Ep. 34: The storm

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MATTHEW 8:18,23-27, MARK 4:35-41, LUKE 8:22-25

It was the evening and once more great multitudes were gathering to him. What more will he have to say to those who had heard his teaching in parables that morning? he was desperately tired but his work had to go on. He got in a boat intending to have a good snooze. Weariness, faintness, hunger, exhaustion had taken over. How human is that? In fact, as we will see, every deepest show of his humanity is immediately followed by the highest display of his Divinity and each special display of his Divine Power followed by some marks of his true humanity.

Suddenly the heavens darken, the wild wind swoops down those mountain-gorges, howling with hungry rage over the trembling sea; the waves rise and toss and lash and break over the ship and beat into it and the white foam washes at his feet.

What will he do? What could he do? The disciples were fearful. This was a key moment for them. will he come up short, his Kingdom that he had preached that very morning, show up as a fantasy? Or are we going to witness a connection between the teaching of that day and the miracle of that evening?

Now, with which of the words recorded by the Gospel writers had the disciples wakened him? With those for him to save them or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered by Peter himself? Similarly, it has been asked, which came first, the Lord’s rebuke of the disciples and after it that of the wind and sea or the other way round?

Perhaps each recorded that first which had most impressed itself on his mind? For Matthew, who had been in the ship that night, perhaps it was the needful rebuke to the disciples? For Mark and Luke, who had heard it from others, perhaps it was the help first, and then the rebuke?

Yet it is not easy to understand what the disciples had really expected, when they woke Jesus up with ‘Lord, save us - we perish!’ Certainly fear! But also the dawning of a vague belief in the unlimited possibility of all in connection with Jesus. Edersheim speaks poetically of this belief. He calls it …

‘a belief that seems to us quite natural as we look back from our privileged position as we think of the gradually emerging, but still partially cloud-capped height of his Divinity, of which, as yet, only the dim outlines were visible to them.’

We have come to a pivotal point in the history of Jesus. On the one hand, there are the attacks on him by the religious authorities, but there is also a growing realisation that his teachings and miraculous acts could only be explained in one way; that he was indeed acting as God himself.

The first great stage in his dealings with humanity, was for people to come to a knowledge of what he was, through what he did. The second great stage was to come to an experience of what he did and does, through knowledge of who he is. The former is that of the period when Jesus was on earth; the second is that of the period after his ascension into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Allow the following words of Edersheim to conjure up a ‘storm’ of realisation within your own spirit:

‘When ‘He was awakened’ by the voice of his disciples, ‘He rebuked the wind and the sea,’ just as he had ‘rebuked’ the fever and the outbursts of the demonised. For all are his creatures, even when lashed to frenzy by the ‘hostile power.’ And the sea he commanded as if it were a sentient being. ‘Be silent! Be silenced!’ And immediately the wind was bound, the panting waves throbbed into stillness and a great calm of rest fell upon the lake. For, when Christ sleeps, there is storm; when he wakes, great peace. But these men who had wakened him with their cry, now experienced wonder, awe and fear. No longer was it, ‘what is this?’ but, rather, ‘Who, then, is this?’’

So here we saw the true humanity of the Saviour along with his Divine power; the sleeping Jesus and the almighty word of rebuke and command to the elements. This contrasted with the failure of faith and then the excitement of the disciples; and of the calm of the sleeping and then the majesty of the wakening Christ. With him there can be no difficulty since all is his. One thing only he wonders at - the shortcomings of our faith; and one thing only makes it impossible for him to help - our unbelief.

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)