Words for When Everything is Weird (and Everything is Weird Right Now)

This morning my sweet daughter looked right at my husband and said, “and later you can get one coronavirus if you want to.” He let her know he’d pass on that option, and then our six year old prayed over breakfast, “please help everyone stay well and not get the coronavirus, unless they already have it, then please don’t let them die.” My oldest prayed over supper last night—“we know you are in control, God, even though things seem crazy and hard in our world right now. But we trust you and know you are in control and have a plan.”

We haven’t made a big practice of talking about the coronavirus to our kids, but they have certainly picked up on it from the conversations they have overheard and the news playing in the background sometimes. They have had a little bit of fear so we have had good conversations helping them work through that. Even so, right now Covid-19/coronavirus/social distancing is vernacular. Even for my three year old.

Grocery stores are out of toilet paper, laundry soap, hand soap, germ x, Kleenex, baby wipes, AND MORE! Hospitals have enough space for now, but not enough masks/gloves/equipment/etc. In the weeks to come, they may not have enough space.  Restaurants are partially open at best, and some have closed completely for the time being. Small businesses are most assuredly suffering. This is such a weird time in life.

In the midst of all of this, over the past week I keep seeing something circling, from different people. It’s something I read last Friday, which caused me to immediately consider scrapping the post I had ready to publish (and did publish), and writing something else (this post today) instead.  I’m glad I waited to write and publish today’s post this week— it has been good to see so many people finding comfort in the same words I did last Friday. It has been good to let it ruminate in my heart this week. But I can’t NOT write about it just because everyone else already has—it’s been on my heart for a week. Stick around, keep reading, and let’s talk in the comments or over on social media about it.

³⁵ On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. ³⁷ And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Mark 4:35-41, ESV

We’re probably familiar with the story—if not, it’s a good one, y’all.

What happens before that?—Jesus had been teaching by the sea earlier on this same day. From a boat, on the water, Jesus taught—the people listened from the shore. And He told them parables. About the sower—the Word planted amongst different types of soils of the heart. And the purpose of the parables was to illustrate how people receive His Word. Do they understand it? How do they believe? Is their faith choked out by the things of the world? Does their faith die when trials find them? He speaks more parables—all circling back to a similar message, most in this same planting/sowing theme. It is AFTER these stories are told that we find the disciples with Jesus in the boat, amid a storm.

DISCLAIMER: I am no Bible scholar. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about this part of the passage, the part I keep seeing all over my social media feeds. The part many of you have rightfully taken solace in this week.

The disciples have just heard quite a bit of teaching regarding faith and believing the Word. As they are traveling in a boat with Jesus, a storm rises. The waters begin to fill the boat. They begin to worry, maybe even freak out. Jesus is asleep. They wake him.  They ask him if he doesn’t even care that they’re dying. So, He makes the wind stop and the sea become still, and then he asks them why they’re afraid, and do they not have any faith, STILL? (I mean, we just spent all day talking about this!) And then, they are filled with great fear (See that word? Coming back to that later.) that Jesus was able to calm the wind and waters.

Here are some things we know about the disciples and the storm:

ONE. The disciples stayed in the boat. They didn’t jump out into the roaring waters, they stayed put and called to Jesus. Can you do the same? Can we allow Him to be our peace when the world all around is changing and chaotic right now? This is an event that will impact our world in some ways forever. This is an event unlike any of us have lived through in our lifetime. No matter how we feel about it, this is a significant event in our history.  Can we cling to Jesus instead of being swayed by the panic all around? And can we literally stay out of the storm, by staying home and calling to Jesus for those who are sick and those who are caring for the sick, and for those who are weak and vulnerable?

TWO. The disciples thought since Jesus was sleeping, He didn’t care what was happening or that they might die.  Jesus was sleeping because He wasn’t afraid. He knew the storm. He knew how it worked and what it was doing. He knew the storm because He is the Maker of the wind and waves. He is the Calmer of them, too. He wasn’t afraid of something He was sovereign over. If there is anything He isn’t sovereign over, He isn’t sovereign at all. Let that settle over your soul.

THREE. Jesus made the storm be still with only a word. He could’ve done it without a word. He could have done it any way He chose. He can do it in this proverbial storm, too. Can Jesus speak and immediately heal this? Destroy this? Yes. Can He use His people to do this? Also yes. What if God is using His people to calm the storm?

Jesus asks the disciples why they are so afraid, do they still have no faith?!? This word for afraid in verse 40 is from the Greek word deilos, which means cowardly, rooted in fear, timid, faithless. Take note-  we can acknowledge the magnitude of a storm and not be afraid. We can retain peace, because He is our Peace.

We can be:

Not afraid, aware.
Coronavirus deserves a healthy amount of respect for what it is capable of doing in a society with no immunity to it. However, you are not called to be enslaved to that fear or any other fear. You are not to cower in that fear.
Not afraid, obedient.
If we are above the law, what message is that sending anyone? Even if coronavirus has been here for weeks undetected (because we weren’t able to test for it), this (while interesting) is somewhat a moot point, because the concern is still that no one has immunity to it. People are susceptible to the disease, some to very bad cases of it–especially older people, and those with weakened immune systems. We might call them vulnerable.

I know what Jesus says about the vulnerable- the weak, the poor, the orphaned, the widows. I know what he calls his people to do for them. Some of the vulnerable in this case don’t want to admit they’re vulnerable. We can be compassionate to their plight for independence, while also loving them and letting them know that they are in fact vulnerable and we do not want to see them sick or dying. What if we can’t visit them in the hospital when they are sick, or worse, dying?

Also please note if the government is telling you to stay home, you should stay home! The obedience of God’s people here sets an example— but more than that, our disobedience does too. We can not elevate ourselves over this appeal! This is a way we are loving the vulnerable. We must stop being so arrogant and prideful as to think the pleas to stay home do not apply to us, or don’t really matter at all.

The world is rising up to take care of one another. Will we as believers be there for this? May we repent of our arrogance and cease to allow it to be our difference among the world right now.

When Jesus calms the storm, we read that the disciples are filled with fear. I told you we’d come back to that word. In our language, we usually group “afraid” and “fear” together in our minds. We know fear doesn’t have to mean afraid, but naturally that is what most of our minds assume the word means. In verse 41, unsurprisingly, it does not mean this. Fear in this verse is rooted in the Greek word phobeo, and here it means reverential obedience. It isn’t the same kind of fear as in verse 40. That was cowardly. This is a deep sense of respect, an awe. The disciples saw what Jesus could do, saw Him more for who He truly was, and were in awe.  We worship this same God.

I could argue we are living a series of storms—we are faced with a virus we have never faced, so no one is immune. We are faced with families losing jobs, struggling to buy groceries, doing school from home, working from home. At the root of all of these side storms is the main storm- the virus we aren’t very acquainted with yet, in spite of its very obvious presence. And that is a storm Jesus can quiet.

When I look at these graphics showing the projected exponential growth curve if we do not start taking social distancing seriously, versus what things are projected to look like if we do— I can not help but notice one of staggering height versus one of a more peaceful level of crest and trough.

Mark chapter 4 begins with Jesus teaching parables of faith. It ends with a crisis of faith. That’s the point of the entire thing. He has told you to have faith. A storm has come. Have the faith. True faith results in action. And right now, we are being called to stay. Not to be inactive, but to stay.
Can you act while primarily staying put, by:

Calling or texting the lonely or those who may be in need of a grocery run but can’t make one themselves?
Keeping active with your church family by calls and texts and making sure you don’t miss live streaming services if they’re available to you? (If you don’t have access to a live stream message, let me know!)
Sending cards or letters or drawings to friends and family?
Taking time to forward funny stories you read, or music that moves you, or scripture that soothes your soul? If you needed to hear it, someone else does too!

You are not being lazy, you are not incapacitated. Your ministry has changed. Jesus is still in the boat, friends. This is a unique opportunity in which many of us have mountains of time to press into His Word and turn to Him in prayer.

What if Jesus can calm the storm in us, but also through us? What if our keeping safe social distances, as we are being implored to do, will calm this storm to a whisper? What if WE are the way He is saying to the world and to the virus, PEACE BE STILL?

© Alisha H. Cary 2020