The Calming of the Storm
One
Jesus was aware
Jesus and the Apostles got into a small boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. Without warning a violent storm broke, threatening to sink them. But Jesus was asleep in the stern. They woke him and said to Him, “Master, do you not care? We are going down!” And He stood up and said to the storm, “Silence! Be Still!” and everything was immediately calm. Mark 8:23-27
Jesus slept in the boat, and the apostles were afraid because it seemed to them as though their world was falling apart.
So why wasn’t Jesus paying attention? Of course, Jesus was paying attention. Jesus is fully God and fully man. That means that even when His human nature slept, He knew everything – everything – through His All-Knowing divine mind.
Jesus, even though He seemed to be oblivious to the apostles, He was fully aware of all that was happening.
It was actually the Apostles who were oblivious.
Two
Everything obeys God except us.
Jesus didn’t just know everything that was happening around that little boat.
Jesus was actually governing the entire world while He slept. He was even controlling the storm, because God controls the whole of nature at all times, and Jesus is God. The winds and the water were obeying Him when they raged just as they obeyed Him immediately when He told them to be still.
In fact, the whole of creation obeys Jesus. The whole universe is like a great symphony that perfectly responds to the direction of the divine conductor.
When God says to sing, the birds sing. When God tells the earth to revolve, it revolves. When Jesus tells the water to turn into wine, it turns. Of all the material world, only we humans regularly miss our cues in the symphony of creation. We come in too late, or too early. We play the wrong notes at the wrong time. Because we’re not paying attention. We’re not keeping our eyes on the Conductor.
Three
That’s why Jesus, the same Jesus who seemed to be unaware, sleeping in the boat, tells His disciples to be constantly on the watch, to be vigilant. Because it’s so easy to get distracted, to lose focus.
We’re orchestral musicians. We have the music, the divine instructions, right in front of us. We have the scriptures and the Church’s teachings. We know what we’re supposed to do.
Good musicians only look at two things: The sheet music right in front of them, which is their instructions and the conductor. But we get distracted. We look at the other players, we worry about what other people are doing. Or we look out at the audience and we wonder what all those other people think of us. And while we’re distracted, we forget our part, and we miss the signals from the conductor. We mess up the music.
Four
It wasn’t just Jesus who fell asleep when the apostles needed Him, they fell asleep when He needed them.
Remember? In the Garden of Gethsemane He asked them to be alert and to pray with Him.
That’s what it means to be alert, to be vigilant. It means to keep focused on the conductor. It means to pray with Jesus, to keep your eyes on Him and not to get distracted by the turbulence around you.
But they couldn’t do it. They were worn out. They’d spent all their mental energy on worrying about what was happening around them, and they had none left to pray, to be with Jesus.
And they fell asleep. They were not with the Lord in His agony.
They missed their cue. The conductor pointed to their section, and there was a tragic silence.
Five
How do we stay alert, awake? How do we dispose ourselves to obey Jesus with the same promptness as the wind and the sea?
By doing what Jesus tells the storm, “Silence! Be still!”
We must remove ourselves every single day from the noise and the distraction of work, of news, of notifications, of entertainment, remove ourselves from the storm of noise that surrounds us. And spend time with Jesus in silence.
Silence does not mean emptying your mind to stop thinking. We go into silence to remove the distractions so that we can focus our mind, focus our thinking on the Conductor, on Jesus, on what he said or did or is doing now in your life. Then think about that. Talk to Him about it. Tell Him what you are thinking and feeling in a raw unfiltered way. Then pay attention to what He inspires in your mind. Ask Him what he wants you to do about it. Make the resolution, the choice to do that.
We need to take time to reflect on our instructions and refocus our attention on the conductor.
Honestly, I am more of a sports guy than a symphony guy, I’m really not very cultured. And how many of you, if you’re coaching a team would just have them show up at game time and run out on the field or court and just start playing? No one would do that because the players need to gather around the coach before the game to know what to do.
But that is what we do. The day begins, which is our game, and we just run out onto the field.
Instead, we need to gather around our Coach every day, before game time, which means first thing in the morning, gather around Jesus, pay attention to him, and then we are ready for the game.
Our Lady has asked you to pray the Rosary every day and that is a great way to learn your faith and learn how to do mental prayer. But now She is inviting you to go a step further, to spend more time with Jesus in silence.
How about starting every day with the Rosary and then some silence or just going straight to the silence? Spend time with the Conductor, time with the Coach, and pray the Rosary later with a friend.
The storm grew calm when it headed the call of Jesus to silence. The same will be true for you!