Webster’s dictionary defines “Faith,” as “confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing.” There was also this definition, “Belief and trust in God.”
In Mark’s Gospel we find the disciples in a boat, on a rough sea, afraid of capsizing, and Jesus is sleeping. They were afraid. Their faith that everything will be okay is lacking. They call out “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Jesus calmed the storm, and turns to the disciples and ask, why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
We are not called to be fearless. We are called to face our fears by knowing that someone greater than our fears is always present and that someone cares. That someone is Jesus.
We must never feel that anything should stop us from taking our needs to Jesus, no matter how small they may seem. If something concerns us, it concerns Jesus as well; if we are afraid, we can take it to Him.
This week we celebrated Juneteenth, commemorating the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were finally officially informed that they were free. Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Its name is derived from a combination of the words “June” and nineteenth.”
Although the slaves were legally freed, in actuality, the Emancipation Proclamation did not liberate many of the slaves; the promise of freedom and land was replaced by the Jim Crow laws, creating a different type of fear, domination, persecution and murder.
Black people had faith in Jesus, and the love of God kept them going, knowing deep in their hearts that they would someday be free. It was President Biden who established Juneteenth as a national holiday.
Fear is something that all of us experience and have to learn to conquer. Life is full of things that can make us afraid.
Though the storms of life will still come, we can meet the chaos with courage and find the peace of Christ. Jesus’s peace does not come from the absence of storms. As long as we walk upon this earth, there will be storms that come our way. The peace comes from the knowledge that Jesus is with us in the storm.
We must realize that we are in the boat with Jesus, that Jesus is with us and that we are never alone, no matter the storm, no matter the struggle, no matter the circumstances. Knowing that should give us comfort, relief, strength and faith.
Title: Christ on the Sea of Galilee; Date: 1841; Artist: Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863); Building: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Object/Function: Painting; City/Town: Kansas City; State: MO; Country: United States; Scripture: Mark 4:35-41. Permalink: https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56575 (Use this link to refer back to this image.)
