It was definitely an interesting week. I attended my first “Smoker,” a party the firemen throw each year for the department. Having a chaplain around doesn’t change their behaviour much, but then again, this isn’t the goal. Someone asked me what I thought about it all. I replied, “I want to know who I’m going to be trusting my life to. And as a chaplain, people need to know who I am also.” Some of the firemen agreed that it was, indeed, like hanging around the Trailer Park Boys.

Another interesting thing - I was talking to a Christian advertising agency about putting OnFire on Christian radio. It was humbling, kind of like playing in the minors and realizing what it takes to go to the majors. This is not out of the question, but it would definitely require a distinct call from God to justify the huge expense. For now I’ll continue to look into podcasting, but I’m having trouble finding someone who can help me sort out how to do the RSS feeds. The goal is to take OnFire to a bigger audience, for two reasons. To help people develop their faith in Jesus, and to help build an audience base for when the book is finished.

Lots more going on, but this is enough for now. We continue to look at the characters of the gospel of Mark.

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Everyone knows we can’t change the weather, right?

When we lived on Grand Manan, a couple came to spend the summer each year. I always enjoyed visiting with them because they were so interesting. They met and married after she moved to the US from Europe following the war. He was a retired research meteorologist. In his early years he studied acid fog during summers on an island located off Grand Manan. Later he helped to develop weather radar. There is a famous picture in the Aug 17, 1962, edition of Life Magazine (the one with Marilyn Munroe on the cover) which he took. You can check it out online at http://www.wordwiseweb.com/grandmanan/life.html. Remember all the talk about “cloud seeding” in the 70's and 80's? Scientists studied whether it was possible to induce clouds to rain. Bob was behind many of those experiments. We talked about this one day. They had little success in making it rain. It wasn’t a failure, by any means - they learned all sorts of other things along the way. But making rain wasn’t one of them. 

I was thinking about this as I noticed the weather in Mark. I know, we’re covering some of the characters in Mark, and we don’t normally think of weather as a character. But it is an important feature in Mark, as in other places in the Bible (see the end of today’s letter). 

The first time we encounter the wind in Mark, a squall threatened to swamp the boat Jesus and his disciples were using to cross the lake (Mark 4:35ff.). The second time, the wind opposed the disciples as they rowed (6:48). Both times the wind was a threat to Jesus and his followers as waves broke over the boat or hindered their progress.

Its hard not to notice Jesus’ mastery over the elements. During the squall, Jesus slept, incredibly. Water sloshed over the sides of the boat. Waves tossed it so badly that the apostles, some of them seasoned fishermen, feared for their lives. “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” At that, Jesus got up and rebuked the wind! It sounds crazy. He told the wind to be quiet and to be still. Imagine how crazy this seemed to the apostles. But Mark tells us that the wind obeyed. It died down and was completely calm (4:39).

In the second event (6:48-52), the wind hindered the progress of the disciples to less than a walking pace. This is a funny way to describe a boat, but that’s actually what happened. Jesus caught up to the disciples by walking across the water. Mark says he was about to pass them when they saw him and thought he was a ghost. To assure them, he called out to them and climbed into the boat. Jesus’ mastery over the elements is seen in the ability to walk on water. Furthermore, as soon as he entered the boat, the wind died out.

We all know we can’t change the weather. Scientists may, at some point, be able to influence small aspects of it, but I don’t think stopping the wind will be one of them. Yet, it seemed so easy for Jesus. All he did was speak. He changed the weather.

There are circumstances and events that happen in our lives which seem impossible to change. Experts will tell us nothing can be done. Experience tells us it is too big, there is no use in trying, and there is nothing which will help. Perhaps not in our own strength. But don’t forget Jesus. The disciples asked, “Who is he that even the wind and the waves obey?” He is the one whom even the winds and the waves obey.

So let’s be careful not to prejudge a situation as being impossible or hopeless. Appearances are deceiving, we tend to look at these things in the flesh and not in faith, and our faith tends to sag. Jesus had to speak to the apostles about this - “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (4:40)

Hey - I’m not without guilt on this. But we can learn, grow, and trust in Jesus more and more everyday. Total faith, everyday. That’s the goal.

I hope this helps. Be Onfire,

Troy

(In Genesis 8:1, God sent the wind to dry the earth after the flood. The wind brought a plague of locusts in Exodus 10:13 and took them away later (10:19). Wind parted the waters as the Hebrews ran from the Egyptians (Exodus 14:21). God used the wind to drive quail to the Hebrews in the desert (Numbers 11:31). It was after the wind, earthquake and fire that God spoke to Elijah (1Kings 10:11-13). After Jonah ran from the Lord’s will, God sent the wind which rocked Jonah’s ship (Jonah 1:4). Later, when Jonah sulked because God didn’t destroy the people of Ninevah, God sent a dry wind to parch the plant which had given him shelter (4:8). The wind tossed Paul and his shipmates on the way to Rome in Acts 27. )