Let us look at the text of the gospel passage we have just heard. “On that day, when evening had come”: in Mark's gospel Jesus had just finished teaching a whole bunch of parables including the well known Parable of the Sower from a boat pushed out from the shore. There are many natural amphitheaters around the shores of Galilee and what better way to be seen and heard. It was Jesus who suggested going across to the other side. We are told “they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.” “Just as he was” meaning that Jesus remained in the boat from which he had been teaching.

For some reason Mark mentions “other boats” accompanying Jesus' boat maybe observing and witnessing what came to pass. And then we are told “a great windstorm arose”. We humans have a absolute fascination with weather. Indeed this past week has given rise to newspaper articles and television footage of our lamentable weather here in New York. A friend described driving down to New Jersey from the Catskills on Monday evening and witnessing that tremendous thunderstorm with heavy rain here in Manhattan and heavy hail in parts of New Jersey. He said the sky turned almost black and he could see the storm moving slowly eastwards. He described it as “awesome”. I know I get captivated when I see television documentaries about tornadoes and hurricanes and other dramatic weather. Films like the “Perfect Storm” do good business.

There is something about the forces of nature that are let loose in a storm that both fascinate us as well as making us fearful. That master artist of the storm, William Turner, used to lash himself to the mast of sailing vessel in the midst of a storm at sea so that he could better observe it in order to better depict it. It is well known how dangerous lakes can be in a storm; how quickly they can become treacherous to small boats; Lake Galilee still has that reputation. I well remember a lake near my school where we learned to row. One day we were out in a practice eight when a storm blew up and even though the lake was neither large nor deep the waves soon rose and our boat began to sink. One of our number panicked and started swimming for shore while the rest of us stood in the waist high water and laughed. But this storm on Lake Galilee which is neither small nor shallow but large and deep was a different matter. But even though the disciples were mainly fishermen who must have known those waters well they were clearly afraid of the storm and what might happen to them as “the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.”

But not so Jesus. We are told “Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.” There is a story in my family which my father enjoyed telling about the time we had a memorable family vacation when I was 10 years old in Western Australia. We went by sea each way which took five or six days. On our way home from Perth we were on a large passenger liner which had come from England. Just out of port we hit a summer tropical thunder storm with lightening, thunder and heavy rain. The ship was pitching so most passengers went below decks to their cabins. Well the story is that you know who was missing and could not be found. My father was sent to search for me and found me not sleeping but watching the movie in the ship's cinema with a few other brave souls totally unaware or unfazed by the storm.

Well in any case Jesus rather like Jonah of old who also slept during a storm before he was swallowed by the whale was rudely awakened in Jesus' case by his disciples. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Because Jesus slept the sleep of the innocent and trusting they assumed he did not care for their safety. Maybe he slept because he knew he was with competent sailors. Who knows? In any case Jesus “woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace! Be still!.” The language of rebuke and the command to silence or stillness is interesting because Mark used precisely the same language in chapter one when he was approached by the man with the unclean spirit. And the result in the storm scene is much the same. Instead of the calming of the chaotic demon here the chaos of the storm comes to an end. “Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.” The Greek actually says a “great calm” matching the “great storm” so emphasizing the contrast. So we said in the psalm earlier “He stilled the storm to a whisper and quieted the waves of the sea.” This Jesus is none other than the Lord of Creation who in Genesis tamed the waters of the deep, the ancient image of chaos, separating them and forming the dry land. It was this created order that nearly fell apart at the time of the Great Flood when water threatened to swamp God's creation fallen as it had become but was saved through the faithfulness of Noah. It was those waters of chaos that God divided to allow the enslaved Israelites to escape their bondage in Egypt on dry land.

It is this same God of Creation which is celebrated in the famous passage from Job when God appears in the storm, the whirlwind or twister, to challenge Job's arrogance. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth. Tell me if you have understanding.”

Having calmed the storm Jesus challenged the disciples “Why are you afraid? Why have you no faith?”. And we are told they were filled with awe; awe appropriate to being in the presence of the Lord of Creation.

For us the image of the storm is a powerful and meaningful one. We know what it is to be in the midst of the storm: personally when you lose a loved one or your job; or have to deal with a major illness or condition or crisis. Or as a community like when this community went through 911 or like when my home state in Australia went through terrible bushfires earlier this year. Or as a church when the forces of division and conflict and dissent seem to predominate. At such times it is easy to be like the disciples and to panic and despair and to feel abandoned. But to us all the Lord of the Church and the Lord of Creation says “Peace, be still”. No matter what, the One who created us, who formed us, who loves us and gives his Son to die for us, he gives us his Peace; he gives us that sense of faith and assurance that enables us to get through, to go on, to hold our own.