Mark 4:35–41

³⁵On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."

³⁶And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him.

³⁷And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.

³⁸But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

³⁹And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

⁴⁰He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"

⁴¹And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?"

Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? Who is that man sleeping in the back of the boat? We are the disciples in the boat and the church is the boat. When we are gathered together as the church around word and Sacrament, that same man is with us. Who, then, is that man in the boat with us?

This miracle is about us. We are the disciples, battered and tossed by the storms of life. Just like Jesus' disciples back then, we aren't as good at being disciples as we think we are. When the winds beat on us, when the waves rush over the sides of the boat, when we are tossed about in the sea of life like little bobbers, just like those disciples, we too become afraid and fear for our life. We wonder, as they did, "Jesus , don't you care that we are perishing?" And sometimes he seems to be asleep in the rear of our boat completely oblivious to our situation, our fear, our uncertainty, our loneliness, our dependencies, our addictions, our broken homes, our dysfunctional families. We don't love and serve our neighbor like we know we should. We get angry, jealous, selfish. We aren't the kind of people we know we should be. We often fail at being good husbands or wives. As fathers on this Fathers' Day we are well away how often we fail at being fathers. As sons and daughters we are aware of how often we fail our parents. We fail our friends. We have lost control of our lives and the world around us is crashing in and drowning us. We sense we are perishing. "Jesus, don't you care that we are perishing?"

Like the disciples, we don't really know who that man in the boat with us really is. We aren't that good at being his disciples after all, and haven't really understood the master. We don't know him nearly as well as we think we do.

So with Jesus asleep in the back of the boat, God appears to us as a raging storm. Without Jesus, God's anger and wrath at sinners rages like a storm with the winds beating on us and the waves drowning us with all the fury and might and power of God's anger. Indeed, without Jesus, we are perishing; we are heading straight for eternal death and damnation.

So, who is that man sleeping in the back of the boat? The disciples finally rouse him. He gets up and with a single word, "Peace," he calms the winds, he rebukes the storm, and the sea becomes perfectly smooth as glass. With a word he brings order out of chaos.

Now there is something remarkable about this. The universe on its own moves from a state of order to chaos. We know this by experience; clean your house, or basement or garage and put everything in order, and as soon as you are done you can practically sit there and watch them becoming disorderly and messy again almost by themselves. Physics tells us that in a closed system, order turns to disorder. This is called the principle of entropy. Order becomes disordered.

But here, Jesus was doing the exact opposite, turning disorder into order. The exact reverse of what normally occurs in nature. This is exactly what happened in the beginning: God created the heavens and the earth. "The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters," (Gen 1:1-2). The earth was without form and void. A primordial soup, chaos, disorder. But God spoke and out of the depths of the waters, He created order out of disorder. He created the heavens and the earth and set everything in order, placing everything in its proper place, making a home for mankind to live in.

So, who is that man sleeping in the rear of the boat? He is the creator God who created the earth through and by the waters of the deep, who created order out of disorder. He is the creator God who "shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors." He is the creator God who returned to his fallen and corrupted creation to reclaim it for himself, and establish his reign over it once again. He is the creator restoring and renewing the fallen world to its original goodness and beauty. Restoring order to the disorder that reigns in the world; bring order to our disordered lives. That is who is in the boat with us.

He is the Son of God who calms the wrath of God against us sinners; who died and was buried and slept in the grave, just as he slept in the boat. Asleep in the boat is the one who by his death on the cross and sleep in the tomb, stood in the center of the tempest of God's hatred for sinners; who was battered by the winds of God's anger, drowned by the waves of God's wrath and slept in the grave for our sins so that he could speak the word of peace and bring us peace with God. By sleeping in the boat he shows us that by his death and burial in the grave he brought us life and immortality.

No, we aren't such good disciples, but this man in the boat with us is the perfect Son of God taking our place in the wrath of God in order to make us sons of God. By his own death he made up the difference between what we are and what we should be. We aren't good at being his disciples. We aren't good at being husbands and wives, parents or friends. We haven't been the kind of people we should be nor have we loved our neighbor. We do get angry, jealous, and selfish. And the law of God like a storm beating against us accuses us and sinks us. It threatens God's fury and wrath. But by the death of that man in the boat, he erased our sins and failures to obey the command of God's law. He made up the difference for us, being the kind of person we should be. He has become our righteousness so the law can no longer accuse us.

He awoke from his sleep, just as he rose from the dead, and with a single word calmed the fury of God's wrath against us. By his resurrection from the dead he brings peace and calm to us. He restores order to our world, he restores peace to our relationship with God. By his rising from the dead as if out of sleep, the storm of God's wrath has been calmed. "Don't you care that we are perishing?" Yes, he cares. He cares so much he perished in our place so he could bring order out of the chaos of God's fury and calm the storm of God's wrath toward us.

This man in the boat with us is the one who saved us from perishing in the raging sea through the waters of baptism. As he created the earth through the waters of the deep; as he saved the disciples from the waters of the sea, so he recreated us and gave us new birth through the waters of baptism. Just as the disciples were perishing in the water and Jesus saved them, giving them a new start on life, so we are drowned to sin in the water of baptism and brought to new life unto God.

And this man brings us into the boat with him, his church, where we are safe because he is with us awake and protecting us. The boat is the safety of the church where this man is with us today, wide awake. And in Jesus, when we look at God we see a God of love who is at peace with us. We no longer see an angry God hurling his wrath at us like a powerful storm.

Who is this man? He is the one who saves us by his word. That same powerful word that calmed the sea, calms God's wrath by announcing the forgiveness of sin; his powerful word that declares that we are forgiven. By his perfect life of obedience He makes up what we lack in our lives and obedience. His righteousness is placed over us like a pure, white garment of fine linen. He is our righteousness. He covers our sin and makes up the difference between what we are and what we should be. He brings peace and calm to our topsy-turvy lives and calms the storms. He is the one who calms the storm of God's wrath and brings us peace with God.

He is the man in the boat with us. Here in the boat he is bodily present in the Supper; the very same body that was in the boat with the disciples and that died on the cross is the body we eat with the bread, and that very same blood which was poured out on the cross to take away the sin of the world is the blood we drink with the wine. He is here in the boat with us, in the liturgy of word and sacrament.

Who is that man in the boat with us? He is the Lamb of God who sits on the throne of heaven. The Apostle John in his vision saw the throne of heaven surrounded by a sea of glass, smooth like crystal; perfectly smooth like the sea of Galilee after Jesus calmed the storm. That perfectly smooth sea through which the disciples sailed with Jesus in the boat is the perfect calm and peace between man and God.

Who is the man who is in the boat with us. He is the one who created the world out of water, who brings order out of chaos and who is recreating the fallen world, calming the storms of God's wrath through the waters of baptism.

This is the man who is with us in the boat in the power of his word, in the sacrament of baptism and in holy communion. The one who forgave our sins, who protects us in the safety of the boat, and who carries us to that perfect peace with God in heaven.

Amen.