A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion (Mark 4:37)

In 1966, we moved South to live in Coventry. For a few weeks, though, we stayed with my Mum’s parents in Birkenhead while my Dad found a house. One night there was a huge storm that woke us all up. The thunder seemed to shake the house and there were flashes of lightning. I remember being frightened by the violence of the storm. The other thing I remember is coming into the living room after we’d been out. The television was on and my Grandad was saying that something terrible had happened. A huge spoil tip had engulfed a Primary school in Wales. It was the Aberfan disaster.

Twenty-two years later I was in the bath in Lockerbie, getting ready to go and rehearse at the Little Theatre across the road, when a plane crashed on the South end of the town . Some years later, while I was training as a Reader, someone posed the question: where was God on the night of the Lockerbie disaster?

It’s a question folk often ask when terrible things happen - or when the everyday tragedies of life happen. Where is your God in all of this? How could he let this happen? He’s supposed to be good and omnipotent, right? Why are there so many storms in life? There’s a whole area of theology called theodicy given over to that question and it would take me hours - days perhaps - to cover the whole territory, so let’s just stick to what our text this morning has to say.

Mark tells this story simply, which is very much his style. A storm arose, he says. Simple as that. That does happen on the Sea of Galilee but it’s is also true of the storms that beset us as human beings - they can spring up seemingly out of nowhere. One moment you’re going along quite happily, the next all around is madness. A diagnosis. An accident. A moment’s stupidity. A falling slag-heap. A bomb on a plane.

When all around is madness it’s easy to think, “Where is God in this?” Where was God when the storm sprang up on the Sea of Galilee? Right there in the boat. This is, I think, one of the points Mark wants us to take from this story. The God that created this world - this world where bad things can happen, where there is disease and suffering, where there is hunger and poverty and brutality and fear and war - that God does not simply sit aloof and watch it all from a distance. That God came into this world in Jesus. He was with the apostles in the midst of the storm. 

This is the thing about genuine, true religion, rather than the parody that some atheists seem to imagine people believe in. Genuine, true religion doesn’t make promises about life that don’t match reality. They don’t claim that if you cleave to this or that belief then God will make sure you live an untroubled life - that you will be immune from the storms that batter humanity; that you won’t know pain or want or loss. All that comes with being human. All that comes from recognising that pain and want and loss are bad things and that recognition is part and parcel of what it means to be human. Which, I’m going to argue, is actually a good thing.

First, though, let me be clear - nobody gets through life without enduring the storms that shake us. Everyone knows what it means to endure times of loneliness or loss; of pain or sorrow. The Christian faith doesn’t immunise us from that - Paul’s words to the Corinthians should make that clear. The Cross of Calvary should make that clear. What the Cross is about - what Mark’s telling of the story of the storm is about, what the Gospel is about - is that when all around is madness, when the storms of life look like they might engulf us, we are never alone in the madness. We are never alone in the storm. The God who came into the world in the life of a human being who suffered and died on the Cross is with us always. Nothing can separate us from his love.

For each of us there will be a final storm - a storm that really does engulf us and which sweeps us from this world. But even that storm will pass. There will be peace. The clouds will open and there will be a shaft of sunlight to guide us home. That is the message of the Resurrection - that the storms of life - the madness that surrounded Christ on the Cross - will not have the last word.

But what of now, here in this life? When all around is madness, where is God? Where he has always been - right alongside us, reminding us that we are his children, made in his image urging us to be Christ to one another - calling us to be alongside each other in the storms of life. I remember my Grandad speaking of the Aberfan disaster as a terrible thing. He didn’t live there. He didn’t know any of the people involved. But he could feel for the parents who were grieving - he could, to a degree share that grief and be with them in the storm. In the days that followed letters of support and condolence came from all over the country

Same thing happened in Lockerbie. When the plane came down in Lockerbie the first thing I did - as lots of people did - was walk toward where the light in the sky was coming from to see if there was anything I could do. There were people that night who did incredibly heroic things and got people out of their houses and looked after them.. There’s nothing unusual in that. Watch footage of terrorist bombs going off, then watch what people do - they don’t run away from the blast - they run toward it to see if they can help.

Where is God when all around is madness? Right there encouraging us to be the people we are meant to be, reminding us that we are made in his image. There are those that will tell you that human beings are innately selfish. There are those who will tell you that human beings are hard-wired for war and conflict. There are those who will tell you that human beings don’t really care if others suffer, or go hungry, or are lonely, or are scared or broken or lost or alone; if their homes are destroyed or they are fleeing for their lives from starvation or war.

But God came into this world in the life of a human being to remind us what we can be - what we are meant to be - as human beings. He was with those who were passing through the storms of life - with those who were hungry and those who were sick; with those who were grieving and those who were broken; with those who were beaten and those who were scourged and those who were condemned to death.

We are meant to be with each other. To stand alongside each other. When all around is madness we are meant to remind each other that the storms of life will pass. When we do that we follow in the way of Christ. When we care for one another we follow in the way of Christ. Rejoice in that. Revel in that. Remind yourself every day how brilliant it is that we can stand alongside someone else in the storms that beset them because that’s what makes us human. That’s what makes us children of God.

Lord, stand with us in the storms life throws at us. Encourage us, too, to stand with each other. To stand with all your children you are facing the storms of life. Help us to be truly human in the sense that your son was truly human

Preached at Gretna:St. Andrews Parish church