Storm at sea

On your marks

Many groups have found the poems, raps and retellings in The Gospels Unplugged a helpful and fun way into exploring the stories of Jesus. So here is one more to add to the collection, this time based on the incident on Lake Galilee when Jesus calms the storm.

Get set:

You can find this story in: Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41 and Luke 8:22-25.

There is a retelling in The Barnabas Children’s Bible, page 238, story 270.

Perhaps in your group individual verses could be read out by two or three together or else acted out with a leader as the reader?

Go!

How those crowds gabble and how they do chatter
Boy, do they babble and man do they natter!
It’s ‘Jesus, do this!’ and it’s ‘Jesus, do that’
‘Give us wine!’ ‘Bless my child!’ ‘Heal my friend!’ ‘Heal my cat!’ (?!)

‘Come on, lads,’ he said to us, one sunny day.
‘Let’s get in the boat and let’s sail right away.
I’m asleep on my feet, I could do with a break.
So sail me across t’other side of the lake.’

So we piled in the boat – now I’d sailed lots before
But some of us never set foot from the shore.
Good job it was sunny! Good job it was warm!
Even Judas would cope with the water this calm!

We were all in the boat, us disciples and Jesus
We pushed out from land, put up sail to catch breezes
And as we moved off, he collapsed in a heap –
He must have been shattered – he fell straight to sleep.

Now imagine us there in the middle of the lake
One minute sunny, the next it turns dark
And the black clouds swarm over and next thing you know
You’re clinging on for dear life as the wind starts to blow,

And the waves start up crashing and beating, and meanwhile
Your boat – that felt solid before – seems so fragile.
There’s nothing to hold to, the world’s upside down
And everyone knows that you’re going to drown.

With waves crashing over the whole of the deck
We were minutes away from a total shipwreck.
All round me were grown men all wailing and screaming
While Jesus just lay on his cushion, sweet-dreaming!

God’s Son? I tell you – that moment I doubted.
‘Oy! Master! We’re going to drown!’ we all shouted.
He woke up, and blinked and stood up before us
In the midst of the wails and the crashes and roars,

And he spoke a soft word, a rebuke, a command
Without raising a sweat, without lifting a hand.
And the thunder and lightning died down, the wind dropped
The waves stilled, the clouds fled: the storm stopped.

He turned to us, smiled, as we all caught our breath.
In the peace and the calm, he asked, ‘Where is your faith?’
We looked at each other. Who is he?, if he
Can control with a word both the wind and the sea?

That storm tore apart both the sea and the sky
And yet Jesus was stronger than that! What a guy!
He held us together, he brought us all though.
Would I trust him the next time? I ask you, would you?