The Storm on the Sea of Galilee– Rembrandt (1633)
This is Rembrandt’s only seascape picture and dramatically depicts Mark’s Gospel. Being lost at sea was a constant threat at the time. Rembrandt did not try to capture historical accuracy but used boats of his time. Ironically, this painting is now lost. On the morning of March 18, 1990, thieves disguised as police officers broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston and stole The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and 12 other works. It is considered the biggest art theft in US history and remains unsolved. The museum still displays the paintings’ empty frames in their original locations.
The museum describes the painting- “The detailed rendering of the scene, the figures’ varied expressions, the relatively polished brushwork, and the bright coloring are characteristic of Rembrandt’s early style…The panic-stricken disciples struggle against a sudden storm, and fight to regain control of their fishing boat as a huge wave crashes over its bow, ripping the sail and drawing the craft perilously close to the rocks in the left foreground. One of the disciples succumbs to the sea’s violence by vomiting over the side. Amidst this chaos, only Christ, at the right, remains calm, like the eye of the storm. Awakened by the disciples’ desperate pleas for help, he rebukes them: “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” and then rises to calm the fury of wind and waves.”
“Set me alight We’ll punch a hole right through the night Everyday the dreamers die See what’s on the other side “
-U2 “In God’s Country”
“People fear miracles because they fear being changed.” Which is the source, I think, of this other kind of fear that stands somewhere between a holy awe and mighty terror: the fear of being changed. And make no mistake, Jesus is asking the disciples to change. In this very moment he is drawing them from the familiar territory of Capernaum to the strange and foreign land of the Garasenes. And he is moving them from being fishermen to disciples. And he is preparing them to welcome a kingdom so very different from the one they’d either expected or wanted.”
“The change they are facing is real, and hard, and inevitable, and all of this becomes crystal clear as they realize the one who is asking them to change has mastery over the wind and see and is, indeed, the Holy One of God. That change, of course, will also and ultimately be transformative, but I doubt if they see that yet.”
– David Lose, President of Luther Seminary
“No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked and frost bitten by lectures on caloric and pictures of flame. One day’s exposure to mountains is better than carloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographer’s plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul. All that is required is exposure, and purity of material. The pure in heart shall see God! … Come to the woods, for here is rest. … The galling harness of civilization drops off, and we are healed ere we are aware.”
–John Muir 1838-1914
“However, the progression of the crossing stories demonstrates a much greater message. Although Jesus continued to use his power to still storms, in each crossing Mark recounts that Jesus grew increasingly impatient with the presumption of his disciples that he would simply perform a divine act and in every instance relieve them of their fear. They seemed to completely ignore that they also had responsibilities. They had an obligation to endure and to find inner calm through faith. By the final crossing, Jesus was totally exasperated and demanded to know if his disciples had yet learned anything whatsoever”
– Alexander Shaia – The Hidden Power of the Gospels
“I don’t really think the miracle in this story is about Jesus calming the storm and taking control. The miracle in this story is that Jesus was with the disciples in the water-logged and weatherbeaten boat, experiencing the same terrible storm, the same terrible waves, the same terrible danger.
“And that alone should have been enough.
“God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them. It isn’t in imposing the divine will or insisting on its own way but in sojourning with us as we fumble around and make our way in the world. God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world.
“And isn’t this true power? Instead of enforcing control and solutions onto the world, God’s power is revealed in coming alongside us, journeying with us, suffering with us, and even staying with us in the boat when the storms come. “
– David Henson “When God Sleeps through Storms”
“There is a poignant scene in the otherwise very violent film Pulp Fiction, when two hitmen, Jules and Vincent, are trying to come to terms with their narrow escape from death. Jules describes their experience as a miracle; Vincent disagrees. After defining a miracle as “God making the impossible possible,” Vincent argues that their escape from death earlier that day doesn’t qualify. Which prompts Jules to say, “Don’t you see, Vincent, that…doesn’t matter. You’re judging this thing the wrong way. It’s not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my…car keys. You don’t judge [stuff] like this on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch. God got involved.”
““I felt God’s touch. God got involved.” Something similar, I think, is happening in today’s story. The shift in the disciples’ reaction – from “do you not care we are perishing” to “who is this” – signifies a shift from what, the miracle, to who, Jesus. Which leads me to conclude that perhaps the answer to our question – What moves us from fear to faith? – is relationship. It’s the move from what to who, from event to person, from ambiguous miracle to the actual person of Jesus.
“And that, Dear Partner, is something we can preach on Sunday. Faith, in the end, isn’t believing certain cognitive propositions about when or how God created the earth, whether or not Jonah lived in the belly of a whale, the nature of Scripture’s authority, or even Mary’s marital status when Jesus was born.
“Rather, faith is about a relationship, a relationship with the God revealed by the ministry and words and actions of Jesus. And in Mark’s Gospel, the Jesus we meet is relentless in his pursuit of caring for all of God’s children. This very crossing of a rough sea is prompted by Jesus’ determination to get to the other side, to the land of the Gerasenes, a place few rabbis would venture. There he will meet and heal a man possessed by a demon and return him to the community from which he has been ostracized. And then he will come back to more familiar haunts to heal again, this time restoring life to a young girl and healing a woman who has been suffering for more than a decade.
” These early chapters of Mark describe again and again Jesus’ determination to free people from all the things that keep them from the abundant life God promises: demon possession, disease, social exclusion, hunger, even death itself. Jesus reveals a God who cares passionately for the wellbeing of all God’s people. This is the One we invite people to trust. And trust, in the end, is the only thing that overcomes fear. Ultimately, you see, it’s the question isn’t what moves us from fear to faith, but who. And the answer is Jesus, the one who will not rest until we see and hear and experience and trust God’s passionate love for us and all the world.
“There is a second “who” involved as well, for when we have a hard time trusting, a hard time believing that, in spite of our shortcomings God still loves us or, for that matter, in spite of those times of loneliness or struggle God is still present in our lives, at those times we gather as a community to read again these stories and remind each other of God’s promises. “
– David Lose “Moving from Fear to Faith”