If you have to replace something in your home, you might find it stressful. For me in the last few weeks that replacement has been a mini computer – a laptop. Friends had sung the virtues of a new model – a Chrome Book. It was demonstrated and found to be just the thing. But would I go for something completely new and unknown? Or would I stick to the model I just about understood – a laptop? When the moment to order came, of course I chose the faithful laptop. My supplier, always so kind to the non computer literate – told me not to worry about my rather conservative decision... He said `Computers are frightening. Change is frightening. Put the two together and it can be very frightening. ` I went for the laptop. It has already gone wrong. But a newer one is on order!

There are so many things which cause us to be fearful. It can be fears from childhood: things like the fear of creepy crawlies or snakes. It can be fear of the dark or of heights. It can be fear of illness or fear of the unknown. We have spent two years facing the fear involved in the pandemic. Such fear has come from deep within us as we faced questions of life and death. Perhaps one of the worst things in this time has been the feeling of being out of control: that what we were facing was perhaps going to overwhelm us. We were not in control of it. Maybe we found it hard to work out what God was saying in all this. We found it hard to express what we were truly feeling – and maybe we still do.

In our Gospel reading is a clear picture of a group of people who feel very fearful. Jesus has asked his disciples to go to the other side of Lake Galilee. Sailing on that lake in a small boat could be dangerous. Sudden winds created a wind tunnel and even those who knew the waters could feel under threat. Jesus is exhausted and fast asleep in the boat. He doesn`t see the boat filling with water. We are told that they were all in great danger. The mission of Jesus looks as if it will end in terrible tragedy.

His disciples come to him and scream that death is coming. But Jesus` response is like a gentle ointment on a painful wound. He gives an order to the wind and the sea. There is a great calm. And he challenges them: `Where is your faith?’

The disciples are amazed: `He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.’

We need, don`t we, to enlarge our picture of God. Today`s Epistle reading from Revelation helps us in the picture it gives of the One who is at the heart of heaven: `The one who sat on the throne had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. From the throne came flashings of lightnings, rumblings and peals of thunder. ` We can`t begin to understand what heaven is like. But the bible gives us glimpses, tools which lift us from earth to heaven.

God is in control. We see it in the story of Creation in Genesis. It`s there in his words to Job about who God is:- `Where were you when I laid the earth`s foundation? Who marked off its dimensions? On what were its footings set or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? `

It`s there in the testimonies that you and I can give of God`s faithfulness down the years.

It`s there in the clear accounts in the Gospels of fearful man relying on the God whose love is unchanging.

So Jesus gently challenges us today as he challenged the disciples: `Where is your faith? ` He uses times of darkness to enable our faith to grow. This week he calls us to be brave. To go out into the places to which he has called us and to proclaim the good news that he is in control, that he loves us and will bring us safely home.

The Revd Pat Hopkins