As I’ve mentioned before, the collects in Common Worship are not as tightly tied to the readings as their BCP counterparts, owing to the fact that they run on a three year cycle of readings rather than a one year cycle.

That being the case, when I looked at the collect for Epiphany III, I decided that it fits best with one of the readings the BCP prescribes during Epiphany; the calming of the storm.

Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Each of Jesus’ signs and wonders reveals in some way the ‘wonder of [God’s] saving presence’, but the calming of the storm seems an especially appropriate one to dwell on.

For one thing, the disciples themselves take it as an especially clear sign that Jesus is more than merely human. By the time of the calming of the storm, they had already seen Jesus perform many signs, especially healings and exorcisms. But it is this sign that leads them to ask ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?’ (Mark 4:41). Jesus’ divine identity is made especially clear in this sign.

It is also a sign which notably displays the wonder of God’s saving presence.

We see this at the most obvious level in that he saves the disciples from death. The disciples find themselves trapped in a boat, at night, in ‘a great storm’. As is often pointed out, several of the disciples were experienced fishermen. They were used to being in boats, they knew this lake well, they would not be fazed by choppy waters. But this storm leads them to fear for their lives.

But several features of the story draw us into the tapestry of images by which the Bible shapes our imagination, and together they yield a wider, more existential view on what is going on here. Raging waters are a stock Biblical image for the forces of chaos. In a world of small scale sailing ships, the sea represents an unstoppable, uncontrollable, unpredictable force, before which humans are completely helpless. Famed for its fatal fickleness, the sea threatens to swallow you alive in a formless mass, far from the solidity and stability of dry land. In Revelation 21’s picture of the New Creation there is no sea.

Throw in the fact that the sign happens in the dark, and the presence of a rushing wind, and this sign should call to mind the chaos of the world before God’s ordering creative word – formless and void, darkness over the face of the deep, a mighty wind sweeping over the waters.*

This sign reveals Jesus entering into a situation where the forces of chaos are overwhelming helpless humanity. Humankind, which was created to bring the peace and order of God’s rule to creation, has instead subjected it to the misrule of their rebellion. But far from finding themselves the free Lords of creation, humans are subjected to the chaos they themselves have unleashed. Creation itself, disconnected from the God who gave it form and function, is descending into chaos once more. Now the forces of chaos and disorder, of deformation and de-creation, threaten to overwhelm and kill the terrified humans as creation itself unravels around them. It is a picture of the desperation of the human condition.

On this sea of Chaos, Jesus and his disciples, the embryonic church he has gathered around him, are thrown about in a little fishing boat. This is no Noah’s Ark, sealed on every side – water has already begun to swamp the boat. Churches, my own Reformed/Evangelical tradition at least as much as any other, have been quick to decry the chaos outside. But from the very beginning, false teachings and worldly attitudes have threatened to sink the church from within – bringing the anarchic collapse of God’s creation on board the ship. We have taken on a lot of water, and even the most faithful of us are knee deep in it. Lord, have mercy! In Mark’s Gospel, the calming of the storm is part of a series of miracles which take place in the context of utterly helpless people and hopeless situations.

This miracle manifests Christ’s glorious ability to bring chaos back into order. At a word, the ‘great storm’ is brought to a ‘great calm’ (v39). In an instant, the scene of violent disorder is transformed back into the peace of God’s creation in the presence of its Lord.

And there is no doubt that it is creation’s Lord being revealed here. Readers well versed in the Scriptures couldn’t fail to notice a link to Psalm 107.

Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
they saw the deeds of the Lord,
his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
they reeled and staggered like drunken men
and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad that the waterswere quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!
Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Psalm 107:23-32

It is striking and poignant that this miracle reveals God’s saving presence in the context of his seeming absence. Jesus is asleep as the storm rages around him. The disciples chide him ‘Lord, don’t you care that we are perishing?’ This sign speaks into the sense of divine abandonment we feel when faced with our weakness, our helplessness, and the seeming inevitability of being swallowed up by the chaos. Sometimes we are tempted to think Jesus is asleep in the stern. Sometimes we question if he cares whether we perish. Jesus rebukes the disciples’ lack of faith. With Jesus in the boat, despite the terrifying storm, we can know that we are quite safe. In due time the word of God will rebuke the waves and all that will remain is a great peace.

Lord, in our weakness, sustain us with your mighty power!

*The expression commonly translated ‘and the Spirit of God was brooding over the waters’ can also be translated as ‘a mighty wind was sweeping over the waters’. I’m not saying Spirit of God is the wrong translation – it’s clearly the sense in which subsequent Scripture reads the creation account – but in terms of how the passage shapes our imagination, a great rushing wind is probably part of the picture (think of John 3 or Pentecost, where the Spirit/Wind imagery is also used).