Pastor Don’s Corner . . .
23 When Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed
him. 24 A huge storm arose on the lake so that
waves were sloshing over the boat. But Jesus was asleep. 25 They
came and woke him, saying, “Lord, rescue us! We’re going to drown!” 26 He
said to them, “Why are you afraid, you people of weak faith?” Then he
got up and gave orders to the winds and the lake, and there was a great calm. 27 The
people were amazed and said, “What kind of person is this? Even the winds and
the lake obey him!” Matthew 8:23-27 CEB
Today I am thinking
of stories which make me smile – and this story makes me smile. Imagine, if you
can, Jesus as a child playing with the lightning in the same way other children
might play with lightning bugs.
Other kids in His
neighborhood are running around in the dark of the evening keeping out of their
parent’s way, getting out of the house, enjoying a warm summer’s gathering
darkness as they gleefully run after the bugs which have lanterns on their
tails and fly about in the sky. One by one the kids catch the bugs and hold
them, parting their fingers just enough to observe their flashing, just enough
to see the luminescence glowing in their hands, then one by one they stash them
in a basket hoping to gather enough to make the darkness of their home shine
like the day, a gift to their family which only a child might imagine. They
look around for Jesus to show Him what they’ve done, but He is nowhere to be
found. They wander down towards the lake where they sometimes go to fish and
there they observe Him on the edge of the darkness – He is sitting on a rock
just out from the shore – catching the lightning in His hand, not chasing after
it as they had chased after the bugs, but catching it as though it were a bird
landing on His finger. ‘How do you put that in a basket?’, they thought . . .
and ‘How do you tell your parents what you saw Him doing?’
Someday they will
all understand. Someday we will all understand: As lightning was not meant for
a basket, neither was Jesus meant for this world. There are some things which
are so bright and obvious that no one on earth can stand to watch it for long,
He just shines so brightly.
We are coming to
understand storms. Though we do not really understand the intimacy of their
power and ferocity, we are getting better at predicting their path and
estimating their damage. We have learned how to prepare for them, how to seek
shelter, how to get out of their way, how to protect ourselves from their
havoc. We are learning enough to respect them and, sometimes, to fear them. We
have tuned our radar to follow them and have connected our sirens to announce
them. Still, with all of our advances and understandings, we have yet to
harness them, control them or tame them. We can name them, but we cannot hold
them. Only Jesus can do that. Only the One who spins the cosmos can quiet the
winds. Only the One who births the heavens can soften the lakes. Only the One
who sets the stars can hold the lightning.
“What kind of person
is this? Even the winds and the lake obey him!”, they asked. Indeed! What kind
of a person is this?
To some in these
days of COVID 19 it would seem that Jesus is asleep in the front of the boat as
the storm threatens to capsize the vessel of our lives. We are so used to being
in control of nearly everything, so used to setting the context of each day and
so comfortable with claiming to be in charge that, when something like this
virus comes along, we are like disciples in a boat on a lake in the midst of
the storm. ‘Jesus! Get up! I am praying to you, get up! We are being
overwhelmed by something we cannot control! Jesus! Get up!’
Maybe if we say His
name louder, maybe if we all do it at a certain hour or maybe if we can just
get the liturgical formula correct, He will answer just the way we want Him to,
just the way we predict He should. But if we have learned anything at all by
now about Jesus it should be that Jesus does not do anything just the way
anyone before or after could predict or expect it. Were that not true, the tomb
would not be empty.
Jesus is the Kid on
the rock in the lake in the middle of the storm playing with the lightning.
Jesus is the Healer spitting on a handful of dirt and giving a man born blind
his sight. Jesus is the Friend who sits on the edge of Jacob’s well and talks
with a Samaritan woman, rebirthing her life in the middle of the day. Jesus is
the Cleanser who sees the lepers and tells them to present themselves to the
priests at the Temple. Jesus is the Welcomer who sits down at table to eat with
sinners and tax collectors while the righteous complain that He is not spending
time with them. Jesus is the Authority the chief priests and Pharisees cannot
stand to see come into Jerusalem. Jesus is the Predictor who knows who it is
that will betray Him and who it is that will run away from Him. Jesus is the
Judge who stands before Pilate and feels pity for a man who wrestles with
Truth. Jesus is the Bearer who carries the weight of our callousness and
self-hatred all the way to Golgotha. Jesus is the Truth Crucified because we
cannot stand to see a Kid hold lightning in His hand or still the winds and
calm the seas. Jesus is the Christ who rolls the stone away from the tombs of
our expectations, deserving and condemnation. Jesus is the Lord who already
knows what we are just beginning to realize, the Lord who has been preparing
for what we are just beginning to need, the Lord who has always heard the cry
of all of God’s children, and the Lord who has never turned His back on those
most in need. He is, indeed, the One of whom the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 121: “He
will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed,
he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
Before the disciples
ever tried to wake Him, He was watching. Before the disciples ever cried out,
He heard. Before they ever thought of what to ask in wonderment, He was already
answering - and so it is today.
COVID 19 is new only
to us.
Social distancing
and self-quarantine are only new to us because we are so used to operating in
larger numbers and communities, yet the Bible is rife with stories of how God
guided God’s people apart from everyone else so as to not expose them to other foreign
diseases, cultural challenges and religions of multiple gods. What we are only
beginning to find out now in the advent of COVID 19, God’s people have known
for millennia: Sometimes you have to spend some time apart so that you can
discover or re-discover who and Whose you are. Oddly enough, is that not a
large part of what is going on now?
Even in the absence
of worship services in brick and mortar settings, the number of people
participating in virtual worship services, whether through Live Stream,
pre-recordings, studio settings or other newly imagined ways of being Church,
has gone through the roof. The numbers of folk worshipping on line are
staggering. Some of them are just testing the waters to see who the church is
blaming for this pandemic, some are wondering if this Jesus guy can do any of
the magic His disciples say He can, some of them are listening in and praying
for the first time all over again, and some of them are doing today what they
have been doing all along. Yet, regardless the reason, they are all seeking
Him. It makes me smile to think what a howling storm can evoke in us.
Still, Jesus is the
same, today, yesterday, tomorrow, forever. He is full of loving kindness, calls
us to have faith with Him and invites us to trust that faith to carry us
through to the next shoreline. He will not allow any storm around us to erase
His Presence in us. We are His, as we have always been, except that now we are
beginning to realize and call upon that Gift, which makes me smile, too.
God did not inflict
the world with COVID 19, the coronavirus, yet God will use it to reestablish
our connection with God in the Spirit and through the love of the Son. God does
not need a virus to do that, but God is not afraid of using whatever is at hand
to address our apathy and amnesia regarding who and Whose we are, whether it be
in a storm on a lake or during a time apart because of a virus. God will be
God. Jesus will be Jesus. And, the Spirit will be the Spirit.
Now, the question
is, will we find our way back to being the people, the community, the family
God created us to be from the very beginning and trust our answers to the One
who holds lightning in His hand? Or will we have to claim the final victory, as
though we could defeat death itself? Only time will tell.
For right now, I am
content to smile at what God is doing in the midst of the crisis of our making.
I do not believe for a moment that it is Jesus who needs to wake up to what is
going on, but us . . . and I pray we wake up soon. Now is the time to Be The
Church in a new age, for a changing world and in a season of building
expectation. I know Jesus is up to it, I only pray we are and are ready to
witness to what He has to show us.
Stay strong, take
care of yourselves and know that God loves you in the midst of every storm.
Pastor Don
