said to the storm, “Be at peace. Be still.”, and for some inexplicable reason we heard the mighty colossus storm whimper, and watched spellbound as it cowered and shrunk so small it would have fit into a bottle. The storm instantly did the same thing we did when Jesus spoke to us, it simply obeyed, automatically, without thinking if there were any possible alternatives. The storm was instantly transformed from savage to servant. The wind so violent only moments before immediately quieted and politely offered to our little ship whatever services she might require. The turbulent mountainous waves melted, and disappeared into a glassy surface perfectly suited for us to effortlessly glide home. Our little boat sprang upright and settled into its normal upright position. And the bright full moon forced its way through the thick dark clouds, scattering them away like a broom removing dry leaves. We were awestruck and dumbfounded; lying huddled in the bottom of the boat looking like a litter of soaking wet puppies instead of a crew of hardened intrepid sailors that had just stared death in the face. Jesus turned around toward us, and carefully stepped down onto the floor of the boat. Standing above us with hands on hips, he surveyed the cowering mass of defeated flesh that was His pitiful crew. Then, after a long and very powerful pause, and with half a smile on his perfectly dry face, he quipped, "Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?”

No one answered, but I heard myself silently confess, “good questions”. 
No one dared speak, but we were all thinking the same thing: "Who is this guy?"

Mark 4:35-41