Ancient people
hated traveling on the sea and were frightened by the ocean depths. Even experienced sailors hugged the shore
whenever they could, they wouldn’t venture out into the deep water.
It’s not
very surprising, that when biblical people would speak of the roaring untamed
sea as a symbol for their deepest anxieties.
The very
beginning of the book of Genesis speaks of the “Tohu wa bohu” in the Hebrew,
the watery depths of the void. Those
primal chaotic waters are part of our earliest imaginings. Yet, the Lord of Creation brings light and
life out of the darkness, as he breaths his Spirit, taming and forming.
In the book
of Exodus we hear of another frightening body of water: as Pharoah’s army of
chariots and charioteers closes in on the Israelites, they are trapped by the
uncrossable Red Sea. It is not until God parts the waters, showing himself
again, as Lord of Creation, Master of even the seemingly untamable seas, that
the Israelites are able to escape Egypt and take that next step toward freedom.
And in all
four of the Gospels, there is a version of the story we heard today. The storm at sea.
Again, the
stormy waters stand for the chaos of life beyond our control. All those powers which are opposed to God’s
created intentions. All those
difficulties both interior and exterior, physical and psychological that beset
us. All the darkness that befalls us in
life.
That’s where
the disciples of Jesus are in the Gospel today; they are beset with chaos,
anxiety, darkness, bafflement: just like us.
The Church
fathers say that the boat traversing through the storm sea in the Gospel today
stands for the Church through the ages—the Barque of Peter making her way
through the centuries amidst persecution and misunderstanding and the violence
and wars of the nations. The waves
crashing against the boat, the winds whipping around them are symbolic of
everything that besets the Church, and besets the individual Christian.
This storm
in the Gospel must have been fierce. For
most of the apostles were experienced fisherman, experienced sailors, on the
Sea of Galilee—their home turf—well, their home “surf”—so to speak, they knew
it well, they’d fished there before, with their fathers and their fathers
before them. They knew its changes and
dangers. If these experienced fisherman
were terrified, this must have been a storm of unique severity—no minor
problem.
And in the
midst of the storm they cry out, “Lord, save us.” Scripture is filled with such cries out to
the Lord, the Psalms especially: Out of
the depths I call to you, LORD; Lord, hear my cry! Says Psalm 130. Psalm 50, says, “Call upon Me in the day of
trouble; I shall rescue you.”
When we find
ourselves lost and in the shadow of death—when we are facing the great
struggles and storms of life—we are urged by God Himself to call out to Him;
when in our desperation we feel utterly incapable of helping or saving
ourselves, we are meant to turn to Almighty God, and cry, “Save me Lord.”
Some of you
may be familiar with the story of Bill Wilson.
Bill Wilson was the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill was, at the beginning of the 20th
century, a bright and gifted man, but who found himself to be completely the
prisoner of alcohol. Because of his
drinking, he would suffer great depression, his marriage fell apart, he lost
job after job. Through the treatments of
the day, he would get back on his feet for a while, only to fall again. This terrible pattern of addiction, that perhaps
some of you are familiar with, repeated itself so often, that Bill Wilson found
himself at the point of utter despair, contemplating suicide. But it was then, when he was at rock bottom,
that he encountered a friend who spoke of a religious way out of addiction; one
mediated by prayer. At the end of his
rope, having tried everything, Bill Wilson prayed Psalm 130—Out of the depths I
cry to you O Lord. And in the wake of
that prayer, Bill Wilson experienced a spiritual awakening, a spiritual
revival, that began a period of sobriety that would last the rest of his life. And this experience of humbling admitting one’s
powerlessness before God—praying to God out of the depths became the foundation
of the 12-step program.
Until we hit
rock bottom, we still believe they can save themselves.
Not all of
us will struggle with an addiction to alcohol, or narcotics, or gambling, or
pornography, but there needs to be, in the life of every Christian, an
acknowledgment, that I cannot save myself…I cannot be the person God made me to
be on my own; I cannot love others as I’m meant to on our own, I cannot get to
heaven on my own. We need God. We need to come before him, in the depths of
our soul, and acknowledge, we can’t do it on our own. This humility is a fundamental disposition
for authentic faith.
For when the
ego, rather than God is at the center—in the end we will reap nothing but a
harvest of unhappiness and exhaustion.
Perhaps some
of you here today are in the grips of an addiction, or perhaps you have just
lost your job, or don’t know where your next mortgage or rent payment is going
to come from, perhaps you just lost a loved one, and you don’t know how you are
going to survive without them. I encourage
you to identify with the disciples in the Gospel today, and cry out with them
out of your depths.
The disciples,
knowing their helplessness, cry out, Lord, don’t you know we are about to
drown? Lord, do something!
And What
happened to the disciples then? Jesus
awakens. He calms the storm.
Like the Spirit
of God which hovered over the chaotic waters in the book of Genesis, Jesus is
the incarnate power of God, who can bring peace, and calm, and new life—new
creation, from the stormy darkness.
He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be
still!” Though they had before witnessed the Lord's miracles,
and heard his wisdom, here on the terrible sea the most unruly powers of
creation submitted to Him, without question - this was a lordship they had not
yet even conceived of; this is the lordship of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
By coming to
us in the Holy Eucharist today, Jesus renews his commitment to be our strength
amidst the storms of life, let us commit to him, by accepting our limitations
and acknowledging our dependence upon him, for the glory of God and salvation
of souls.
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