With Jesus in the Storm

REFLECTION QUOTES

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

~George Orwell (1903-1950), English novelist and journalist

“The work of restoration cannot begin until a problem is fully faced.”

~Dan B. Allender, therapist and author

“…there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring…. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”

~Gandalf to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings

“We are all fragile when we don’t know what our purpose is…when we feel like a swimmer in an ocean with no edge…. If you really want people to be tough…make them committed to some worldview that puts today’s temporary pain in the context of a larger hope…. Emotional fragility seems like a psychological problem, but it has only a philosophical answer. People are really tough only after they have taken a leap of faith for some truth…. We live in an age when it’s considered sophisticated to be disenchanted. But people who are enchanted are the real tough cookies.”

~David Brooks in “The New York Times,” August 30, 2016

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), English clergyman and worldwide Christian leader

“The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak;
They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.”

~“Jesus of the Scars” by Edward Shillito (1872-1948), published in the wake of WWI

SERMON PASSAGE

Mark 4:35-41 (ESV)

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But 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?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”