Job 38.1-11; 2 Corinthians 6.1-13;

Mark 4.35-41

Life is often pretty predictable. When we sit on a chair, we expect to be supported by it – people falling through chairs is the stuff of comedy. Much of what comedians do is to begin with the predictable – they lull people into a false sense of security – we know what’s coming next, the audience thinks, but then the comedian twists things around, and that’s what makes them amusing.

There are even television programmes based on the idea of people setting up seemingly predictable situations, which then act in unexpected ways, and the reactions of those caught out are filmed. They can be funny, but they can also be humiliating and degrading.

An example of one of the practical jokes would involve a person’s car or van secretly being swapped for an identical one, and then having a disaster befall it, such as it exploding, falling into the sea, or being dropped from a great height, as the owner of the vehicle looked on in horror. After a few minutes the presenter would appear in disguise (typically as a policeman or some other figure of authority, and often wearing a fake beard on top of his natural beard), and interact with the shell-shocked and/or irate victim.

Sometimes the tricks got slightly out-of-hand or other mistakes were made – in 1993 someone was arrested for pulling the beard of a policeman, because he thought he was Jeremy Beadle, the presenter of one of these shows.

In our papers in the past week, a similar trick was used to stop people cycling too fast along a canal towpath in Islington.

Two street artists designed a hole which was laid down across the towpath. The hole looked extremely realistic and fooled many cyclists into slowing down to avoid falling into it (send pictures around congregtaion http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193610/Dont-look-Cyclists-faced-huge-hole-ground-towpath–luckily-just-pavement-art.html).

Just imagine, though, what the universe would be like if everything was unpredictable. No-one would know where they were. The created world is not made without predictability. The laws of nature apply; there are rules of cause and effect. When we plan something carefully, it goes according to our expectations.

How does God fit into this? If God is the author and creator of the universe, has God made rules that he cannot then over-rule? I don’t think so.

I think that God could do so, if that is what God wished, but I don’t think he works like that on the whole. It seems that the universe God has planned has inherent laws and predictable cause and effect.

In earlier times, one of the things people seemed to believe was uncontroallable by anyone but God was the sea. In our reading from Job, one of the indicators of the power and greatness of God was the boundaries of the sea: “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? –  when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’”?

And our Psalm reminds us that

Those who go down to the sea in ships ♦
and ply their trade in great waters,

These have seen the works of the Lord ♦
and his wonders in the deep.

For at his word the stormy wind arose ♦
and lifted up the waves of the sea.

They were carried up to the heavens
and down again to the deep; ♦
their soul melted away in their peril.

They reeled and staggered like a drunkard ♦
and were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, ♦
and he brought them out of their distress.

He made the storm be still ♦
and the waves of the sea were calmed.

Then were they glad
because they were at rest, ♦
and he brought them to the haven
they desired.

Again God is seen as the one who controls the waves.

Even today, many people are lost at sea because the power of the waves is too strong for them to counteract when they get into trouble. King Canute, in trying to prove to people that he was not infallible, set his throne by the sea, and ordered the waves to stop before they even wetted his feet.

Twelfth-century chonicler Henry of Huntingdon writes that, after Canute had proved his inability to control the sea, he proclaimed: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” Henry then says that the king hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again.

The disciples were caught up in a storm on Lake Galilee, known for the sudden squalls that hwipped up there. The disciples, even though they were brave fishermen, seem to panic, while Jesus sleeps on.

In the boat, the disciples are scared and Jesus seems to do nothing to help; he only sleeps. When he does speak, the storm ends. How did he do this? Did he contravene the laws of nature? Did he over-ride them? Or was the storm at an end anyway and co-incidence flourished? We don’t know, but what we are asked to believe is that Jesus will get us through the storms of life.

Sometimes those storms will cease, when we pray; sometimes they won’t. God has unlimited power to change things but does not always choose to do so. Answering one person’s prayer might adversely affect another person. God chooses sometimes to limit his powers – I think for various reasons.

There is a constant theme in the Bible that humans could not cope with the full force of God’s power; and we all know of how God limited himself when he came to live alongside us as Jesus.

The disciples were rescued from their storm. St Paul experienced afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger, yet God did not remove them from him. Sometimes God tests us, Paul believes, as he says in his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 10: ”No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

But Paul also makes clear in that passage that God will give the means to endure. So often in the midst of life’s troubles we do what we can humanly and then we turn to God for help.

Sometimes God works miracles; mostly God doesn’t. We won’t ever know why, because we cannot know fully the mind of God.

It was Mother Julian of Norwich who said: “God said not, thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but he said: thou shalt not be overcome.”

In our boat on the choppy seas of life, we cannot guarantee that the waves will be calm, but we can trust that that they will not overwhelm us.

In the boat on Lake Galilee, the disciples were given more insight into who Jesus was. That he had power over the waves revealed that he was God, a lesson that needed to sink in deep. Miracles do happen today and we should thank God for them, but more often they don’t. But what always holds in God’s promise to be our rock, our salvation, our foundation.

The life built on the sturdy foundation of rock as opposed to the shifting movement of the sands is the house that stands firm in the face of storms, the rock on which we build our shield and resting-place, will give us the strength to overcome, and has promised us that, in the words of Romans 8: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What a wonderful promise to hold onto in the midst of life’s storms!