Finding Christ’s Peace in the Midst of Chaos

This upcoming week is a week-long feast known as the Feast of the Catechumens. If you’re not familiar with the Feast of the Catechumens or the tradition associated with it, you may not be alone. You can come and ask me about it, and we’re working on it here at St. John to help build that understanding and participation in such traditions.

Nevertheless, at the outset of the Feast of the Catechumens, we read this Gospel account from John about that moment when the disciples are in the midst of a storm on the Sea of Galilee and find themselves fearing for their lives.

The Armenians here present—most of them, I’m sure—are well aware of a very famous Armenian painter by the name of Aivazovsky, or Aivazian in the Armenian form. Aivazovsky is a world-renowned painter whose general themes had to do with the ocean and the sea, and more often than not depicted turbulence and chaos in the natural world.

You’ll find these grand landscapes depicting tumultuous and active seas that seem completely out of control. There may be a small boat over here or a lighthouse over there. They depict these huge experiences that give you the feeling of something very dangerous, chaotic, and beyond our ability to control. But you always find in his works, if you look for it, a moment of peace—a little point where you can find salvation, an access point or a space where you can be safe. This is very essential.

Aivazovsky may be a landscape painter, and he may focus on water and the natural world, but his true theme was the spiritual experience. His brother was a clergyman who served in Russia, and he was always depicting the spiritual experience of humankind in a natural setting.

In his chaotic landscapes, we find that moment of peace upon which we can zoom in and focus in the midst of chaos. In the same way, the disciples find Jesus Christ when they are on the Sea of Galilee, fearing for their lives. He comes to them and says, “Fear not, for I am with you.”

When we feel as though our lives are upon stormy seas, completely beyond our control, and we are simply at the mercy of the world—thrown this way and that—we feel unsafe. We feel as though the worst could happen at any moment. We fear for our lives, often more than we realize.

When we feel anxiety, when we feel scared, when we feel these really core feelings, it is our body telling us, “You’re afraid. You’re afraid for yourself and for your future.” We don’t necessarily always think about it in those terms. We think, “There’s a bill due, and I’m not sure how I’m going to pay it.” Or we think, “There’s somebody who is sick, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Or we think, “I don’t know how I’m going to get this project done in time.” Your body creates these feelings in you as though you are afraid for your life. That is what it feels like. Whether it is something that seems trivial or something that truly is life-threatening, we still feel as though we have no control in this world.

Find one of Aivazovsky’s paintings online to get an idea of this visual imagery. Better yet, read the Gospel. The truth is that, no matter how chaotic, tumultuous, and out of control our lives are, there is always a point of peace that we are blessed to have access to: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Find it. Find him. Zoom in on him to the exclusion of all else, and you will find, just as the disciples did, that you will not fear. Indeed, you will feel the peace of his presence in your life. Amen.