Our Gospel reading this morning is one of the most dramatic
stories in the Bible. Put yourself into
the shoes of these disciples. They start
making their way across the sea, which presumably is not too big of a deal for
them. We know that several of them were
commercial fishermen before they left their nets to follow Jesus, so they knew
what they were doing. Everything was
going fine when suddenly a great wind arose and enormous waves came with
it. The Sea of Galilee is a very large
body of water and so it is capable of producing enormous waves. The boats that the disciples were in were
made accordingly for that. These people
didn’t go to the trouble and expense of making a boat only to have it sink. Their boats were large—made for the
conditions a person might find on such body of water. And yet, the waves were such that they began
to go over the side and started to slosh around the bottom of the boat.
This is a very bad thing to have happen at such a time as
this. The more water that goes into the
boat, the heaver it becomes, the lower it goes in the water, and the easier it
is for more waves to start to pour in.
And that seems to be exactly what was happening. Water was coming over the side and the boat
was being filled up. There’s so much
water coming in that there’s no use in trying to bail it out. In only a moment or two the boat would sink
below the water and the men would be forced to swim. But there would be no way that they could
stay afloat. Waves that are high enough
to sink one of those boats are surely great enough to swallow up a man. So when these men say to Jesus, “Save us,
Lord, for we are perishing,” they say this because they really are
dying. In a matter of minutes they will
be dead. And so you can imagine that
they might have been a lot of screaming and yelling, “We are dying!”
We are confronted with two strange facts at this point that
we will get back to when we finish our story.
First, Jesus was sleeping through all this being tossed about by the
waves and all the rest of the commotion.
I guess that goes to show that he truly was tired. Second, it is also strange what he says upon
being awakened. Before he even got out
of his bed he said to these frantic men, “Why are you afraid, Oh you of
little faith!” If a person shouldn’t
be afraid when their boat is sinking in a terrible wind storm in the middle of
the sea, then when should a person be afraid?
But Jesus has mercy on the men. He gets up and rebukes the wind and the
sea. That means that Jesus tells the
wind and the sea to knock it off.
Amazingly, the wind and the sea listen to him. Immediately the wind stops. Once a wind stops it doesn’t take long at all
for waves to stop too. The apostles say
that a great calm came over the whole place.
Maybe you folks who have gone to the lakes in the north woods know what
this is like. When there is no wind at
all the lake can become like a sheet of glass and it is indeed very calm. The change of circumstances had to have been
almost overwhelming. Seconds before they
were all convinced that they were dying and they couldn’t keep their footing as
the sinking boat was being tossed by the waves.
Now they are sitting still and nothing is moving. They have gone from believing that they are
going to die, to an absolute calm. The
apostles say that the men “marveled.”
That means they just couldn’t believe what had happened. “Who is this Man whom even the wind and
the waves obey?” By this sign Jesus
manifested his glory and the disciples believed in him all the more.
Now let’s go back to what we find strange about this story:
Jesus’s lack of concern. Worry is what
can keep a person up at night so that they cannot sleep. Jesus is not worried. He is sleeping like a baby. And it wasn’t as though he had been living a
boring life with nothing to think about.
Just before the disciples stepped into the boat Jesus had healed
countless people of their infirmities and diseases. He had wrestled and cast out demons who were
possessing people, and he was silencing them when they wanted to speak. Demons are not harmless playthings, but
powerful and dangerous and only fools believe that there is nothing to fear
about them. The reason why Jesus said
they were getting into the boat and going to the other side is because he was
tired and needed to get away from the crowds who were following him.
And so with all this activity that Jesus had been doing and
which had made him so tired, you are witnessing how the oldest promise God made
to us human beings was being fulfilled by Jesus. He is the Christ. His healings were the signs of the removal of
the curses that came with sin. He was
driving back diseases and death. He was
removing the evil spirits to make room for the Holy Spirit. Even if he were not worried with all the
dangers that went along with the work that he was doing, then you would still think
that the excitement of what was taking place might make for light sleep. But Jesus sleeps deeply. He is at peace even though the whole world
has been thrown into turmoil around him.
And this is not something that is just meant for Jesus—that
this is a personal attribute or option that he has chosen for himself, but his
disciples can act however they want. The
disciples, like Jesus their teacher, should be unconcerned, not worried. That is why Jesus rebukes them when they
awaken him saying, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
Being unconcerned seems at first glance to be totally
impossible. In a matter of moments they
will sink into the sea and be drowned and dead.
How could a person be unconcerned and not worried? The answer is: only by having faith in God’s
promises. What does God promise? He promises a glory about to revealed in us
that the whole creation has been groaning for and waiting for—the revealing of
the children of God (those united with Christ) in the resurrection from the
dead. The resurrection from the dead,
and the final defeat of sin, death, and the devil, and life together with our
Creator who has loved us is the ultimate goal of all of God’s people at all
times.
Think of King David’s psalm, Psalm 23—a favorite for many
Christians and understandably so. He
says: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
he leadeth me beside still waters, he restores my soul.” But what is the climax, the capstone of this
psalm? It comes at the end when he says,
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I
shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” That means, “I’m going to have goodness and
mercy while I live here on this earth, but the thing that I’m really waiting
for is to be in the Lord’s house forever.
What I’m really waiting for is heaven, when I will never depart from the
Lord’s presence.
Or take another much loved psalm, Psalm 27. Again the opening might be familiar to us: “The
Lord is my light and my salvation—whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life—of whom
then shall I be afraid?” Later in
the psalm David makes a demand of the Lord.
What is it? Is it money? Is it a long, healthy life? No, this is what he says, “One thing have I
desired of the Lord, which I will require : even that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and
to visit his temple.” The one thing
he will require of this Lord God is that he may dwell in the house of the Lord,
to see beautiful glory of the Lord, to be in his temple. This, again, is speaking ultimately of
heaven. By the redemption and
reconciliation that are in Jesus Christ and by our union with him in baptism,
we are enabled by the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s righteousness to be
together with our holy, almighty God, and this is the ultimate goal of all
Christians. If it isn’t a person’s goal,
then they are an unbeliever. They do not
believe God’s promise. Inevitably their
hope and their fulfillment must be in something else.
But what does this have to do with a sinking ship and what
seems to be a very quickly approaching death for these disciples, and Jesus’s
rebuke of them for having very little faith?
God’s ultimate promise of communion with him in heaven makes what
happens in this life of only secondary importance. St. Paul in our epistle reading says, “I
consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy of being compared to
the quickly approaching glory that is about to be revealed in us,” that is,
in our resurrection from the dead. To be
sure, the disciples were suffering during this storm, but it is in fact nothing
compared to what God has prepared for those who love him.
And so we need not think of this life as having the ultimate
importance, because it doesn’t have the ultimate importance. What is really important to you and to your
life is not that it should be filled with this and that wonderful experience or
happy memory. What is important for you
is the Creator who has made you—the one to whom all people are accountable
(whether they believe that or not). And
in order that you should be pardoned for your sins and be given the gift of
righteousness he has sent his Son as the Redeemer who suffered the punishment
that is due for your sins in your place.
And to show you that you shall not die, but live, Jesus was raised from
the dead. And in order that you may have
faith and look forward to the ultimate promise of communion with God he sent
the Holy Spirit to you by the preaching of his Word and by the administration
of his Sacraments so that you can be set free from the fear of death and
embrace the God who has loved you so.
Your God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is what
is really important to you and to your life.
Everything else is secondary.
Whether we live out the rest of this hour or the rest of this day or the
rest of this month or the rest of this year, or whether we have many, many
years ahead of us—none of this is that important. Faith in God’s promise does that to us. It makes all that other stuff secondary.
And so as we live by faith we take life as it comes without
attaching ultimate importance to it.
Sometimes there is smooth sailing.
Sometimes there is wind and waves.
Sometimes you are being led to green pastures and still waters. Sometimes you are walking through the valley
of the shadow of death. Regardless of
the circumstances you are given the privilege to fear no evil, for Jesus the
Good Shepherd is with you. His rod and
his staff comfort you.
And when that time shall come where you are laid down in
death, you can be sure that you shall rise again to new life, and even to your
true life, for that life will no longer be oppressed by sin as we are in this
life. There is always hope in
Jesus. Even if that boat would have sunk
on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples would have been cast adrift, Jesus
could surely raise that boat again and gather the disciples to safety. After all, that would be something less than
what Jesus actually did when he rebuked and silenced the wind and the waves
whom he was mad at for frightening his disciples. There’s no telling what he might do and so
there is always hope in Jesus. “Do
not be afraid, Oh you of little faith.”
Jesus says to his disciples in another place: “I have
said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have troubles. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Apply these words to what you have learned about Jesus today
from our Gospel reading. He has told you
about what happened with these disciples so that you may have peace in him. You can never go wrong when you are trusting
in Jesus. In the world you will have
troubles. The wind may blow, the waves
may become strong. The water might be
coming over the side of the boat so that you are sinking. But Jesus says to you, “Take heart. I have overcome the world.” That means, “Do not despair. I will set all things right.” He might not set things right in the way that
you might expect him to or perhaps want him to, but he overcomes in his own way
and at his own time. When the time is
right he will rebuke whatever enemies you might have and put them to shame,
overcoming them. Finally he will even
rebuke and bring to nothing our final enemy, death, with the resurrection from
the dead. He has overcome the world—he
has overcome all obstacles—not for himself (because he had no need of
that). He did it and does it all for
you.
No comments:
Post a Comment