The Fear of Miracles
Mark 4:35-41
Do you think the disciples were more frightened before the stilling of the storm or after?
The answer should be “the storm” of course. It was a great windstorm” and “the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.” The disciples were frightened for their lives. But the scripture ends, saying, “They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Dr. David Lose once shared a couple of thoughts from the book Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. In the opening pages of that story, Reuben Land, the narrator, tells of the apparent miracle by which his father saved his life when he had just been born. He then reflects on how often we tend to domesticate miracles, using the word to describe all manner of things that merit our attention and appreciation but that are not, finally, truly miraculous.
“Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It’s true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave — now there’s a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time”
Later in the book, Reuben quotes his sister, saying, “People fear miracles because they fear being changed.”
I wonder if this is, perhaps, an unrecognized part of the disciples fear, 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.
What is the change we fear? Not the kind of change we anticipate and plan for. And not even the kind of change that is unexpected and can seem life-threatening. No, I mean the kind of change that happens when we are encountered by the living God and realize that life will never be the same again. See you Sunday!
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alan