Matthew, Peter, and Luke each record the same incident. I like Peter’s recollection best, because he was a fisherman.
“As evening came, Jesus said, ‘Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.’ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?’ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Silence! Be still!’ Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was great calm. Then he asked them, ‘Why were you afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ The disciples were absolutely terrified. ‘Who is this man?’ they asked each other. ‘Even the wind and waves obey him.’”
Let’s see, by now the disciples had seen Jesus assert his dominance over water (to wine), over disease, over demon-possession, and over congenital defects and infirmities. Now weather becomes subject to him. They are absolutely terrified, and I can’t figure out why…unless they are finally getting it that he is more elemental force than healer.
When God scares us, it is as though our world seems less safe. God scared Moses when he spoke to him from a bush that burned but was not consumed. He scared the people of Israel when he led them out of Egypt and across the Sea of Reeds. He scared them when he gathered them at the foot of Mount Sinai, shaking the mountain with fire, thunder, and smoke. He scared the prophets, and put a holy fear into such notables as Isaiah, Uzziah, Josiah, and Daniel, as well as a host of evil rulers. The wise man said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”… holy fear including the elements of respect, awe, mystery, and deference.
But we’re not afraid of God anymore. In the 19th and 20th centuries scholars debunked, rationalized, and explained away the miraculous with ill-founded logic and questionable scholarship. Step by step the idea of God was reduced until, in the late 20th Century, it became popular to declare God “Dead” and theology often became the academic discipline of non-believers.
Gladly, scholarship is now restoring the historical and Biblical Jesus, archaeology is building growing testimony to the authenticity of the Biblical story, and literary scholarship is doing the same for Biblical documents.
But we seem to have lost that holy “Fear of the Lord.” I believe this to be a consequence of the comfortability of our faith. “Church” is comfortable. We sing nice, inspiring, pretty church music. We have well-educated men to pray and preach for us. We are surrounded by books that explain every subject we can spiritually imagine. God is the linchpin of 12-step programs and other self-improvement efforts. He is presented to us as our “friend.” But few of us take time to think through the difficult issues raised by miracles and the often-times silence of God in the face of a broken and needy world. It is only when all the “stuff” is set aside and we must deal with all of life and faith as an issue between us and God that we again see…he is not like us; his priorities are not the ones we would choose for him, nor does he speak in ways we would find comfortable. He is God and we do not always understand, or even enjoy, his influence in our lives.
I think it might be easier if he were to descend on Mount Hood in fire and thunder and smoke, shaking it and reminding us all that we live (or not) at his pleasure. Then we, like the disciples in the boat, would see again that we are his creatures and he is our God…and that our relationship with him is the most important thing in life.
Prayer: “Great and awesome Father, what are we that you care for us? For we are but a breath that is here today and soon gone. But you are eternal, and you hold all things in your hands. Forgive us when we are proud and talk about all the great things we have done. Give us a spirit of wisdom with you at its center. Help us to live our days in your sight and in your wisdom. Fill us with your presence so that we might live with wonder. You are good and great and I am yours. Amen.”