A Message from the Pastor
Fellow Believers in Christ:
One of my favorite text passages from Scripture is Mark 4:35-41. Jesus has been teaching all day. He and the disciples are in a boat and sail to the other side of the lake but a great wind storm comes up and the text says, vs. 37. However, Jesus is sleeping. The disciples are panicked. In my mind’s eye I see them frantically rowing, bailing, struggling to get the sail down, crouching and clinging onto each other in fear, paralyzed. They finally realize that Jesus is with them, asleep on a cushion in the back of the boat. How non-anxious can you get? They wake him up and say, vs.38. Jesus wakes, rebukes the wind and says to the sea, Suddenly it is calm. He looks at his disciples and gently asks, vs. 40.
They are amazed by what has just happened but at the same time do not really hear what he just asked them.
As I write this, having been your Transition Pastor for all of a month, I also feel like I am in a stormy sea and it would be very easy to think and feel like I am being swamped and overwhelmed. You may be feeling this also. We are in a time of national and regional turmoil with lots of political manipulation, hurricanes that have affected gas prices and shortages, a stock market that goes up and down like uncontrollable waves, consumer prices that keep rising, waiting to hear if your pastoral candidate has accepted your call, and tensions and turmoil in the congregation. If I let all of this get to me, it feels like a perfect storm. But then I remember that Jesus is actually here with me, asleep in the back of my boat in the middle of this perfect storm: calmly, serenely, asleep. In my terror and panic I wake him and yell at him. He wakes and looks at me, sees that this storm has control over me and simply says “Peace be still.”
I finally let his calm and grace wash over me. He asks me, This a tough question that I will ponder and pray about. And then we, that is all of us, get on with our various tasks and sail our boat on toward the other side. Until the next storm.