Peace, Be Still

Allow me to begin our sermon with an illustration. “Horatio Spafford was a Chicago lawyer and friend of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. In 1873, to visit Moody’s preaching campaign in England, he planned a trip for his family to Europe, and sent his wife Anna and daughters on ahead. But the ship sank in the passage, and only Anna survived. Their four daughters . . . all died. Anna sent a telegram to Horatio, which began [with these words]: ‘Saved alone. What shall I do?’”(1)

“Horatio quickly sailed to join his wife. Midway across the Atlantic, the Captain told him that they were near the place where his daughters had [perished]. Though grieving, he experienced in this moment a supernatural ‘peace, like a river’ (Isaiah 66:12). In his circumstances, this peace could only be the gift of God; the ‘peace of God, which surpasses all understanding’ (Philippians 4:7). During the voyage, Horatio began to compose a hymn, to put words to his experience of peace.”(2)

“When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul’.”(3) May we have this kind of peace in the trials that come our way. In our passage of Scripture this morning, we will see how Jesus speaks peace to the storm and to the circumstances of our life. He works to either calm the storm or quiet our heart. So, let us stand at this time in honor of God’s Word, as we read Matthew 8:23-27:

23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. 24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. 25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” 26 But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Jesus Will Allow a Test of Faith (vv. 23-24)

Let us get started with verses 23: “Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.” Back in verse 18, we read how He “gave a command to depart to the other side,” and was then approached by two potential disciples who gave Jesus excuses as to why they could not immediately join Him in the boat. I think we can safely conclude that the ones who decided to get into the boat were His true disciples. The “wannabes” stayed on shore. His command to “depart to the other side” was a test, but the crossing of the Sea of Galilee would be an even greater test; as Jesus, in His foreknowledge, knew that a storm was brewing. Commentator Warren Wiersbe says, “Jesus undoubtedly knew [a] storm was coming, and certainly could have prevented it. But He permitted it that He might teach His disciples some lessons.”(4)

In verse 24, the storm is called “a great tempest.” The word “tempest” means, “a great concussion or shaking of the sea.”(5) The Greek word is seismos, which is also the word for “earthquake.”(6) Both Luke (8:23) and Mark (4:37) call this tempest a windstorm, “and both use the word lailaph, which signifies a particular kind of wind; [one] which is suddenly whirled about upwards and downwards; or rather, a conflict of many winds . . . Luke says, that this storm of wind ‘came down’ (8:23), referring to the motion and course of the winds, which are . . . expelled by a superior force to the lower region, [where they] move in an oblique, slanting manner, downwards.”(7) Commentator John Gill says this sounds like the description of a hurricane,(8) but today we might call this a microburst or extreme windshear.

This phenomenon described by the gospel writers is an ordinary event on the Sea of Galilee. “The Jordan valley makes a deep cleft in the surface of the earth, and the Sea of Galilee is part of that cleft. It is 680 feet below sea level. That gives it a climate which is warm and [pleasant], but it also gives it its dangers. On the west side there are mountains with valleys and gulleys; and when a cold wind comes from the west, these valleys and gulleys act like gigantic funnels. The wind, as it were, becomes compressed in them, and rushes down upon the lake with savage violence and with startling suddenness, so that the calm of one moment can become the raging storm of the next . . . That is what happened to Jesus and His disciples,”(9) but He already knew it was coming.