The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

St John-at-Hampstead
Choral Evensong
4 February 2023
Genesis 2
Luke 8
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Some of you might remember that I mentioned last week
that I am very fond of films—and that I have a particular
love of science fiction films. A few years ago I went to see
Interstellar at the cinema (if it’s science fiction I really want
to see it on a big screen to get the full effects). It has a very
memorable sequence at the start of the story—the space
explorers visit an alien planet with both mountain ranges
and a large body of water—a vast but shallow lake. They
are searching for the probe which was launched from their
space craft. It will give them very valuable and important
data. As they search in the water one of them notices a
movement on the horizon. The natural formation that
they supposed to be a range of mountains in the distance is
actually a 4000 foot wall of water—a wave—which is
approaching them and their small landing craft at great
speed. The utter horror etched on their faces as they
realise the immense and frightening power of the natural
phenomenon rushing towards them makes even the viewer
in the cinema a bit queasy.
The power of nature unleashed in St Luke’s account of the
stilling of the storm seems have really affected the
disciples too. No doubt they were a little tired after the
busy day listening to Jesus preaching and teaching about
the mustard seed and other parables that precede this
story. It seems that even Jesus himself was tired—curled up
asleep and completely oblivious to the wind and waves.
The disciples are trying to cope with this on their own—
we are told that they do not wake Jesus until the boat is
already being swamped. Well, some of them are seasoned
fishermen after all—this will not be the first time that they
have encountered storms on the huge lake of Galilee.
So maybe there is something different about this storm?
Perhaps it seems more malevolent, more ‘demonic’ even?
We know that the sea was sometimes viewed as a place of
chaos, a place of disorder and that in ancient times it was
the home of monsters and evil powers. We might
remember the story of Jonah, for example, and how he was
the subject of a dreadful storm at sea—while all the men
around him prayed to their gods for help.
What does Jesus do in this account? The first odd thing is
that (like Jonah) he doesn’t wake up—he seems to sleep
through a portion of the storm. And when he does wake he
does not do what any ordinary person would do—he does
not call to God for help. Instead he directly addresses
nature and commands it to obey him—to be still. He
restores to good something that is wrong—or out of
balance, if you like. This is an amazing act of power—one
that leads to the beginning of a revelation for the disciples.
Remember, they woke him up using the term ‘master’ –
but no mere teacher can command the winds and waves,
so they are left pondering who this person Jesus really is.
This story is epiphanic—in other words it is an epiphany—
‘a manifestation or striking appearance’ as the dictionary
says. We could also call it a ‘revealing’ or ‘uncovering’—we
use it to describe God manifest in Jesus Christ, a person
we could see, touch, relate to. And the epiphany that we
see in the stilling of the storm is one where Jesus’s power
over the created world is revealed. He is God—he directly
addresses the wind and waves and they obey him.
Having shown the disciples this example of his unique
authority, he then goes on to speak to them about trust.
He trusted in God his father and through him he is given
the power to still the waves. The disciples have not yet
grasped this depth of faith and while Jesus acknowledges
this, his comment to them ‘have you stil no faith’ implies
that this is a gift that they will attain sometime—it is not
beyond their capacity.
Perhaps sometimes we too feel like the disciples in the
boat—thinking that Jesus is peacefully asleep and blissfully
unaware of our great concerns or worries. But faith is not
beyond our capacity either.
Perhaps at those times of worry we could try to look for
the action of God in our lives—look back at the times
when trusting in God has meant a sense of drawing closer
to him, of understanding his wish for us, that we might be
fully alive in him. Jesus told his disciples more than once
that they should not be afraid, that they (and us) should
trust God like he does and trust in him as his Son, revealed
to us.
Sometimes our lives can feel stormy, as if we two are in a
little boat on a vast lake. Perhaps one of the most
important things that we need to remember at that time is
the simple truth that Jesus is always with us. We are never
alone in the boat.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen