Educator's Forum > Theological Briefs > Calming of The Storm
 

Calming of The Storm

Matthew 8:23-27

Central lines of the story: "Lord Save us; we are perishing" which evokes the centrality of the human need for help and relationship. Jesus’ reply, "Why are you afraid, you of little faith?" completes the picture. We are lost, and it is only our faith in Jesus that saves us. For this reason, the Church has often been depicted as a boat.

The Flood and Noah’s Ark, Jonah and the Whale and Moses in the Nile. The same boat could turn up in other stories and become recognizable. Mark and Luke also have the calming of the sea.

Highlight the boat as the central image. The connection of ship imagery with the Church is a long-standing one—we worship in "naves." The instruction that leads to life is to be found in the community of the Church. The image of the waves is potentially wonderful, calling to mind Japanese art and the waves in those prints. Imagine a wave sort of emerging from the whole page with the text written over it. Could play with the narrative—serial depiction to show the progress of the story. It’s a quarter-page image, which could work in a variety of ways, including a border around the text for a "comic strip" effect.

Wonderful local interests emerge: woodlands, canoes, voyageurs— all pertinent images. The Sagatagan (a lake at Saint John’s Abbey and University) is actually big enough to be dangerous in a storm. This could be a good place to include our lake. There’s also Lake Superior.

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