Daily Lesson for July 24, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 4 verses 35 through 41:

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.37A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

There can be no crossing over, no going over to “the other side” without chaos and fear and the uncertainty of our surviving the voyage. This is a necessary part of life’s journey. We must be  taken to a place beyond our comfort through waters beyond our control.

Of course, this is where the blaming happens. We are in chaos and out of our chaos comes yelling, finger pointing, confusion, and anger. This is the point at which sailors of long ago would have thrown a man overboard to appease the sea gods. We are not so different from those ancient mariners. How many junior VPs have been cast over the deck because the ship was not making its sales goals?  Note: it’s always the junior VPs or the assistant coaches or the youth minister who is the first to be tossed. 

In today’s Lesson we have perhaps the cruelest of all the accusations made against Jesus. It is worse than all the Sanhedrine’s lies or Pilates charges.  It is worse because it came from his friends, his own disciples.  “Do you not care?” they charged. 

Of course he cared. Of course he did not want this boat to split apart. He was in the ship with them!  He had no death wish. He was not ambivalent.  He was in this with them. He cared for them, for the boat, for the mission of the church. 

He did care. He does care. And yet even with the chaos and storm, wind and waves, and the terrifying uncertainty of drowning, he also knows there is no other way. The boat must cross over. It must reach a new place. It cannot go back. 

And then the words echoing from Jesus in that little first-century fishing boat through all eternity and landing in whatever sea-tossed vessel we find ourselves today:

“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

And then for a time there is stillness and there is calm, and then the dawning certainty of even greater storms to come. And then the sudden realization of what it will take from us if we try to cross this water once more. 

And the word for what it will take is called: Courage.