The voice

[Jesus] 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?’ 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. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ (Mark 4:38-40)

I visited my old home church last Sunday. I love the place, especially the mural behind the pulpit where Jesus ascends into heaven, his hands raised in blessing, which blessed me many times when I was a boy.

Settling in, I was eager not just to see that mural, but to hear … the voice. The preacher delivered what, for some, I’m sure, was a perfectly acceptable sermon. His sentences were well-crafted, the logic was clear, point followed point, and there was biblical warrant for all he said.

But something was missing. I ached to hear Jesus, not the author of the most recent book the preacher had read or his experience at Culver’s when no one looked up from their cell phone to receive his greeting.

I felt like that group of Greeks who once approached Jesus’ disciples, asking, ‘We want to see Jesus.’ I wanted to hear him. A word or two would have been enough, something I could whisper when frustration or anger, anxiety or impatience floods my heart, something to remind me to whom I belong when I forget.

Something like, ‘Peace, be still.’ Okay, that’s three words, but who doesn’t need to hear them from time to time … or every day?

Or how about his rebuke of the disciples, scared spitless as their boat rolled and pitched in the waves, ‘Have you still no faith?’

That sounds harsh, judgmental, but not really. It’s an invitation to trust that there is One—there is always One—who sees our fear, knows our need and envelops our every moment in deathless love, One who longs for us to cast aside our sadness and doubtful fears and delight in the Love who holds us.

Or how about, ‘Why are you afraid?’ Those would have been good words, too, not only because a tornado demolished a nearby church the night before but because everybody in that room harbored fears they fear to share, everybody there exists in a country roiled by anger and distrust, eroding once stable institutions and relationships, making many loathe to talk to friends or family members on the ‘other side.’

Then, there was the woman, sitting to my right, in the early stages of figuring out how to live without the love of her life, who now rests in the cemetery a mile west of the church. Others likely looked around at the mostly-empty church, wondering if the place that blessed them will be there for another generation—and whether that generation will care.

All this made everyone in that room … average, typical, needing the same thing I needed: the voice who says, ‘Peace be still;’ the voice who asks, ‘Why are you afraid?’ the voice who challenges, ‘Have you no faith’ … and winks, knowing we do, but it flickers in the wind sometimes.

I whisper his words to my heart, but I also need someone to speak the words so I hear the voice … and know I am not alone.

David L. Miller