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Grace, Mercy and Peace to you …
I had a dream the other night… I dreamt was making a hospital call in a hospital I’ve never been in before. Surprising thing about dreams … despite the fact that I’d never been in this place, I could see it in great detail …
In case you’re worried, I don’t know whom I was visiting; there didn’t seem to be any connection with anyone in this congregation. But what I do remember is getting in an elevator by myself and selecting the third floor. I stood in the back of the elevator and in the process of the elevator going up … I feel asleep.
I woke up to the sight of about 6 or 7 people standing at the open elevator door, all of them looking at me … and me saying, “This must be the third floor?” …End of dream.
What does it say if you’re falling asleep in your own dreams??
Well …“The nerve of sleeping on the job!” might have been a thought going through the disciples’ minds as they found themselves with Jesus asleep in the boat with them on the sea of Galilee, in the midst of a storm!
But Jesus is not alone in sleeping through a storm at sea. Do you remember anyone else who fell asleep in a boat during a furious storm? Someone else in Scripture? Someone else who played a critical role in calming that storm?
That person, you might recall, was Jonah. As you may remember, Jonah got on a ship going the opposite direction than the one the Lord had sent Him. And as a result, the ship encountered a storm that was a direct result of His disobedience. But where was Jonah?... in the hold of the ship, fast asleep.
The sailors on Jonah’s ship were so terrified by the storm that they each cried out to their own god … and then, taking matters in their own hands, they threw all the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.
Finally, the captain found Jonah asleep below decks and said to him, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us and we will not perish!” Now, hold that thought.
Back to our Gospel reading and the Sea of Galilee. Perhaps the disciples expected of Jesus just what the captain of Jonah’s ship expected of Jonah… that Jesus would get up and call upon God,
and God would hear Him. And so, by divine intervention, the storm would relent.
But even more so, we could also well imagine that the disciples were about the same things the sailors on Jonah’s boat were doing, trying to lighten it before it got swamped.
It’s been thought by many that the cushion that Jesus was sleeping on may very well not have been a cushion at all, in the sense that it was used for comfort. But, more rightly so, it was a large bag filled with ballast, which could be used as a cushion.
Its primary purpose was to be a moveable weight to counteract the force of the wind on the boat’s sail, so that this kind shallow-draft lake boat could use a sail without a centerboard or a deep keel.
And since such a ballast bag would be very heavy … throwing it overboard in this emergency with the boat nearly swamped by the waves would have been very much like the sailors in Jonah’s day lightening their ship by disposing of the cargo.
But the disciples can’t lighten their boat? Why? Not only is Jesus sleeping … Very likely He’s sleeping on the boat’s ballast! And that prevents the Disciples from taking the problem into their own hands! So …They must totally rely on their faith!
Have you ever found yourself …in their boat? (Analogy fully intended!) Found yourself in a position where your boat was being swamped by forces totally beyond your control? And it seemed as if you were being preventing from doing anything about it yourself?
That’s how the disciples felt.
Now, in their case… we might well suppose that they were expecting Jesus to pray to God to have Him stop the storm … just as jettisoning Jonah immediately calmed the storm that was threatening Jonah’s ship. After all, the disciples did recognize that Jesus had a special relationship to God … like that of a prophet.
Oh, and just for good measure, If Jesus did get up to pray, that would also allow them to do something about the problem as well …
They could jettison that bag of ballast, just in case … just in case … God was slow to act (as He often seems to be at times).
So, the question for us is … do we fall into the same kind of despair the disciples found themselves in? Have we prayed, and seemly, not been heard? Is our boat still sinking … and the storm isn’t going away??
Have you had your fight with God over who’s in control? “Tell you what God, You can save me anytime you want, but in the meantime, keeping the ship afloat is up to me. After all, it’s a matter of my life and death!”
Once the sailors of Jonah’s boat found out that he was the “Jonah,” the one for whom the storm was meant, what did they do? They didn’t immediately throw him overboard. No, they all rowed as hard as they could … to try to save him as well as the ship. They were very well intentioned, but not acting in accord with God’s will And so, their efforts are to no avail.
And so, finally, after doing all they could do … they prayed to Jonah’s God that they would find mercy in His sight as they did finally do what Jonah had told them to do … They threw him into the sea.
Well … what do the Disciples do as the last thing they think they can do about their problem? They wake up Jesus … and do so with some indignation saying, “Teacher, DON’T YOU CARE if we drown?”
And upon being awakened, Jesus chastises them for their waking Him and for their fear! He tells them, in essence: “You didn’t need to wake me up … any more than you needed to take the problem into your own hands…”
And then, simply at Jesus’ word, at His command, the wind dies down and the water is completely calm. Now, the sailors, the fishermen, among the disciples knew that on this lake, the wind may die down, but it takes a long time for the waves to go flat… But all this occurred immediately at Jesus’ command. This was, to use a term, supernatural, a true miracle.
Nature doesn’t do what actually happened all by itself. The Creator who called the land, sea and wind into existence … had spoken … and His creation had obeyed.
But seeing that they had just been rescued… the disciples were not relieved, were they? They were filled with “great fear,” as our version read … another version says they were “terrified.” Why? Not of the storm, but of what? Of what Jesus could do … because at this point they still did not understand, truly, who He was.
That’s where, thanks to God, we have the advantage over the Disciples. God’s given us the faith and the power of His Holy Spirit to know: in our heads, and in our hearts … who Jesus is.
The parallel we share with the disciples is that times of testing like this will come in our lives. Testing of our faith … testing based on temptations to fear what is happening to us in this world.
Storms and raging seas are pictures of Chaos in God’s creation. Natural disasters today still indiscriminately take life and destroy property. Disasters like those are physical manifestations of sin in the world and the brokenness of a fallen creation.
But is Jesus just about calming storms, healing the sick, raising the dead? No. He’s here to restore order in a creation racked by chaos … because of sin. By the sign of Jonah, Jonah being three days in the belly of the great fish … so, Jesus’ three days in the grave, was His sign of His restoring our relationship with God.
Jesus made still, made calm our hearts … He got rid of the chaos, our sin, which He took upon Himself … so that our hearts could be the temple of His Holy Spirit.
And so when the temptations to despair come … take note that they are the result of a lack of order, a break with God’s plan for you and for creation. So … where’s our peace come from? Obviously, not from without. God give us His peace within.
Do you honestly think that the disciples could have drowned with Jesus actually, physically, in their boat? No. Their problem was their faith had not yet recognized Jesus for who He truly was.
But thanks to God’s Holy Spirit, we do. And Jesus is better than in your boat … He lives in your heart. As St. Paul confesses: It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”
Do you think that anything against God’s love for you can happen? Does He not promise to work all things, even the things brought on by the sinfulness of others, or the chaos of creation, for your eternal good, as He has called you according to His purpose to be His child?
Indeed, God does not tempt anyone. But God is with us, He’s in our hearts… or figuratively, He’s in our boat, when the storms of life assail us.
And truly, truly I say to you … many times it does appear to us that He is asleep, that He’s not hearing our prayers … and He doesn’t seem to care if we drown. But that perception is not reality.
We can choose to make it ours however, and try to solve every problem on our own, to succumb to the temptation to be the One (capital “O”) in control. To try to order the chaos ourselves, to fight the sin of others or even the sin of our own hearts … on our own.
Or we can leave all that at the foot of the cross, and pray for the strength to trust and to act in that situation in ways which will glorify God.
“Move over, Lord, you don’t need that cushion! Sleep on your own time!” I’m here to save the day!!” We’ve all done that. And look at the weeds that God often lets us harvest as a result.
The Good News is this: Solving the problem of our Human frailty is really not up to us, as it wasn’t for the disciples. The answer for a stronger faith is to be open to God for the work He wishes to do in our hearts. He created our faith, and it is He, not us, who grows it and sustains it as well.
His instruments to perform those works in us are His Word and His Sacraments.
And so, to all of us who may yet be having difficultly in putting ourselves into His hands when the storms of life come, He says. “Hear my Words of promise, and come to my altar … for here you will find true nourishment for your souls.”
And so … Lord Jesus … Ruler of wind and wave … Creator of our bodies and souls … Creator and Sustainer of our life and our faith … even our hopes. …We come!
In Him,
Amen.
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