What is the most amazing thing you have ever experienced?
Although there have been quite a few, including the births of Brian and Katie, one absolutely amazing experience was going with Sue and Allison Wilbur to Mount St. Helen’s in Washington State.
Mount St. Helen’s as you drive to it seems much like any other mountain, that is until you approach the parking lot and look at a Stratovolcano stuck there in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest, one volcano’s of the ring of fire that surrounds the Pacific Ocean.
And as you look on it slowly, with the help of the photos, and video footage, and the stark view before you, slowly you begin to realize what a wonder it is.
Because there, on May 18, 1980, the volcano exploded, blowing off its side after weeks of small eruptions, during the days and weeks before.
The top of the mountain had still been snow covered and with the violence of the explosions and the emitting of hot gas and rock, the snow was turned to water which rushed down the mountain side into the Teutel river and eventually raised the riverbed with silt in the Columbia river fifty miles away so high it blocked water traffic on it, until it could be dredged.
The eruption killed 50 some people, mostly on the river where it destroyed 17 bridges. It also killed including a US Geological Survey team member, David Alexander Johnston, who while manning an observation post six miles away was the first to report the eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!".
It filled in Spirit Lake nearby, moving it up in elevation and back hundreds of feet, and still when we looked over it a few years ago, was 1/3 covered with the remnants of the logs blown down by the blast.
As a national monument, Mount St. Helens is an area where no one is allowed to walk on the ground, and nothing is allowed to be changed, except by very few scientists.
Yet, the area, much of it still barren, has coming back to life by natural succession, a term Sue and other biology minded folks can explain. But in simple terms, tiny green stuff grows leading to more green stuff which leads to tiny insects, worms, then small mammals, and in a word, resurrection.
Even Spirit Lake, which Kathy Krogslund studied, went from water that looked like a thick chocolate milkshake over forty years, to water that supports rainbow trout, though no one knows how they got there.
It is simply amazing!
Overwhelming!
And terrifying in its enormity and power!
Literally the mountainside blew out and slid down taking everything with it. The pyroclastic flow incinerated the woods and everything in it that wasn’t below ground. Beyond the burn zone was a blow down zone where every tree was flattened to the ground.
In a matter of seconds, everything changed.
Now imagine that fishing boat, not small by most standards, but tiny compared to Galilee, being tossed and turned by winds that came funneling out of the surrounding hills turning the water into a frothy, churning, whirlpool of death from which these fishermen knew there was no escape.
It was their worst nightmare come to pass, a little friendly trip across the lake turning into a complete disaster. They, men who worked on the water, experienced, bold and brave, now realizing it was all about to end, and end badly!
And then seeing Jesus standing up in the boat in the midst of the storm and telling the mountains of water, and the billowing winds to quiet…
And you begin to see Jesus though the eyes of the disciples.
They were in a natural disaster as horrible as any they knew. They lived on the water, but like most people of their age, they feared it. It was dark, and moving, and they knew it was alive with beasts of all kinds.
And they knew if they fell out of the boat or the boat capsized it was all over.
There is good reason in John’s Revelation to tell us that at the end of time there will be a new heaven and a new earth, but that there will be no sea, for the sea was deadly and dangerous and to be feared.
Unless you were in the boat with Jesus!
What are some of the best questions you’ve ever been asked?
Will you marry me? Would you like to work here? Does this shirt make me look fat?
What is the best question you have ever asked someone ?
Can I be your friend? What if I helped you with that? What would you like for dinner?
But never, ever have I been asked or asked such questions. Questions like these at the end of today’s reading.
One from Jesus, one from the disciples.
Where is your faith? And, who is this?
Jesus asks the most important one, I think. To the disciples: You who have been with me, seen the miracles of healing and even resurrection, what is it you believe?
Haven’t you yet figured out yet who I am?
Why would you fear if I am with you?
Don’t you yet understand that the Lord of all has your life and your eternity in his hands, and you are safe?
To which the disciples can only respond in awe as it begins to slowly dawn on them who is in their boat.
Not a great prophet.
Not a great healer.
Not a great teacher.
But the very presence of God.
So, in your life, who is in the boat with you?
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment