Breakthrough

I was looking at my photos from a trip to Israel last March, and uploaded one of the Sea of Galilee as the desktop of my laptop. Now I can dream and remember, and imagine Jesus and his friends seeing the same sight, perhaps many times. 

It’s the breakthrough of the light that I find so breath-taking. It was dawning a rather stormy day, and we were due to go out on one of the Jesus boats in the picture. Perhaps a storm would brew up suddenly, like it did when Jesus was crossing the Sea a couple of times, recorded in the Bible. 

In the event, it didn’t. We had a calm boat trip and I found it amazing to be in nature, where Jesus was. So much more moving than being in a man-made church full of gold and glitz erected over a probable holy site. 

We are having grim weather here in the UK. Unseasonal they say, for March, though I don’t know. In nearly forty years of living here, I think I’ve gone through plenty of Marches where the weather continued to feel more wintry than spring-like. Snow, gales, ice. It can feel pretty grey and cloudy.

This morning, though, I received an email from a childhood friend, an echo down the corridors of time and space. A long and welcome communication full of memories and thoughts about our relationship and relationships with those we have loved and lost. An encouraging note – something we all need.

It was like the sunshine breaking through the clouds. The glory from heaven to earth. Jesus is closer to you than you think.

Sudden Squalls

The Sea of Galilee is prone to sudden squalls, roiling up out of nowhere. When I was there last month, the water was steely grey and choppy, but fortunately for us, while we were out on it there was no dramatic deterioration of the weather. I’m not great on boats in bad weather. Sailing off the west coast of Scotland has proven that.

After our early morning sea voyage that day, quietly contemplating or singing worship songs, we disembarked and did some other sightseeing in the area. When we returned to our hotel room that night, the rainbow over the Sea was just amazing. Such a gift.

I’m leading the reflections in the Scottish parliament tomorrow afternoon, and will be speaking about one instance when Jesus’ friends were out on the Sea of Galilee without him. When a fierce storm blew up, they thought they were done for, but then they saw Jesus approaching, walking on the water. They were all terrified he was a ghost, which he reassured them he was not.

When Peter asked him to prove it by calling him to his side on the water, Jesus did, and Peter leapt out of the boat and over the side. While his eyes remained fixed on Jesus he did not sink, but when he was distracted by the winds, down he went. Jesus took his hand and helped him back into the boat.

It’s such a picture of hope. When we are overtaken by sudden squalls in our own lives, Jesus is there, in remarkable ways. Maybe in the words of a song or the sound of a bird. In the laughter of a child or a rainbow. 

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about getting out of the boat. But today, I like the assurance that even in the sudden squalls, Jesus is with us, reaching out to help us back into a safe place.

Jesus is always with us.