Text — Mark 4:35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”  36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.  37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.  40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”  41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The disciples are in a boat with Jesus.  There’s that familiar symbol again — the lifeboat, the ark, the basket Moses’ mother put him in.  In the Bible, the transition from one spiritual state to another is so often across water, or through water — the water of birth, the water of the Red Sea or the Jordan River, the water of baptism. 

The disciples are “at sea” when a strong wind blows.  They’re getting swamped.  They’re terrified.  In the meantime, Jesus is asleep, on a cushion in the stern of the boat.  So the disciples cry out, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” 

I can understand their question, not just because Jesus is sleeping, but he’s the one who got them into this mess in the first place.  In the first verse of our passage, Jesus said, “Let’s go across to the other side.”

But then, in the last verse, after the storm is calmed, the disciples say, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The passage is saying that Jesus’ power is higher and stronger than even the power of nature.  The God and power in Jesus are what create and drive nature, and also subdue and limit nature.

This point is made over and over in many parts of the Bible.  One famous example is the opening of John’s gospel which begins, “In the beginning, in the act of creation, was the Word, the Christ, the logos or creative principle.”  Proverbs, Chapter 8, which talks about the pre-existent “wisdom” that was with God in the beginning has also been identified with the Christ. 

The point is, the wind and sea obey the Christ, the Word of God, because the Word made them. 

So when the disciples ask, “Don’t you care that we are dying?” Jesus’ answer, in one sense, is “No.”  It’s not a problem for Jesus that we are dying.  Dying isn’t something wrong with nature.  It’s part of nature. 

But even if Jesus doesn’t see our dying as a problem, Jesus does care about us while we are dying.  That’s a different thing, and that’s why he has compassion for the disciples and calms the storm.  He doesn’t care that we are perishing, but he does care about us.  He cares about us while we are perishing, and after we perish.

A few weeks ago, Robin found a bird, a mourning dove, on the step below the large glass window of our front door.  It was obvious what happened. 

Doves are not rare, exotic birds.  They’re what the bird books call “common.”  But I like mourning doves a lot.  They’re sweet and beautiful to look at.  They make a cooing sound — almost like the hooting of an owl.  Their wings whistle when they fly.

Robin showed me the dove, because it’s part of my marital duty to take care of such things, and I immediately felt that I didn’t want to just toss it into the woods or into the garbage can, so I said, “I’ll bury it.”  I don’t conduct a funeral service for every creature that dies on our property, but I did this time.

We wrapped it in a towel.  Then I got a shovel, and took the dove down a little path into the woods for a private burial.  This woods is a very thick jungle of low trees and bushes.  It’s very dark and green in there.  You have to stoop down in several places. 

I dug a hole.  Then I unwrapped the towel to see the dove again, more closely.  I held it in my hands.  A dove is a good-sized bird, but its body is very light and soft.  The feathers were light brown, but looking from a certain angle I could see hints of iridescent blue, green, and red mixed in

Then I laid it on the towel and spread its wings.  I could feel how the bird’s shoulders work.  They’re not like human shoulders that allow our arms to move in many directions for throwing something or lifting.  A bird’s shoulders move in a very narrow range of motion, for flying.  And by spreading the wings I could tell that the body was not only light and delicate, but also very muscular in the chest. 

Examining the dove in this way was a very intimate experience — and a surprisingly powerful one.  The dove was so common, but so intricately engineered. 

I thought, “How could such a thing ever come to be?  How could any bird, with such a small body, survive a cold winter.  How could it stay warm?  How could its tiny heart keep beating, so much faster than our hearts beat?” 

Then I thought, “I am undoubtedly the only human being every to hold this dove.  I’m the last witness to its life and death.  Here we are, together, under this low canopy of vegetation.  We’re very different creatures.  I can’t fly.  A dove can’t read.  But we probably have a lot of DNA in common.  We were both born out the same cosmic dust.”

But even this description of my experience doesn’t reach what I felt.  This was a mystical moment.  I felt a deep bond with this common dove.  I looked at it, and saw myself.  Now its life was over.  Someday, my life would be over.  But we had lived on earth at the same time. 

I was sorry the dove had flown into our window.  But I could also see that dying, as a fact of life, isn’t a problem.  It doesn’t mean that something is wrong.  It’s part of nature.

In that sense, Jesus doesn’t care that we’re perishing.  But Jesus does care that we live, just as I care that the dove had lived.

I thought of Jesus’ saying, “Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without God.”  And here I was, holding that little lifeless body in my hands.  Even a dove doesn’t fall to the ground without God.

I wrapped my fellow creature back up, laid it in the hole, pushed the dirt back in, and put three small stones on top as a marker …

as a sign for me — and now maybe it’s a sign for you — of how God cares about all creatures, about all of us who are living and dying.