In Times of Peril
“Wind’s in the east, there’s a mist coming in, like something is brewin’ and ’bout to begin.” I’m quoting, for a change, from that great old masterpiece, Mary Poppins. The baby boomers amongst us will recognize these words of the old sea captain at the beginning of the movie, wisdom that comes from experience as he foresees the approaching storm brought on by the prim young lady flying in on an umbrella. And it’s true that there are those who can predict the weather, not so much by the science of meteorology, that branch of science concerned with the processes and phenomena of the atmosphere, but rather by a simple “feeling in their bones.” Think of the old witch in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: by her supernatural powers she was able to predict the approach of danger, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”
Many of us today seem to be experiencing this sense of approaching calamity. Whether this is a supernatural gift warning us of the approach of times far worse than anything we have hitherto experienced… or whether it is simply our imagination, our instinctive anxiety fueled by the evils of the times we live through—who knows what causes us to have these feelings.
In my own experience, I’ve noticed that the worse storms in our lives are usually not those that we fear in advance, but the ones we do not predict, the storms that are so unexpected that they provoke in us a state of shock so traumatic that it changes our lives forever. It may be a personal tragedy, such as the sudden and unexpected death of a loved one, or it may be on a greater scale, creating shock waves that disturb the very foundations of our society—we have only to think of the morning of 9-11 or the assassination of President Kennedy as examples. Events that no one expected or predicted, catastrophes that came out of the blue and stopped us in our tracks as we wandered along our routine, dull procession of days.
“And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea.” The apostles in today’s Gospel were, for the most part, hardened and experienced fishermen. Their trade was on the sea, and if anyone could have foreseen an upcoming storm arising on the waters of Galilee, it was these men. And yet, like so many of us, they either had no way of knowing, or failed to recognize the signs of that great storm that covered their ship with the waves that night. The storm that hit their lives at that moment was a life-changer, quite likely a life-ender. These experienced sailors knew the danger they were in, and they were terrified.
We, on the other hand, read today’s Gospel with no fear whatsoever. We’ve heard the story many times before and know how it will all turn out. After all, how much But let’s shake ourselves out of our passive and complacent “story-telling” mode and put ourselves into their situation. Try to share their terror, as they realize they are probably going to drown. Sure, Christ is there in the boat with them, but he’s asleep. He’s actually sleeping through this incredibly dangerous storm, blissfully ignorant (or so they thought) of those in peril on the sea. Can we imagine how they felt?
The truth is, my friends, that their peril is no different from ours. Every morning, we pull ourselves out of bed and set sail on the waters of life. We go off to work or school or church, blissfully unaware of the dangers around us, dangers that might come any moment and take any form—evil men who would harm us and take our possessions, germs that float around in the air ready to enter our system and make us deathly sick, bad drivers on the road, devils that tempt us to offend God and imperil our very souls. The storm can hit us at any time and it can come from the least expected source. Some storms are easily weathered, but others change our lives forever. We fear them before they even happen, but when the unexpected does strike, we are, like the apostles, terrified.
The comforting point I’d like to make, though, is that we’re like the apostles in another way, a way that we so easily forget. You see, the Son of God is in the boat with us also. We may not see him or hear him, he may not make his presence felt. He is, to all outward appearances, asleep. But when the hour of desperation strikes, what should we do? If we know what we can do to prevent catastrophe, then we must do it. But when there’s nothing we can do about the evil that attacks us, there is never a reason to despair. It’s time to turn to our blessed Lord and ask for his help. “Lord, save us, we perish.” If truth be told, we do not even need to “wake him up.” For the 120th Psalm assures us that “He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; and he that keepeth thee will not sleep. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” He already knows the dangers we face, even before we turn to him. We should not even need to ask for his help, we should instead be already so instilled with that constant faith in his divine Providence, that our supplications are unnecessary. Our Lord, before he rebuked the winds and the sea so that there was “a great calm”, first rebuked the apostles: “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?”
Life has many tribulations in store for us. We might as well be resigned to that fact. We can’t help fearing the unknown, but I tell you this: when the lightning does suddenly strike out of the blue, and the thunderclouds roll in upon us, we must place all our trust in that man over there in the corner with his eyes shut. Because that man is our Saviour. And he will save us.