St Andrew’s, Chesterton, 23 February 2025
Luke 8:22-25, Revelation 4
Love is his meaning
A few weeks ago I walked with friends up a hill just outside Sheffield – them bounding up the slope like the Sheffielders that they are; me stopping every twenty metres for a breather, as might be expected of someone who’s lived in Cambridge for a decade. Standing on flat rocks at the summit we looked and saw: the edge of the city; the start of the Peak District; reservoirs and distant hills; sun hanging low in a winter sky stretching over it all. There’s something about a view with a wide old sky: perspective, perhaps, or the grace of knowing that this land is older than everything you know and will outlast you – and that the sky, with balance of sunlight and starlight and snow and oxygen sustains life on this planet. It is itself sustained by a Creator who knows each star by name, each intricate working of eco and weather systems, each breath of creation. Around and over my life, our lives, the human activities and heartbreaks and elations of our world – around it all is the sky, reminding us of a God who is bigger, a grace which is bigger. A love whose arms stretch down around the earth and gather us close and restore us.
If you’re looking to experience a similar (ish) perspective without travelling three hours north, the best option I’ve found in Cambridge is Castle Mound – take the short walk up there and look over this city. I find that I can just about see most areas of town in which I spend my time through the week. Over it all is a wide sky which reminds me of the steadiness and grace of God. I’m telling you these little stories because in both of our Bible readings this morning we see God, both in stories of Jesus on earth and envisioned seated on a heavenly throne. We see a God who is older and steadier and bigger even than the storms of creation, even than the heartbreaks and activities and elations of human life in our world.
Luke’s Gospel spins a tale of a swirling storm with Jesus at the heart of it, sleeping in a boat. His disciples in panic wake him up lest they drown in the waves. Jesus – I imagine with a wry smile – stands and commands the waves and wind to stop, and they stop. All was calm: waters stilled, sky peaceful. Now out of danger, the disciples ask: ‘who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.’ We see Jesus able with a word able to calm creation.
John’s vision in Revelation 4 centres on a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. The throne is glittering with lightning, thunder, bright rainbow colours of emerald and jasper and ruby: symbols and images rich with power and wonder. There are four living creatures praising the One on the throne. They sing of God’s holiness: twenty-four others then sing of God’s worthiness ‘to receive glory and honour and power for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.’
In Revelation 5 the vision expands the circle of worshippers: elders hold golden bowls of incense, the prayers of the people, praising the One on the throne – who in Revelation 5 is a Lamb who has been slain, an image of Christ who was crucified. Many angels join the praise, numbering ten thousand times ten thousand. Finally ‘every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them’ praise the one who sits on the throne and the Lamb. Through Revelation we see this vision of God and God-in-Christ, praised by ever-expanding circles until all of creation sings.
This is a God who is older, steadier, and bigger than all of creation – the one who was and is and is to come. Such steadiness and power calls from every breathing thing, including all of us here this morning, praise and wonder. Around and within and above the storms and endeavours of human life there is a God who is worthy of praise. So we gather here on a Sunday morning and we take time throughout our weeks to turn our gazes towards Jesus, towards this God who holds us steady and whose grace is always bigger than whatever it is we’re experiencing, whatever it is we’re carrying, whatever it is we’re enjoying or struggling with or feeling hopeful about or despair over. We turn towards God whose life our lives fit into, whose arms reach down around us to gather and restore us – like a sky which stretches over and sustains everything we’ve known, everything we can see.
This is almost enough of a reflection from these Bible readings: turning our gaze towards a Christ like this is not something to skim over in a few minutes of a sermon but something to take a lifetime to lean into, to experience, to locate our lives within.
Yet – this is a sermon, and this is a Sunday morning, and so I also want to pose a question which helps me, and may help you too, to turn towards Christ even within the storms of our lives, the changes and chances which we all experience as people on this planet in this time and place. To be sure, there are many and great storms raging in our world and I imagine in our lives from time to time – as well as joys and delights alongside. We could think about headlines from this week – wars and rumours of wars; injustices committed by those in power; tragedies and accidents and politics – but I don’t want to labour the point. I just want to contextualise and recognise that there are storms– I want to hold space for us to feel and name the things that we’ve carried with us into this church this morning from what we’ve experienced. You know what has felt sharp or overwhelming or unjust to you this week.
As we recognise and name those things, I want also to acknowledge that it is easy to know that turning our gaze towards Jesus in the midst of them is good for us: yet it is infinitely harder to do so when we’re tired or overstretched, afraid or overwhelmed; when thoughts or cares or emotions keep us awake at night like fireworks bouncing around the insides of our skulls. The question I want to pose to help us navigate this difficulty takes us back to the story of the storm in Luke’s Gospel, in which fear gripped Jesus’ disciples. The question is this: did Jesus expect the disciples to behave any differently than they did? Did he expect them not to feel everything they felt?
When they are in the midst of the storm the disciples panic: locked in fear they shake Jesus awake. Waves crash in; the wind knocks them off their feet as they try to stay standing, stay afloat.
After Jesus has calmed the storm he asks his disciples: ‘where is your faith?’
I have often heard this question as a rebuke: Jesus has rebuked the wind and waves and now he turns to the disciples to do the same to them. When I’ve read it like this, I’ve heard exasperation in Jesus’ voice – frustration, even. Why don’t these chosen followers trust me? Why don’t they get it yet? Where is their faith – and why can they not muster up enough courage to even weather this little storm on a lake in Galilee? How are they going to withstand what is to come – my death on the cross; their lives being in danger for following me? Why don’t they understand?
When heard in this way, the message of this story in Luke’s Gospel sounds not primarily like a call to turn our gaze towards Christ in wonder and trust because his grace is bigger. Rather, it sounds like an instruction to grit our teeth and get our acts together: to be better, be more faithful, be stronger and braver and tougher and more resilient all on our own steam.
But – did Jesus expect the disciples to behave any differently than they did?
We cannot presume to know what Jesus was thinking or wanting in that moment – yet I dare to suggest that in the midst of that storm, Jesus would not have expected the disciples to respond any differently. It’s hard to imagine that Jesus expected them to fall asleep as they set off from shore: if we read verse 23 again, it says ‘As they sailed, he fell asleep.’ Whilst Jesus slept, the disciples needed to do the sailing – they needed to crack on with the activities of moving the boat from one place to another. I don’t think the message of this story is that the disciples should have mustered up enough trust in Jesus to be able to sleep or rest through the storm, just like him – and the same goes for us. The call is not to somehow trust Jesus enough to be able to sleep through anything.
It’s also hard to imagine that Jesus expected them to not wake him up when the storm hit. They were his friends as well as his followers: why would he have wanted them to struggle through the storm on their own when the wind whipped up? Why would he have wanted them to leave him to sleep as waves poured into the place where he lay? Did he really think that their faith would make them completely fearless and calm in the face of life-threatening danger – and did he want it to? Fear is an emotion that can help keep us safe.
I dare to suggest that Jesus didn’t expect the disciples to behave or to feel any differently than they did. I don’t think there is any other way they could have responded, given the circumstances – and I don’t think Jesus expects us to feel differently than we do when we find ourselves caught up in storms – in the changes and chances of our hurting world. When Jesus asks ‘where is your faith?’ I wonder if he is not rebuking us for losing our nerve or lacking enough trust. Rather, I wonder if he is validating our emotions and asking us a question to help us relocate ourselves, to find our way back to looking at him who is our steadiness and safety, even when we have understandably been shaken.
It is okay to feel caught up in storms. Whatever you’re experiencing, feel how you need to feel: reach for the help you need. It might be that these Bible stories today offer you another help: the voice of Jesus asking you with gentleness and love ‘where is your faith?’
As you are able, let this question guide you back to what you know is true and steady, that vision of Jesus who is able to calm the wind and waves; that sense of a God whose grace is bigger than it all. In your fear or overwhelm or whatever else it is as you look around at our world, listen for Jesus’ voice and know that his love reaches down to gather you close.
Indeed, when we hear Jesus’ question not as a rebuke to be better but as a guide back to what we know to be true – we hear it not in the tone of exasperation but in the tone of love.
And this is always the point, I think – that we are loved. Before we do anything, we are loved. Before we know how to navigate the changes and chances of our world and our lives, we are loved. Before we get out of bed in the morning, we are loved. Love is Christ’s meaning when he asks us where our faith is: love is Christ’s meaning when his body was taken and broken on the cross, brought back to life from the grave; love is Christ’s meaning as he sits with God on the throne, his faithfulness stretching across the sky.
Love is Christ’s meaning and so love is your meaning: love is the entirety of that to which you are called as one who is loved. I wonder if – and this is my final thought for this morning – love is therefore how we can really navigate the storms. It is okay to feel fear or overwhelm; it is healthy to be honest about how we’re feeling. But let those feelings be met with love – and meet those feelings in others with love. How many of our world’s storms might be stilled if love of God and neighbour were at the heart of our response to them? So may we be met this morning with the love of the One who was, and is, and is to come.
Amen.