Where were you Jesus?

So Jesus is in a boat with his disciples, he’s either pretty relaxed or very tired from all the crowds that have been following him and he falls asleep. But then the wind gets up and waves start buffeting the boat and before you know it, the disciples are fearing for their lives… but Jesus remains asleep.

-    How angry with Jesus would you be at that point?

-    How would you feel if your leader – this apparently great guy full of the power of God just slept while you felt like your life was in danger?

So they wake him up and say the 1st century equivalent of ‘What the **** Jesus’ and say: ‘Do you not care that we’re perishing?’

I’d be pretty angry and I’d want to be shaking him saying:
‘Where were you God when I needed you?!’ 
-    I wonder how many times you’ve asked God that question in your life?
-    ‘Where were you God when I needed you, when ‘x’ was happening?’

Well if you have asked that question before you aren’t alone, because disciples of Jesus throughout the centuries have been asking the very same thing – particularly when they have encountered danger and suffering and threat.

And we can answer that question in one of two ways, either:
1.    When I needed him most, God was asleep – he didn’t seem to care… or…
2.    When I needed him most, God heard my cries and responded

Because even though Jesus is asleep while the storm rages around them, when his disciples called out to him for help – he woke up and got on with what the Son of God does best – saving souls.

This might seem like an incredibly trite and overly-simplistic analysis, but this is the basic stuff that all of us live through to a greater or lesser extent. And it’s that basic, honest, angry question that we all pose to God at different times:
-    ‘Where were you when I needed you?’

But, as Mark points out, our answer to that question will depend on whether or not we’re looking at it through the eyes of faith. Because whether we have faith to see it or not, God’s answer is always the same:
-    ‘I was right there in the boat with you.’

We’d often like God to stop us from encountering trouble in the first place.
For us to feel the merest hint of a breeze and for him to step in to calm it before it whips up into a storm. But the truth is, that we live in a world where storms happen – sometimes whipped up by our broken, fretful humanity … and sometimes caused by forces outside our control.

But what this account from Mark tells us, is that ultimately, however big and threatening and destructive the storm may be, God has already overcome it…. all creation belongs to God and he has command over it.

In Hebrew culture, the sea was often used to depict chaos and even evil activity – it symbolised the unknown, scary and dangerous forces. So Mark seems to be suggesting that it’s not just the sea itself the disciples are afraid might overwhelm them but the dark and destructive stuff of life that we all face.

And, despite God being there with them in the very same boat, they’re still feeling those very human emotions – feeling alone and scared and angry that he hasn’t acted sooner to allay their fears and take away the threat.

So they cry out and ask how he has the audacity to sleep while they struggle.

But despite being a seemingly benign or even disengaged presence he was there with them, and when they called on him, he did respond although likely not in the way they were expecting him to.
And when he does act in the midst of the storm in our story, Jesus doesn’t just snap his fingers and everything’s magically made better again, he speaks first to the cause of all the chaos and rebukes it.

He doesn’t just comfort the disciples and zap the symptoms just to make it all seem better in the short term.
He confronts the forces of evil and destruction at their root and rebukes them – puts them in their place and then he turns to address the disciples saying:
-    ‘Why are you afraid? Where’s your faith?’

This sounds like a rebuke of the disciples too – but actually, I’m not sure that it is. I think it’s about saying two things to them:

1.    Having followed me around and heard my teaching you really should have realised by now that I have this stuff in hand – whatever life throws at you, whatever battles you face, however overwhelmed you feel, God is stronger than it all. Don’t be afraid.
and
2.    You have some agency in this too. Storms will come your way, but it’s faith in who I am, and the power of God that will mean you can weather them with my help.

But there will also be a time when Jesus will send them out with the command to go and do likewise.
-    To be with people in his name through the storms they face in life 
-    To stand up against forces of evil, in his power, and rebuke them and…
-    To call on the power of God to heal and to claim his victory of life over death

What this Gospel tells us is that when we face the storms of life, God does care and he has responded – not just by dealing with the symptoms but by overcoming the forces of darkness and chaos at their cause, and opening wide his arms of love.

And, like disciples before you, be prepared that you also may be sent to be part of God’s response: to stand up to the forces which threaten to overwhelm his people, to be intolerance of injustice and to care and advocate for all his people.

It can take a lot of faith to have the guts to stand up and respond in God’s name as the storm rages around you.
But when you do, don’t be afraid – God’s right there in the boat with you. Amen.