1 Our dog, Piper, is afraid of thunderstorms. At the first clap of thunder, she slinks into our dark powder room, lays down in the corner, and starts to quiver. Piper is not alone in her fear of storms. It s not uncommon for dogs to be scared of thunderstorms. But what s interesting to me is that we don t actually know WHY dogs are afraid of storms. As my friend, who s a vet, says, while both genetics and previous experience may play a role, we are still not completely sure what causes thunderstorm phobias and fears in dogs. We are not sure exactly WHAT about storms that is so frightening for dogs. That s the question that I d like to explore this morning, but not about dogs. About the disciples. What about the storm is so scary to them? What, exactly, are they afraid of? * Let s remember that a number of the disciples are experienced fishermen. They ve been taking boat trips for all of their working lives. They know the sea. They know this sea. And they ve known windstorms like this one to arise. But this time, it seems their lives are truly at stake. They are collectively perishing, the storm threatening to kill them. And faced with the danger of death, we can imagine that they are scared.
2 Fearing for their lives, the disciples know that they may have the answer to their problem in the boat. Jesus, their Lord and teacher, who they know can command great power, who they know can cast out demons and cleanse lepers and heal paralytics, is with them. But he s asleep. So, they wake him up! The disciples wake Jesus up with the accusing remark, Do you not care that we are perishing?! And Jesus, faced with this prospect of death, does something about it. He wakes up and rebukes the wind and says to the sea, Peace! Be still. It is then that the wind ceased and there was dead calm. They were scared, certainly. But NOW is when the disciples begin to really quiver, we can imagine. Now is when the experienced fishermen slink slowly down into the hull. For after the calm is when Mark s account first mentions their great fear. Jesus says to them, Why are you afraid? And they are filled with great awe. In the King James translation, the disciples are not filled with awe but rather they feared exceedingly. And the Greek literally says, They feared a great fear.
3 The disciples thought they were afraid during the storm, but now, they discover REAL, TRUE FEAR when they realize that the person in the boat is so much more powerful than the storm that threatened them. They were surely afraid before, but now, after Jesus commands the sea to be at peace that the disciples fear exceedingly, because the Lord they know and love has hushed the wind with two single words. The scene ends not with the disciples cowering before the storm but quivering before Jesus. It seems indeed that the scariest part isn t only the storm: it s also Jesus and the recognition that Christ is infinitely more powerful than any storm. * This is the Good News: that Christ s power is greater than any storm, which means that any storm is smaller than Christ s power. Whatever storms life will bring your way the rain of unexpected diagnoses, the thunderclap of harsh words between parent and child, the lightning bursts of broken relationships, lost jobs, injustice that goes on and on and on whatever the storm, all are smaller than the power of Jesus. And we ve just had the perfect illustration of this truth: Bennett s baptism. Now, baptism doesn't look like a storm. We just baptized Bennet and there was no wind or thunder or swell. And while we talk about baptism being a death and a drowning to sin that s how Luther explains it it s only babies who cry at the cold water who really get threatened by the font. There's no
4 danger or drowning or death in baptism the way there was danger and drowning and death for the disciples in that boat. There s a bit of a disconnection, then, between what we see in baptism and what it means. What we SEE is a little splash of water and what we SAY it means is a BIG storm: the old sinful self-drowning and dying and being reborn. But what if baptism is, literally, a storm? What if baptism is, perhaps, how powerful all our storms appear to the God who stills storms. The little water that I put on Bennett s head... what if that s about how powerful our storms appear to the God who commands the sea. Baptism is a little splash of water because to God, all the storms of life that we will ever experience are exactly that: splashes and sprinkles when compared to God s amazing power. Now we can understand the disciple s great awe and fear. Because our response to the storm and salvation of baptism is, in a way, the same great awe and exceeding fear of the disciples on the sea that day. Our response to the drowning and life-saving act of baptism is a holy fear and great awe not for the watery ACT, but for the ONE who sees all storms as splashes and makes the splash of baptism more powerful than any storm.
5 Then our response is a loving reverence for the One who commands the earth s seas and our baptismal waters and expects more of us than being awestruck and afraid. Because Jesus question to the disciples, and to us, is not only Why are you afraid? It s also Have you no faith? And we do. We do have faith. Faith given to us in baptism. We do have faith. Faith that instills holy fear and reverence for the great responsibilities that the storm of baptism brings. We do have faith. Faith that asks us to take seriously the cross marked upon us and follow. We do have faith to live through the storm and sail on. AMEN.