Praying for Miracles

This sermon is based on yesterday's gospel, Mark 4:35-41

This was the gospel text 3 years ago on my first official Sunday as the pastor here at Bethlehem.  So I ask you “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 

But that is putting a lot of trust in me.  In fact it is putting more trust in me that I’m comfortable with because I’m not Jesus, in fact I’m a lot like those disciples.  See this is the point when after hearing this gospel lesson that you will get the “Jesus is with you during the storms of your life” sermon. But I’m not going to give you one of those sermons today.  I mean they are well meaning, but we have heard it all before and quite honestly when you are going through the storms of your life, that isn’t really what you want to hear – that Jesus is with you, -  what you really want to hear is Jesus yelling at the storm “Peace! Be Still!”

But maybe that is the problem, we spend too much time focusing on the fact that Jesus is with us during the storms of our lives, that we don’t give Jesus enough credit to actually silence those storms. 

Think about this – why did the disciples wake Jesus up?  A great windstorm arose, the waves were beating into the boat, the boat was being swamped and the disciples woke Jesus up.  I’m not saying that was the wrong thing to do, if I was in the middle of a storm on a smaller boat and it was being swamped, you know I would being making sure every person on board was awake to help out.  So what did the disciples expect Jesus to do when they woke him up? 

They weren’t expecting him to calm the storm that is for sure – since afterwards they were filled with a great awe and said to one another “who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

So if you woke someone up in the middle of a storm on a smaller boat that was being swamped, what would you expect of that person?  You would hand them a bucket and tell them to start bailing. 

I’m pretty sure that is what the disciples were expecting of Jesus – don’t you care that we are all perishing – help keep us all alive here and pitch in a little.  So the disciples were not expecting a miracle; they were expecting a hand. 

And I believe we do the exact same thing today.  We don’t expect miracles from God, we just expect a hand.  Think about it, when was the last time you truly prayed for a miracle?  We don’t at least, not that often, especially in the main line church, the one big exception being in sports.  We don’t pray for someone to be miraculously healed, instead we ask that their pain be managed, that those who are caring for them to be skilled.  We don’t pray for the dead to be raised; we pray for comfort to come to those who mourn.  Granted when you pray for miracles, you will often be disappointed – the sick won’t be instantly healed, the dead won’t be raised, the unbelievers won’t instantly believe, you won’t win the lottery every week. But it could happen.

Maybe we need to stop handing Jesus the bucket and instead ask him for a miracle.  We need to shoot for the stars, and you know if land short and end up at the moon, well God still took us that far.  It is not selfish to have a tiered prayer – Lord heal our loved one from cancer, make them cancer free, let them run like a child, and if that is not your wish, please make their pain bearable and their last days on this earth filled with love.  Lord bring peace throughout the earth, that no one shall die by the hands of another ever again, turn our weapons into tools of peace, turn our armies into armies of workers in your kingdom, but at the very least let peace begin with me so that I may not harm another by the actions that I take.  God feed your people, let the ground of these earth swell with plants to eat and water that is pure to drink, and teach me Lord to not waste so that others may be fed.

So what are the miracles that we should ask for?  What are the storms going on in our lives that we need to ask Jesus to yell “Peace! Be still!” instead of handing him a bucket?