YEar 2 Day 105

Year 2 Day 105

Pray (AC-ts)

Read Mark 4:35-39

Message Alan Burke
Some people get it, for others it’s their idea of a nightmare, if you want to know what I’m talking about it’s fishing. Now I know it’s not everyones cuppa tea but I enjoy it, I find it relaxing. Whether I go by myself or am out with a mate or in a group on a boat it’s just nice to sit and do very little and if you catch something it’s a bonus. I’ve had many days booked to go out on the boat up the North Coast only to get a phone call to tell me it’s not happening, the suns shining, it looks beautiful but the seas too choppy, other days it’s been lashing and I hope that it’s going to be canceled and it wasn’t, then there were other days and the plan is to be out for hours and after an hour were back at harbour. The sea can be changeable and there is no point of me telling the experienced boat man that he’s wrong for they tend to be right. They know when conditions are right, when they are not and when it’s time to call it a day.

Now conditions of the Sea of Galilee are changeable, they can be idillic but within a relatively short period of time it gets choppy all because of the geography of the region, high mountains that surround it and the low lying see of Galilee. The furious squall came up, the disciples likely soaked on the boat there with Jesus, he’s asleep and they are terrified. Now if you can remember back to the beginning of Mark’s gospel where Jesus called the first disciples we have two on the shore, mending their nets, Simon and Andrew and there were two in the boat James and John. Among the disciples were these experienced fishermen, experienced boatmen who would have known the conditions on the sea, they would have been in the midst of many storms on the sea because of the changeable conditions and they are terrified. 

This was no ordinary storm, this was the storm of their lives and they in the midst of it thought this was the end. They had been with Jesus from those early stages of Jesus ministry, they had seen him heal, cast out demons, they had witnessed first hand many wonderful things, they had heard his teaching, he had explained to them the parables, he had taught them how he is the word and what he had come to do but ultimately when reality bites knowing something can be very different from believing it. The power of the word was doubted by them. but they still doubted Jesus. They shout out to him; “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown”

Then as soon as they had spokeJesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves and it was completely calm. Here’s the thing, what mattered was not the faith of these disciples, how strong it was after all we had just heard of them doubting. No what mattered was not their faith but the object of their faith, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Today you may be struggling, doubting, wondering does God really care, well here we are reminded that salvation is no dependant on our faith but on our Saviour. Look to Jesus, in the midst of all of lives circumstances, for salvation is reliant not on you but your Saviour.

Pray (ac-TS)

Sing

WSC 
Q106 What do we pray for in the sixth petition?
In the sixth petition, (which is, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, (Matt. 6:13)) we pray, That god would either keep us from being tempted to sin, (Matt. 26:41) or support and deliver us when we are tempted. (2 Cor. 12:7–8)
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