students of jesus

Winston Churchill said it first: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” If you’re trying to manipulate others into action, panic is wonderful ally. Fear issues a standing invitation: everything is an emergency, and we are all going to die.

In the marketplaces of politics and consumerism the voices of this age demand attention. Fear sells everything from mouthwash to medicine. Candidates run for political office by cranking the levers of fear. If we do not listen to these voices, they raise their volume to a glass-breaking pitch. Anyone who is not panicking clearly doesn’t understand the situation.

We live in the age of serial crises: elections, government corruption, climate change, financial collapse, Kayne’s latest album. Anyone who isn’t panicking obviously doesn’t understand the situation. There is, however, another voice, a voice that speaks from the age to come, and addresses the fears of this present age. It’s the voice of peace. The voice of God. This voice has been speaking for centuries. This voice walked among us and spoke peace to fear. Here are a few examples:

Professional mourners wail outside the house because a young girl is dead. They excel in giving voice to grief and loss, and why not? It’s all in a day’s work. But Jesus asks, “Why all this commotion?” Instead of death, he sees a sleeping child. This elicits laughter and scorn, the cousins of crisis. In the end, the Lord’s quiet voice reaches the only ears that matter: “Talitha, koum.” The little girl gets up, and has a bite to eat.

There’s a woman tossed down, half-naked, into the dirty street. Around her angry voices cry, “Stone her!” They turn their attention to Jesus, who stoops to street level and presses his finger into the dirt. The voices cry again and again, and demand the Lord’s judgment. But they must quiet down in order to hear his words. His peaceful voice overrules the fearful voice of orthodoxy. Instead it offers peace to every sinner and an invitation to go and sin no more—not out of fear, but from gratitude.

Even the Lord’s closest friends know the songs of panic. When their boat is nearly swamped by wind and waves, they come to Jesus, who is sleeping in the back, resting on a cushion. “Rabbi! Don’t you care if we drown?” And this is the issue: when we choose to enter into crisis it reveals that in our fear and panic we are convinced that God doesn’t care. He doesn’t answer. He’s asleep! What can you do when God is asleep? But what if Jesus, asleep on a cushion, is the word of God to us? What if God is dreaming of better things for us? His inaction is a parable. Finally the Lord awakes and says, “Don’t be afraid, where is your trust?” He wasn’t just asking the disciples in the boat.

The voice of fear cries out for action. It shouts: do something, take up arms, mount your horse and ride! But the man asleep on the cushion lives out the word of God to us: he saw it in the Old Testament: “In repentance and rest is your strength, In quietness and trust is your strength.” He lived these words to the full, and then he gave peace to his friends, like a gift: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”

The only question is whether we will receive the Eternal Sabbath, or take up our horses to flee. Panic tells the lie, “God doesn’t care.” But Jesus tells the truth, even in his sleep.