"Peace, Be Still"
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And waking up, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” - Mark 4:35-41
I am one of six children. My mom raised all six of us on my father’s bus driver’s pay. And she raised us often by herself as my father’s work often meant he was away on chartered trips. Needless to say, there were plenty of storms coming at her as a mother. She knew what anxiety felt like. She knew what motherly worry felt like. She knew the reality of uncertainty. And uncertainty often breeds fear.
That simple mantra she shared with us, I’m thinking now she used it herself many a time. I’ve been using it a lot lately, I’ll admit.
Now, do I believe the wind stopped because of Jesus’ words? The science-loving skeptic in me wants to say, not exactly. But even science-loving skeptics would agree that inner peace and stillness of mind help us to face scary moments with a whole lot more perspective and resilience. Practicing mindfulness, what we might call “peace-of-mindedness,” often helps us see things as they are and that things are not as scary as they might seem.
As for Jesus and his disciples, even science-loving skeptics would agree that knowledge of a leader’s calming presence eases the worried mind in the face of scary moments.
When Jesus awakes and the disciples know their friend and leader is fully with them, ready to help, the fear is lowered almost immediately. Then, Jesus speaks those timeless words, Peace, be still.
Now, on the surface, it seems Jesus is speaking to the wind and waves, directing them. But it seems to me that Jesus was really speaking to the fear in the disciples’ spirits, giving them words of peace and calm to overcome their fear with faith. Overcoming fear with faith – that is a spiritual practice we humans sorely need. It’s been a practice I’ve been relying on a great deal these days.
It’s been a long winter for my family and I. Maybe the longest. Wintry hardship mirrored our household’s circumstances like never before.
I speak in the past tense. But sadly, winter is still with us. There are miles to go before spring wakes and rises again.
I have been holding on to that mantra my mother taught me. I’ve been repeating it. The storm has been slow to subside. And I’ve seen my son suffer this reality.
I’ll admit to asking, why? It’s a very human question, why?
I don’t blame God, though. In my life, I’ve come to see God differently than the God given to me as a kid. The God I hold dear doesn’t hurt us nor ignore or fix our pain. The God I hold dear joins us to help us get through.
There’s a human propensity to see God as akin to Superman, here to save the day, using his matchless superpowers, faster, more powerful, able to rise like no other. But God’s power, for me, isn’t akin to Superman’s power that defy the laws of nature at his own whim.
God’s power, for me, doesn’t rest in any ability to control or manipulate what happens or doesn’t happen to me or anyone else.
God, for me, is not a micro-manager, intervening when he doesn’t like something or because someone pleaded and said please especially hard.
No, God is love and God’s superpower is love.
And love, as I Corinthians 13 reminds us, doesn’t insist on its own way. Love doesn’t control, coerce, or cancel natural law to give me a miracle while withholding it from almost everyone else.
Love, and God as Love, bears all things, believes and hopes all things, endures all things with me, with you, with us.
To me, love’s power comes from love’s capacity to accompany us, to sit with us in our pain, to comfort us, to hope with us when amid our tears. Love’s power is its capacity to be present, providing us peace and hope, comfort and counsel, strength and resilience, all that we need to get through.
And sometimes, somehow, that peace, comfort, strength translates into healing, beginning in the spirit and sometimes making its way to the mind and the body, healing us.
A couple of other points, as I near a close.
God’s love doesn’t work in isolation. Often, God’s love works through the presence and assistance of fellow sojourners – friends, family, pets, even strangers – who help us in our struggle and suffering.
God’s love also works through scientists and researchers who develop medicines and through doctors and nurses who diagnose and deliver those meds that help our bodies to heal.
That said, where does that leave us when it comes to our lovely story from Luke 4 and the calming of the storm? Where does that leave me when it comes to the beautiful memory of my mother and the mantra she urged? What about “peace, be still”?
Well, the gist of it remains. Christ, out of love for his disciples and in being present with his disciples, helped calm the storms they internally faced, strengthening their faith and their fortitude. And the words he spoke are in reality spoken to us.
We cannot change circumstances bigger and distant from us. We can’t control the storms that come our way or the conflicts that rage around us. But how we internally face the storms, that is something we can work on and even change. Peace begins with us, each one of us.
With Christ’s help, may we approach the storms of life with a peace that passes all understanding and a stillness that defies the shifting sands around us.
“Peace, be still” – may Jesus’s words be your prayer and your faith.
Amen.
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