JESUS STORM PEACE
Jesus and the disciples were in the boat on the sea Galilee.
It is easy to get caught out in a storm at sea.
And that, of course, is what happened to the disciples. There they were, sailing happily across the sea , when a gale whips up out of nowhere. They are scared for their lives. They think they are about to sink.
And, in the midst of all their problems, Jesus stays asleep in the back of the boat. He was exhausted! There were so many demands on Jesus; to teach, to heal, to show compassion with every person he met hour after hour.
So much was demanded of Jesus, it is not surprising that, when he eventually did get some rest, he would fall into a deep sleep.
But this, of course, was lost on the disciples. In their fear and anxiety, they woke Jesus up, having little faith, and thinking only of their own safety.
So Jesus gets up and orders the wind and immediately, it dies down. A great calm comes upon the waters. This is an incredible miracle that teaches us a great deal about Jesus and a great deal about our relationship with him.
The sea is mentioned quite a few times in the Bible.
According to the book of Job, God determines the course of the sea.
When the Lord answers Job from the whirlwind he says :-
“Who decreed the boundaries of the seas when they gushed from the depths? Who clothed them with clouds and thick darkness and barred them by limiting their shores, and said, ‘Thus far and no farther shall you come, and here shall your proud waves stop’?
And in the book of Revelation, there is a description of heaven, the new Jerusalem, where the sea will be no more. Here the sea represents chaos and disorder.
So, when Jesus calms the storm and the sea is stilled,
it is a symbol for us that God can still the chaos and disorder in our lives.
The sea of our lives can become calm at Jesus’s word.
I love this quote from Meister Eckhart
“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”
there is so much to ponder in that line
“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”
Thinking about the story of Jesus calming the storm and bringinging stillness, reminds me that ours is a busy and noisy world. We are always on the go. Some of us have too many events on our calendar. We rapidly move from one activity to the next without really giving ourselves time to be still.
If we have a few moments to ourselves, we automatically have this urge to do something useful, to fill our time with something, with anything no matter what it is.
Lao Tzu ( lawtzu ), a Chinese philosopher of the 6th century Before Christ once wrote:
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
It is difficult to be still in our overly busy world.
It is easy to think that being still is a waste of time. It is easy to think that we have to always be doing something.
But What does it mean to be still?
The dictionary tells us that stillness refers to being motionless, stationary, undisturbed, tranquil, silent and calm. As a noun, stillness means the absence of motion.

The absence of motion is a good way to look at this word
We all need moments during our hectic day when there is an absence of motion, and not just when we are sleeping.

Saint Augustine wrote in his confession the
following words :-
“There is this place of undisturbed quietness where love is not deserted; see how things pass away and give place to others; fix your dwelling firmly there.
Put your trust, my soul, in whatever it is you have received from him. Entrust to him whatever comes to you; for you shall lose nothing.
Those parts of you that may have decayed, they too will receive a new flowering, and you shall find yourself healed.
All that you have seen ebbing away from you, there shall be restored, given fresh form, and renewed, bound ever more tightly to yourself. Remain in the presence of God who alone stands fast and abides”
end of quote
How can we begin to achieve stillness in our daily life?
We can begin by putting into our daily routine twenty to thirty minutes where we quietly think of one phrase
of scripture, one promise of God, one word of faith and consolation. This is where we need to start.
Some might prefer to focus on a religious image or icon
Icons are regarded as windows onto the divine. And in a similar way religious designs in stained glass windows bring a heightened sense of the divine into houses of worship.

And when, for example, i give myself time to look at a beautiful sunset over the sea of cardigan bay – it stirs something inside me – i am left with a sense of deep wonder, and a deep wonder not only at the beauty i see with my physical eyes, but a sense of deep wonder at the realisation that i have been made in such a way that i can actually appreciate a beautiful sunset . We have all been created to appreciate beauty. This is truly amazing.
And i do not know about you, but when i have been looking at a beautiful sunset,
, there is something within me that wants to praise God, and when that happens, in that moment i sense an incredible peace, and even joy.
Its as if my soul has been immersed in a moment of heaven – and time no longer matters.
These moments are so precious.
The mystic catherine of sienna compares heaven to being immersed in a divine sea where God is all in all.
Heaven, is to “enter into me, the sea of peace” ,
God tells her.
Using the same image Benedict the 16th says that
“heaven is not an unending succession of days in the calendar .. but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality….it would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time – the before and after -no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.”
The psalmist says
“Be still, and know that I am God” – and at the calming of the sea the disciples began to realise that Jesus and God were one.
And they had a sense of sacred awe within them, unlike anything they had known before.
We need a sense of sacred awe in the still presence of God.
We need to be reminded to be still, and to know this stillness within.
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As the psalmist was reminded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
“To be still and know that i am God.”
May we be inspired to know God in the stillness.
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It is only when we immerse ourselves in stillness and silence, that we will be able to say with ever deeper conviction in our hearts
– amen to the word of God ,
amen to the promises,
amen to the consolations,
amen to the commandments
and only in the stillness,
only in the stillness of God’s presence
will we be able to say Amen thrice over to
this assured and grateful prayer of the Psalmist :-
“Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.”