This is not about queuing for the sales at popular shopping venues. It’s about the Lake, the Sea, that wet and watery place in Galilee that was such a focal part of Jesus’ ministry. We are getting to it a bit early, as most are today, still back in Bethlehem sorting through an odd selection of gifts. We, however, have got to the lakeside early…..
That vast expanse of water, it was bound to generate a lot of stories. We who had lived round it all of our lives, and for generations before that, knew only too well that stories abounded on these shores. So when it was all over, and some of us came back here whilst others went on elsewhere it is not surprising that so many stories came back to the surface.
Fishermen tell stories everywhere, and their families do too. Not all are about huge catches and many are about the struggles and challenges encountered in this environment for individuals and communities. Each of us knew of men who had lost a finger or more, had a twisted limb, a limp a scar, from some sort of accident, the story of which might be told aloud or in secret depending on the company. Everyone knew widows or siblings who had lost sailors in storms and wrecking. Just as the lake was full of bounty so it was full or terror.
To tell a story of a storm on the lake then is no big deal. Weather is just one facet of the natural world that kept us in awe and wonder and ensured some level of obedience, in most if not all of us. To be in a boat on the lake in a storm could be terrifying, there’s no doubt about it. Most of us had been through a few by the time we got to adulthood as we’d started young. Some of us had lost fathers and brothers that way.
You couldn’t always tell about the lake, what sort of day it would or wouldn’t turn out to be, what sort of night would follow. But you had to fish and fish you did.
From first meeting him it was clear Jesus loved the lake. He loved to walk the shoreline, to stand on a headland or hill, to let the water at the lakes edge run through his fingers or cover his toes. It was a place of deep communion for him and he returned often, even though his own family were not fishing people. So we spent quite a bit of time with him there, us getting on with fishing, showing him what we did, talking, telling stories and listening, one with the other. It became a bit of a model for what we did later and of course it’s one reason why many of us came back. Equally it’s why many went on, over wider seas to new places.
But for now let’s remember the lake for what it was, a place of community around which stories were told and families grew up. If I remember a story about a storm on this lake then I’m probably adding several of them together, from child to adult, so frequent were they, so terrifying in nature. To have him on board your boat, well that was a joy. He’d be excited, interested, watching, listening. Later, as we came home, he might sleep, less used to the work of the long night than us. If a storm came in then we’d pull all the harder to get back safely, home lights beckoning, a hold full of fish to sell.
We’d all be pulling together, and maybe he’d wake up and see something of what we were grappling with. A storm like a great water monster chasing us down, determined to swallow us all. Each of us soaked and tired, nearly disparing, yet he’d stand up and mock the wind, berate it and send it away, calling down the Father’s love on us and the protection of his arms.
We’d pull into harbour exhausted, but alive. We’d look at each other and store up the memory of having escaped another storm which would certainly never be the last. Life would go on around the lake: work to be done, families to feed. Until the next storm.