Grace, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
He stood at the edge of the valley and looked down. The Valley of Elah – broad, and flat. On the other side he could see the army assembled – thousands of men bristling with the best weapons, armour, and mobile infantry he’d ever seen. At their centre in the middle of the valley was a giant of a man. Goliath. The best champion the Philistines had ever had forced the entire army of Israel to cower in their boots. No one wanted to face him. He was just too big, too terrifying to contemplate.
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They sat in the boat, and watched as the waves crested higher and higher. Their boat was larger than normal for the Sea, big enough to carry all of them with enough room for at least one of them to sleep. The storm had gotten progressively worse. In their collective lifetimes of being on the water, they had seen huge and tremendous storms before; had watched as the boats of friends and others were swamped and eaten by the hungry water. They had managed to sail through the storms before, but this one was different. It was too bad, too terrible, too impossible to survive.
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He stood in the foyer of their house. At the back door he could see the stroller, the little baby items that they’d bought – nothing but the absolute best, the most expensive, for their child. They’d even upsized their house when they realized they were pregnant, after all, they didn’t want their child to grow up in a townhouse or an apartment did they? But it’d begun to unravel. Too many hours worked; too much trouble getting the toddler to and from daycare, playschool, and appointments. Too tired to talk to each other at night, they watched as their investments dry up and their bills get longer. New house, new cars, magazine-perfect life summed up in two words: irreconcilable differences, on the petition for divorce. Too many troubles, too big for them to handle.
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Does any of this sound familiar to you? Too big troubles, too much stress on your ‘boat’ – the circumstances of your life. Standing at the edge of a valley overlooking what appears to be certain doom if you put one foot wrong. I’d be willing to bet that everyone here knows what that’s like. It’s called life. And folks, it’s terminal.
But how we face life as Christians should set us apart from everyone else, because we have a gift – the gift of knowledge, not only of eternal life, but that Christ walks beside us in our journeys and because of that we do not need to fear what seems so terrible.
Consider David. He’s a shepherd, and he’s been alone on many a cold and desperate night when the hungry dark has sought his flock. Lions and bears, two of the most terrifying animals to encounter in the wild, both have succumbed to a well-aimed rock from his sling or turned away in the face of an adversary that just won’t back down. For a simple shepherd David’s seen how complicated life can be.
He comes to the aid of Saul, a great and mighty king. If you remember from the readings last week David has already been anointed as Saul’s successor by Samuel, though Saul doesn’t know that yet. But David comes to Saul, who stands at the centre of the army, too afraid to choose a champion to go out and do battle against the mighty Goliath. Actually David came to deliver food to his brothers who were serving with Saul, and he heard Goliath’s taunt, and watched the army of Israel – men trained for fighting and experienced in war -- tremble with fear.
But David volunteers to go out and fight Goliath, because Goliath dared to defy the armies of the living God. Saul still wants David to do things the way they should be done – so he lays all of his armour on the shoulders of the boy, then stands back and watches as he falls over. David shucks it off, and taking five smooth stones from the wadi goes out in the Holy Name of God to defeat the terror that makes Israel tremble. You know how it ends.
Even in our own lives we play out the same comic scene, though -- Saul, as he lays his armour on David, those sure things he knows will protect his life. Often we do the same thing.
No family until “we can afford it” – chink goes the mail shirt over our heads.
No dedication to charity in our lives until “it’s a good time” – clunk goes the helmet.
“We need a bigger house, a better car” – strap on the shield.
“We want the best” – always the biggest, most expensive – and we try to heave the sword over our heads.
…and we fall down under the weight, because all of our modern armor constricts us and doesn’t actually protect us as we think it does.
There’s a story told about an order of soldiers who were found in Northern Scotland. Tasked with transforming a bunch of Highland rabble into a “proper” fighting force, the general took them to task for their sloppy appearance, kilts and all, and decided to introduce them to the finer points of plate armor. The General dressed in his finest armor and presented himself to the men, who promptly pushed him off his horse in the middle of a river.
When the General was finally winched ashore and his body shipped back south for burial, the men stood before their court martial. “You killed the General!” accused the adjutant.
“Och, no,” came the reply. “ We didnae do that. That was his armor. We just helped him into the water.” Sometimes the very thing we think protects us actually makes us far, far more vulnerable than we would ever believe.
Jesus and the disciples are on the boat when the storm hits. Storms in the Levant, I’ve read, can come suddenly and violently, so it’s likely that all those fishermen had experienced them before. But this time, it was different. This time, their boat was being swamped and this time, they had precious cargo.
You see, the more I read this story from Mark, the more I’m convinced that the disciples panicked out of concern for Jesus. When you invite someone over to your home, suddenly the hairball the cat choked up seems like the most awful thing you have ever seen. ‘Tis a matter of perspective.
Now, whether or not the disciples wanted to wake Jesus up so he would do something about the storm or just wanted him to be awake when the ship sank is something we may not ever know. But we do know that Jesus does calm the storm, which may in fact have scared the disciples even more than the storm itself.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
This is the question to be asked. Who then is this, who sends a shepherd out to battle a tyrant? Who then, is this, who commands the storms and troubles of life to be still? Who then, is this, who binds our own broken souls and cleanses our hearts?
This is Jesus, who is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is Jesus, God With Us, who sits with us in our circumstances and speaks out of our fear and trembling.
Would the boat have sunk if the disciples hadn’t woken Jesus? That’s a question much like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The disciples, just like we do, sought to fix their own situation and prepare for the worst. You don’t want the revered teacher to go down with the ship, but in their own concern they maybe miss the most important point: Jesus is in the boat with them. Jesus in the midst of their own lives’ narratives and stories, with them and beside them. His presence is known, but often ignored until something terrible happens.
In our own lives, in our own circumstances, we are much like the Apostles. We are in a creaky boat on a big ocean. Sudden violent storms spring up and surprise us and we often react the only way we know how --- by preparing ourselves to abandon ship, perhaps to look for a bigger, safer boat or even just to swim to (we hope) calmer waters.
But what sets us apart as Christians – and how we should be different – is that we know that Jesus is in the boat with us. And he alone has power over the wind and sea. Just as David knew, as he walked across the Valley of Elah, that God is with us, beside us, and will not forsake us.
In the words of the psalmist, yea, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
God is with us. May this be so among us. Amen.
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