“Codex Egberti” (10th century). Public domain.
The song I picked for yesterday (8 October) was “Calm me, Lord, as you calmed the storm”. The words are by David Adam, a writer (one might even say poet) in the Northumbrian Christian tradition, and the tune is by Margaret Rizza who has written several devotional songs of this nature herself.
It’s a short reflective song asking Jesus to give us inner peace as he calmed the storm that threatened to sink his disciples’ boat. This incident or ‘sign’ in the Gospels is understood in Christian teaching to reveal that Jesus not only has supernatural powers but also that he is so concerned about our individual troubles that he will do whatever it takes to help us to cope. But two things in the story stood out for me when I last preached on it: that he only intervenes when the disciples actively call out for help, and that while he stops the boat from sinking he doesn’t immediately take them to land (on this occasion, at least). They were still far out on the lake with water to be baled out of the boat and a long way to row. Sometimes Jesus works miracles, other times he just helps us to “keep calm and carry on”.