Jack Hardaway
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It was a dark and stormy night.
A cliché. A melodramatic opening sentence.
I grew up seeing Snoopy on his dog house with a type writer, using this turn of phrase, over and over.
The weather without echoing with the thunder of the weather within.
Ominous and foreboding symbolic action.
But that is what it was, a dark and stormy night, both outside and inside.
Jesus crosses over to the other side, carrying the encounter with the restoring and liberating God in an ever widening storm front.
Stealing the world back.
The storm gathers to stop him, and Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves, calming the waters without and within. Peace, be still.
And the fearful disciples become even more afraid. Who then is this? Realizing this is about much more than a local storm front. It was no normal storm. There is a storm in heaven and the disciples are caught in the swirling arms.
The great storm.
Eroding the world, eroding our hearts and souls, weakening our wills, crippling our minds, flooding and washing away our freedom.
Goliath. Goliath was a creature of that storm, not just a big man, but a hybrid being of humanity and storming spirit, he was a giant. A giant. More than human, but also less, less than human, much less.
Things fall apart around the giant, like a raging storm, once that monster is set loose it stops at nothing, crushing everything in its path.
David calmed that storm. With a single little stone.
The storm in heaven is pushed back, and the world holds together for another day.
Our lives fall apart.
Our minds and hearts grow feint.
We all fall before the storm eventually, sometimes we get back up, eventually we don’t.
Jesus lay asleep in the storm, like in a tomb, like in death.
“Wake up!” Rise up, O Lord! The disciples wake him up, yelling, like ancient Israel demanding that God wake up and be God. Wake up God!
Jesus rises, he speaks, calming the storm, the wind and sea obey.
Calming the storm out there and the storm in here. With a single little word.
Life begins again, the world holds together for another day.
Sometimes we are like Goliath, we bring the storm with us, and wreak destruction. It only takes a single little word.
Sometimes we are like Jesus, holding back the storm, holding and cherishing life, making a safe place for life to grow.
Storm bringers and storm breakers.
Sometimes we are like the disciples yelling at God to wake up and be God. God wakers.
The choice is always there before us. The weather without echoing with the thunder within.
In that storm there is a boat of hope crossing over. The one who rises to calm the storm, is also the one who rises and rebukes the bondage of death.
God is waking up. Death is being trampled.
The one who breaks the storm in heaven is the one who is restoring and setting us free. In his boat we are carried by the hope and the faith that weathers the fear of all storms, quickening our souls, making us creatures of goodness to face down the giants that have become less than human, so much less.
Snoopy is sitting on his doghouse with his type writer, writing some new clichés to live by. That is what do, live by clichés that we repeat over and over.
Typing out the words, clickety, clickety…
Peace. Be still.
God is awake.
God has risen.