Text used – Mark 4:35-41

• Let me tell you a story this morning. It’s a story about a man, and it’s a story about loss.[1] Life was going quite well for this man. He was a successful Chicago lawyer with multiple real estate investments. He had a beautiful and loving wife who had just given birth to the couple’s fourth precious daughter. Then, on Oct. 8, 1871, a fire broke out in a barn on the southwest side of Chicago – a fire that would end up burning for more than 24 hours, sweeping through a city comprised mostly of wooden buildings, wooden sidewalks, and wooden homes; a fire that would end up killing 300 people and leaving 1/3 of the city’s population homeless[2]; a fire that would destroy many of this man’s real estate investments.[3] On the heels of the devastation of this fire, this man’s finances suffered another blow with the Panic of 1873, one of the worst financial crises in American history that saw more than 100 banks across the nation fail.[4] Yet even in the face of all this hardship – or perhaps because of it – this man decided he and his family needed some time to get away. They needed to leave the troubles of their day-to-day lives behind for a bit – breathe the air of another city, another land, another continent. So he booked passage for all six of them on an iron steamship bound for France on Nov. 15, 1873. At the last minute, business obligations made it necessary for this man to stay behind, but he saw his wife and four daughter – ages 11, 9, 5, and 2 – on board and promised to join them in France as soon as he could. He waved at them from the pier as their ship departed. One week later, this French steamship – the Ville du Havre – collided with the Loch Earn, a British clipper ship, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The Ville du Havre sank in just 12 minutes, killing an estimated 226 people, including the man’s four daughters – Horatio Spafford’s four daughters: Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta. His wife, Anna, survived by clinging to a floating plank.
  • From blog where I found this story: As anyone can imagine, the accounts of the Ville du Havre sinking are terrifying. Heartbreakingly, in the last moments of daughter Annie Spafford’s life she is recorded as proclaiming: “Don’t be afraid. The Sea is His and He made it.” As Anna was thrown into the sea, she felt her baby Tanetta pulled out of her arms by the rough waves. All four daughters drowned. When Anna was finally rescued she was unconscious, floating on a piece of debris.[5]
  • The ship that rescued the survivors took them to Cardiff, Wales, and Anna sent her husband a devastating telegram: “Saved, but saved alone. What shall I do?” From Cardiff, Anna Spafford made her way to France to stay with friends, and Horatio set off for France himself to join his devastated wife.
    • Again, from the blog: At one point during the voyage, the ship’s captain summoned Horatio to his cabin and explained that he had determined the exact spot where the Ville du Havre had gone down. He let Horatio know that they were at that moment passing that very spot. Horatio then returned to his own cabin and, leaning for strength on his tremendous faith in God, wrote his famous hymn.[6] (see video below)
      • Spafford wrote the words that morning
      • Later gave the words to his Chicago neighbor, Philip P. Bliss, who composed the tune – a tune to which he gave a poignant and haunting name: Ville du Havre
• Text: Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along. Gale-force winds arise, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”[7]
  • Scholar: Fear. The visceral response of Jesus’ terrified disciples in a frail storm-tossed boat resonates both in the individual lives of Christians and in their corporate life in congregations and civic communities. We are afraid of the “wind and waves” that assail our fragile vessels – our lives, our churches, our cities, and nations. We fear disapproval, rejection, failure, meaningless[ness], illness, and of course, we fear death – our own death, the death of those we love, and the potential demise of the communities we cherish.[8]
  • Yes, friends. The feeling of having our lifeboat swamped is a true and present reality.
    • Swamped by pain
    • Swamped by illness
    • Swamped by loneliness
    • Swamped by grief
    • Swamped by frustration
    • Swamped by rejection
  • Yes, friends. The feeling of having our lifeboat tossed about by gale-force winds is a true and present reality.
    • Gr. “gale-force” = literally “hurricane” + general Gr. word mega = great, many, large, intense
    • So let’s talk about this storm for a minute.
      • Mk’s gospel ≠ only gospel to tell this story of Jesus and his disciples in their boat on rough and storm-tossed Sea of Galilee → also found in Mt 8[9] and Lk 8[10]
      • BUT Mk’s gospel is the only one that stages this story at night → would have made sailing out into the lake more dangerous because of the reduced visibility of the darkness of the night → Rough waters are scary enough in the daylight. Rough waters cloaked in the utter darkness of a night 2000 years ago that was unbroken by any light pollution … terrifying.
      • Historically, storms like this didn’t come up on the Sea of Galilee.[11]
        • Most people who have lived around the Sea of Galilee their whole lives have never seen high waves or huge storms like they
        • “Sea of Galilee” = actually a relatively small lake – only 13 miles long (north-south) by 7 miles wide (east-west)
          • Reference point: Lake Mille Lacs = about 16 miles long (north-south) by 14 miles wide (east-west)
        • Sea of Galilee = also 700 ft. below sea level, putting it in a more sheltered area → warm, calm, and relatively storm-free year round
      • So while it might be easy for us to dismiss this incident or to want to chastise Jesus and the disciples – “What were you thinking, going out on a boat on the sea like this!?” – there’s no reason to think they should have expected a storm like this. They do happen, but they weren’t a regular occurrence.
    • Also have to take into consideration the kind of boat that Jesus and the disciples were probably in → not a nice, big sailing ship with high sides and belowdecks areas to find shelter in a storm → Remember, the Sea of Galilee is small – smaller that Lake Mille Lacs – so the boat couldn’t be that big.
      • The Ancient Galilee Boat (a.k.a. – the “Jesus Boat”) = hull recovered from the Sea of Galilee in 1986 → old enough to have been on the water in the time of Jesus and his disciples[12]
        • Remains were 27 ft. long, 7½ ft. wide, and just over 4 ft. high → large enough to carry roughly 15 people … or Jesus and 12 disciples → For all intents and purposes, we’re talking about a boat roughly the size of the pews on one side of the sanctuary. Against huge waves and gale-force winds. In the middle of a lake. At night. … “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”
• So often with this story, the disciples’ fear gets dismissed. It gets belittled. It gets shamed. “You’re with the Messiah,” we say. “You’re with Jesus! Have a little faith!”
  • BUT we have to remember
    • Remember that the disciples hadn’t really been with Jesus very long at this point → Sure, he’d done some amazing healing and some radical teaching so far. Maybe they’d heard some whispers. Maybe they’d entertained the glimmer of a hope that this rabbi that they were following might bring about change. But they didn’t know who he was yet. So of course they were afraid!
    • Remember that, while it’s easy for us to look back with a rational head, fear is anything but rational → Biologically, the chemicals in our brain that are produced in moments of fear take over our logical minds with built-in self-defense mechanisms – physical changes in the way our bodies function and react that are designed to keep us alive in life-threatening circumstances. There is no rationalizing in the face of fear.
      • Find that the presence and reality of the disciples’ fear in this story is a blessing → Because we all face fear in our lives – fear for ourselves, fear for our loved ones, fear for our communities, fear for our world. And just the face that the gospel-writers were real enough to include the disciples’ fear in all its irrational and terrified truth shows us that it is okay to be afraid even when we’re in the presence of the Savior. Jesus was literally in the boat with them … and still, they were afraid.
• And indeed, Jesus was in the boat with them. – text: He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”[13]
  • Lots of ways Jesus’ words have been read throughout the centuries
    • Read in dismissal: “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”
    • Read in condemnation: “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”
    • Read in disappointment: “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”
  • But, friends, none of those are the Jesus I know. In the face of utter terror and all that comes with it – the racing heart, the wild eyes, the tears and the sobs, the desperation – the Jesus I know would not heap disdain and shame on to of the disciples’ fear. Remember the words from John’s gospel that we read a few weeks ago: “God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him”[14]? That Jesus – the one who came to save, the one who came to embody the love and grace of God in human flesh – speaks to his terrified friends and companions with compassion and gentleness. After all, if he’d already gone so far as to calm the raging wind and waves, why would Jesus himself not be calm? “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”
    • Scholar: Fear is confronted in this story, but not by a sudden burst of courage or resolve on the part of the disciples. In the course of the storm, they never themselves pull themselves together. They do not, at least not on their own, discover inner resources they did not know they had. Rather, it is Jesus who calms both them and the storm with the power of his presence. [This text should] not so much challenge hearers to discover forgotten courage in themselves as it will invite them to turn again to the Lord of wind and wave, the one we trust to be more powerful than both Galilean storms and the storms that rage in our lives.[15]
• Conclude with “A Blessing for When You Realize Everyone is Struggling” from Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie[16] Amen.

[1] https://blog.genealogybank.com/it-is-well-with-my-soul-the-story-of-horatio-spafford.html.

[2] https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/chicago-fire-1871-and-great-rebuilding/.

[3] https://blog.genealogybank.com/it-is-well-with-my-soul-the-story-of-horatio-spafford.html.

[4] https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/freedmans-bank-building/financial-panic-of-1873.

[5] https://blog.genealogybank.com/it-is-well-with-my-soul-the-story-of-horatio-spafford.html.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Mk 4:35-38.

[8] Michael L. Lindvall. “Proper 7 (Sunday between June 19 and June 25 inclusive) – Mark 4:35-41, Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year B, vol. 3. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 164.

[9] Mt 8:23-27.

[10] Lk 8:22-25.

[11] https://youtu.be/pjGMXPcGp3Y.

[12] https://www.seetheholyland.net/jesus-boat/.

[13] Mk 4:39-41.

[14] Jn 3:17.

[15] Lindvall, 164, 166.

[16] Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie. “A Blessing for When You Realize Everyone is Struggling” in Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. (New York: Convergent Books, 2022), 89.