Perish, Peace, Pistis

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is Perish, Peace, Pistis (Faith). My focus is Mark 4:35-41. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

The method of prayer I prefer employs the imagination. When I read a passage from Scripture, I place myself there. What do I see, hear, smell, taste and touch? What emotions do the people in the passage feel? Do I experience pain, joy, doubt, disbelief, forgiveness, hunger or satisfaction? When I read the passages of the feeding of the crowds, what do the people look like? How are they dressed? How do they smell? Is there a sense of desperation amidst the crowd? How do the disciples’ voices sound as this miracle unfolds before them? How do the bread and fish taste? How do the crowds and Jesus react?

When I read today’s passage from Mark, I used that method of prayer to create a sermon based on what I experienced in my prayer: perish, peace and pistis, the Greek word for faith. And because prayer demands action, a question: Now what?

First, perish. If you have not experienced a perfect storm, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, white out, tsunami, flood, blizzard, heat wave or avalanche, you may have been involved in a train crash, car crash, or felt the force of a linebacker colliding with your body. In an instant, you felt like you were not going to survive the moment.

If we have not personally experienced such an event, we get a sense of what it means to perish when we watch Titanic, Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Twister, Armageddon or any other natural disaster movie.

To perish means to suffer death, typically in a violent, sudden or untimely way. It also means to undergo complete ruin or destruction. Its origin is from two Latin words: per meaning through and ire meaning to go. To go through or perire eventually came to be known as pass away.

At a certain point in the passage, the disciples woke Jesus and asked, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Prior to this, Jesus was teaching the crowds in parables from a boat anchored offshore. When he finished in the evening, he asked his disciples to cross to the other side. The eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, across from Capernaum, was a predominantly Gentile area. This voyage would be the first into Gentile territory. The disciples accompanied Jesus in several boats, leaving the crowd on the shore. They cast off with Jesus still seated in his floating pulpit without first going ashore.[1]

The Sea of Galilee is known for violent storms that can arise without warning, as wind funnels through the steep valleys among the hills surrounding the lake. In this instance the storm was so fierce that it terrified even seasoned fishermen. Waves crashed over the boat, swamping it and threatening to sink it. Yet in the midst of this fury, Jesus was in the stern, asleep. Anyone who has ever been in a violently storm-tossed boat has reason to think that this ability to sleep through the storm was the first miracle! Jesus’ sleep exemplified perfect trust in God that is often signified in Scripture by a peaceful and untroubled sleep. We read in Job, “If you prepare your heart … you will feel secure, because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security. You will lie down, and none will make you afraid.”[2] The Psalmist wrote, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”[3] Proverbs 3:24 reads, “If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.”

Jesus’ serenity is not shared by his disciples, who woke him with a stinging reproach: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” This is the first time in Mark that Jesus was called Teacher, having just completed a day of teaching. This time, however, they would learn a powerful lesson of faith, learned by experience. The tone of the disciples’ question suggests that they had a vague idea that Jesus could do something about the storm, but they think he is indifferent to their plight, with no concern for survival. They are much like God’s people in Exodus. In chapter 14, we read, “When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, ‘Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?’”[4] On that day, at that very moment, God delivered his people to safety from peril, from death to life, and Jesus would deliver them too, not only from one side to the other, but in ways they could not fathom until He rose. So, as Jesus and his disciples cross to the other side, let me cross from my first point to my second, from perish to peace.

Peace is defined as a state of tranquility or freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions. It also means harmony in personal relations or mutual concord between governments. It also means to ask for silence or calm or as a greeting or farewell. The Greek word for peace and the Hebrew word, shalom, mean safety, welfare and prosperity.

Apparently, the disciples were not experiencing any sort of peace, but rather, panic. Jesus, however, did not leave his disciples in their panic. He immediately woke and rebuked the raging sea. He did not pray that God would calm the storm but commanded it himself with sovereign authority: Peace! Be still!

Rebuked is the same word used to describe his casting out unclean spirits. In chapter one, he rebuked the unclean spirit of the man who enter the synagogue in Capernaum. We read, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.’”[5]

This suggests that demonic powers somehow instigated the squall that threatened to deflect him and his disciples from their mission. We know that in the Old Testament, the sea is often a symbol of chaos and the home of evil powers. Job stated, “By his power he stilled the sea.”[6] The Psalmist wrote, “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.”[7] And Isaiah prophesied, “In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.”[8] Jesus exorcised these forces of nature with the same authority that freed human beings from demonic possession. Instantly the howling wind subsided and the choppy waves became calm. The wording parallels Psalm 107: “They cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.”[9]

Finally, pistis, faith. In Greek mythology, Pistis was the personification of good faith, trust and reliability. In Christianity and in the New Testament, Pistis is the word for faith. Pistis’ Roman equivalent was Fides, a personified concept significant in Roman culture.

The Latin word for faith means trust, confidence, reliance, credence or belief. In the early 14^th century it meant assent of the mind to the truth of a statement for which there is incomplete evidence, especially belief in religious matters. Faith is neither the submission of reason, nor is it the acceptance, simply and absolutely upon testimony, of what reason cannot reach. Faith is the ability to cleave to a power of goodness appealing to our higher and real self, not to our lower and apparent self.

Returning to our Gospel passage, at the moment the danger passed, Jesus chided his disciples for their feeble faith. “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” Certainly, they turned to him in their moment of terror and dismay; but they did not yet grasp who he really was: sovereign lord over all creation. Jesus was forming a band of followers who were to be confident in their mission on earth: to bring the peace and authority of the kingdom into al the troubles of humanity. He called them to complete a task on the other side of the sea: would he have done so only to let them perish in the waves?

 The disciples knew that God alone possessed power to subdue the seas. From Exodus on, God’s control of the sea signified his tender care for his people. Again, the Psalmist wrote, “O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.”[10] So it is no wonder that after Jesus calmed the storm, they were filled with great awe. Their terror of the forces of nature was replaced by reverent fear of the presence of God in Jesus. His subduing of the sea was a sign of his divine authority. “Who then is this?” is a question that not only Jesus’ contemporaries but all the readers of the Gospel are meant to ask. Echoing his question to the disciples: Who do you say that He is?

Well, there you have it. I made my three points, and ask, “Now, what?” Returning to my first point, perish, I searched the internet for the phrase, “I thought I was going to die.” I found these stories: a young woman who survived a school shooting in North Texas; another who survived a car fire caused by her cell phone; a cyclist who survived being crushed by a car; as well as people who survived a car-jacking, a nose-diving plane and a grandmother attacked by a bobcat.

Personally, I never survived an attack by a bobcat, a car-jacking, a shooting or a nose-diving plane. However, I have experienced a car crash, the death of my parents, my younger brother, friends and relatives. I suffered from job losses and bad investments. I lost teeth, broke bones, tore my meniscus and suffer from arthritis. Like you, I have lived to talk about it.

When we talk about our losses, most people understand and some gain insight. Life is short. Our bodies are fragile. Accidents happen. Senseless violence from man and beast occurs. Everyone dies. When storms strike, we are in the same boat thinking we are going to perish.

Still, survivors who tell their stories inspire hope into others because of what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, His Father and the Holy Spirit have done for us. Therefore, allow me to close with the story of one survivor.

Horatio Gates Spafford and his wife, Anna, were well known 19^th century Chicagoans. As a prominent lawyer and a senior partner in a large and thriving law firm, he was also able to invest heavily in real estate in an expanding Chicago during the 1860s. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church and a close friends of evangelist Dwight Moody.

In 1871, the Great Fire of Chicago reduced Spafford’s real estate investments to ashes and scarlet fever took the life of his son. In 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday in England knowing that his friend Dwight Moody would be preaching there. He was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four children, daughters eleven-year-old Annie, nine-year-old Maggie, five-year-old Elizabeth Bessie, and two-year-old Tanetta. On November 22, 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Ville du Havre, their ship was struck by an iron sailing vessel and 226 people lost their lives, including all four of Spafford's daughters. Only his wife survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to Spafford beginning "Saved alone." Spafford then sailed to England, going over the location of his daughters' deaths. According to Bertha Spafford Vester, a daughter born after the tragedy, Spafford wrote "It Is Well with My Soul" on this journey.

If you turn to Hymn 763 in your Lutheran Service Book, you will find the words Spafford wrote. As you take a moment to read those words, let me focus on the second verse and the refrain.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

let this blest assurance control:

that Christ has regarded my helpless estate,

and has shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well with my soul;

it is well, it is well with my soul.

My friends, the Church today, like the boat bearing the disciples and the sleeping Jesus, is no different than the small, struggling early Church, storm-tossed on the seas of the vast Roman empire. They must have wondered why their Lord seemed to be asleep in the stern – absent, unaware, or unconcerned about the mortal perils that threatened them. Through the ages, how often did his disciples feel that way in the midst of storms of persecution, natural disasters or personal troubles? But Jesus’ authority is without limit, and though he allows trials, in the end nothing can truly harm those who trust in him. As He gave disciples the authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, He promised them that nothing would hurt them.[11]

His reproach of not to be afraid is an invitation for all Christians to awaken their faith in his presence and in his absolute authority over creation. The true antidote to fear of earthly dangers is the faith that comes from fear of the Lord. We read in Job, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding”[12] The most repeated command, do not fear, is an instruction not to succumb to the enemy’s strategy, which is to dismantle Jesus’ followers from their mission. When we have no fear, the enemy trembles in fear. At these times, repeat Spafford’s words, “It is well with my soul.” And when you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

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[1] I am indebted to the insights found in this book: Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008).

[2] Job 11:13, 18-19a.

[3] Psalm 4:8.

[4] Exodus 14:10-11.

[5] Mark 1:25.

[6] Job 26:12.

[7] Psalm 74:13-14.

[8] Isaiah 27:1.

[9] Psalm 107:28-29.

[10] Psalm 89:8-9. See Psalm 65:7.

[11] Luke 10:19.

[12] Job 28:28.