June 24, 2012 - Pentecost + 4 - Jesus Invites Us to Cross the Sea

Jesus Invites Us to Cross the Sea

Mark 4:35-41

Pentecost + 4 – June 24, 2012

We are blessed this morning to be here to witness and to celebrate the gift of new life that comes through God in Jesus in the sacrament of baptism, as we welcome Michael Garcia into the family of God. And as I thought about this gift of new life, I was reminded of a picture that's been making the rounds of Facebook – although I'll admit it's mostly been shared by my pastor friends, because apparently we dig these kinds of things... It's a picture of a baby sitting in a metal baptismal bowl, for lack of a better word; bigger and deeper than the traditional font that we have here at St. John's. She's immersed up past her waist, and the picture is of the moment when the pastor pours water over her head with a big red cup. And what really catches your attention in this shot is the baby's face – sitting there in the water with this look of shock at the unexpectedness of it all as water streams into her eyes and into her mouth and down into the baptismal font. There's no fear there, it's just that her mouth and eyes are wide open in sheer surprise – she didn't see this coming! A friend of mine commented, “Best baptismal picture ever. Because God does surprise us – get used to it, little one!” (W. Trozzo)

I think we pastor-types like this picture for just that reason – because it captures the element of surprise that goes along with the baptismal life of faith, the fact that God acts in ways that we never could have expected, and leads us to places and situations and people we could never imagine going to on our own.

We see that in the gospel for this morning. Jesus has been hard at work on this day, teaching the massive crowds who gathered to hear him. The crowds were so huge that Jesus had to get into a boat on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and put out a little way so he could get a little breathing room, so the people wouldn't press so close that he ended up out in the water. And when all was said and done on that day, when evening had come, Jesus invites the disciples to come with him and cross to the other side. And so they did, leaving the crowd behind, taking Jesus in the boat with him, just as he was. You kind of have to wonder about that. Who wants to take a boat ride across the sea as night is falling? And to go to the other side meant going into Gentile territory; that's where they'd land, and what would be the point in that? But still they went, and of course, a storm blows up. Wind and waves so big that they are filling the boat with water. And I imagine these disciples, some of them experienced fishermen, they make their living on the water, thinking they can handle it, that they've got it under control, bailing water as those their lives depended on it, and finally realizing that they're out of their depth, that they couldn't keep ahead of the water that was pouring in on them, freaking out and finally turning to Jesus, who has inexplicably been sleeping all this time, waking him up, and asking in desperation and frustration and fear - “Don't you care that we're about to die here?” And then their utter amazement, their shock, their great awe, when he sits up and rebukes the wind and speaks peace to the water, and the storm stops as quickly as it started. Who is this man that even the unpredictable powers of nature, the chaos of the sea obey him?

This is the life we sign up for when we decide to follow Jesus, when we hear him invite us into the boat and decide to get on board. We'd like to think that being a disciple of Jesus means staying safe on shore and enjoying the waves as they gently lap against the beach, or that we'll get to stay in safe harbors where there is little to rock our little boats. We wish that joining his team would protect us from stormy seas. We hope that having Jesus in our boat means smooth sailing from here on out. But if this story from Mark's gospel teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that life as a disciple of Jesus isn't about our own personal wish-fulfillment. Living out our lives as baptized children of God does not make us immune to trouble or danger or fear. Jesus never promises that getting in the boat with him will keep us safe. More often than not, Jesus leads us into uncharted water, into strange places beyond our comfort zones, out of our depth, into situations that we cannot control – and sometimes it seems like once he's gotten us out there, we turn around to find him sound asleep in the back of the boat, seemingly unaware that the boat's about to capsize.

But the thing about this story is that even in the midst of the storm, the disciples were never alone. Jesus never left them. He never abandoned ship and left them to fend for themselves. He was there all along.
That is at the heart of our baptismal faith – knowing that no matter how high the waters get, no matter how strong the winds blow, no matter what it looks like, Jesus – the one who invited us into this boat in the first place, the one who asks us to travel the sea with him – Jesus never leaves us to cross the sea on our own. He never abandons us in our times of need, our times of worry, our times of fear. The one who has the power to rebuke the wind and speak peace to the sea is with us always. And that perhaps is the biggest surprise – to realize just when we feel most alone, most afraid, most vulnerable, that Jesus is with us always and promises never to let us go. God does surprise us – may we learn to trust in God's ever-surprising, never-failing, shocking gift of grace and hope and love. Amen.