There's no shame in being afraid
35 Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” 36 They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along. 37 Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. 38 But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?” 39 He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. 40 Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?” 41 Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
~ Mark 4:35-41, CEB
What were the disciples supposed to do? I mean, the boat is on the lake, in the middle of a storm, about to capsize, and Jesus implies that their response, fear, is the wrong response. Why is that wrong? Wouldn’t we be afraid in the same situation?
Yes, absolutely, but here’s the thing: we’re not in their situation. By this point in the story, the disciples (many of them, anyway) have seen Jesus at work. They’ve seen his miracles, and the things he’s capable of. They’ve seen enough to know that he is worth trusting, and that he is a very unique kind of prophet, at the very least. (Let’s give them some grace for not fully understanding he was God in the flesh. Let’s face it, that’s a hard conclusion to jump to). In other words, they should have some idea of who is in the boat (though let’s not be too harsh either, Jesus is one-of-a-kind). Perhaps their response should have been, “Jesus, we’ve seen the works of your hands, we know what you can do, would you please help us out of this jam?” Who can really say?
But my point is this: we don’t have Jesus in the flesh who we can reach over and wake up and ask to solve our problems. Our circumstances are different. So we need not shame ourselves over a “lack of faith” or some such thing when we experience fear and anxiety. Instead, we pause to prepare. Then, we go before God and community and open up about our fears. We don’t tell ourselves, “Well Jesus said just have more faith so I just need to have more faith.”
No, we don’t shame ourselves. We don’t tell ourselves we just need to do better. We rely on others. We practice seeing God through others. We take our fears to others and trust them to sit with us in our fear. Maybe this helps us with our fear, maybe it doesn’t, but it will at least provide us with a few moments where we are surrounded by God’s love.
