|
O I do like to be beside the seaside
SERMON – 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 7th February 2010
Revd. Canon David Pickering
Luke 8: 25.
'Who then is this?
that he commands even the winds and the water,
and they obey him?'
The signature tune of Reginald Dixon - O I do like to be beside the seaside.
Where is your favourite seaside spot?
Old coast guard lookout at Sennen Cove
One of the advantages of living in this country is that we are never more than a couple of hours by road from the coast.
We love the sea; endlessly fascinating, tranquil, sulky, seductive, beckoning.
It can sound very idyllic.
Yet the sea can be a very dangerous place.
It is a powerful force to be reckoned with.
All around Hong Kong there are typhoon shelters.
A few years ago there was a film called The Perfect Storm.
It was based on a true story. In 1991 a small American fishing boat was caught in a nightmare of a storm. The director of the film called it "the bad guy of all guys" and he tried to portray this in the film, by making the storm seem like a ferocious monster. It took a horrific personality which wreaked havoc.
Such horror is not my type of film, so I didn't see it.
The way all the first three gospels tell the story of the storm in which Jesus and his disciples were caught seems to have personal characteristic.
Storms on the Sea of Galilee were common.
It is really a large lake situated about 600' (180m) below sea level and surrounded by hills and ravines. The water in its kind of basin traps the heat during the day. Warm air rises, cools and falls, and sometimes funnelled by the ravines turns into violent gales that sweep down without warning.
The gospel story suggest there was something unusual about this storm.
As seasoned fishermen Peter, Andrew and the others should have been used to such sudden squalls and know how to handle their boat.
Jesus certainly had confidence in them. He went to sleep.
He trusted himself to them, allowing their skills to keep him safe and serve him. Sometimes we can forget how Jesus trusts us and allows us to get on with things using the skills he has given us to serve him in our everyday life.
By this time they were terrified. They felt the storm had it in for them. Perhaps they saw it as the force of evil trying to destroy the goodness of Jesus.
When they woke Jesus we are told in verse 24 he rebuked the wind and the raging waves, they ceased and there was calm.
But the sea doesn't behave like that. Normally there is a gradual calming down with a decreasing swell continuing for sometime. Not a sudden calm.
So what amazed the disciples was the authority and command that Jesus had over the storm.
It was much like the spirit of God moving over the waters in the Genesis creation story.
Here Jesus speaks to the natural order of things. He is the creator of the world. He is God in human form. No one else can tell the natural world what to do, to the astonishment of those who saw it.
Who then is this?
that he commands even the winds and the water,
and they obey him?'
At one level this story reminds us that Jesus can still the storms of our lives. He may often seem to be asleep when we are going through a crisis.
Perhaps like with the disciples in the boat he is leaving us to use the gifts and skills he has given us to work through the challenges when they confront.
Or we may be like the disciples and only turn to Jesus when they get desperate. Do we only turn to prayer when things get critical, or do we trust everything to prayer. It makes sense to bring all things to God, and while the crisis of life will not go away, with faith and trust in Him through prayer we may well get through them with less hassle and worry.
But perhaps the real point of this story that as Jesus is identified with the creator, then we are safe in the boat with him, despite what trials and tribulations may arise.
Since early time the church has been portrayed as boat.
Nave – like an upturned boat.
We are with Jesus in the church, the boat.
|
