Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Fear Not!
John 6:16-21
Two storms raged that night. The Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias, was actually a fairly small, deep fresh water lake, thirteen miles long by about seven miles wide. However, it lay nestled in a bowl at the base of a series of low lying mountains. To the east the Golan Heights rose a few thousand feet above the lake. To the west, the Galilean hill country hovered nearly two thousand feet above the shore. Only thirty miles or so to the west sat the Mediterranean, a full fledged ocean. Ocean weather fronts could come ashore, blow across the Jezreel Valley of central Galilee, funnel through the passes in the surrounding hills, and come roaring out into the lake with little or no warning. Because of the surrounding terrain, the storms on the Sea of Galilee were unpredictable and treacherous.
But another storm raged—this one in the hearts of the disciples. The entire day had been an emotional roller coaster. They had witnessed the feeding of the 5,000, likely the high point of their time with Jesus. But no sooner had Jesus astounded the cheering crowds than he abruptly turned them away, refusing the opportunity to be their political star, and went by himself into the hills to pray. At sunset, they decided to go on home by boat. They presumed Jesus would walk home later. About half way across, the storm hit.
Matthew, Mark, and John all tell their own versions of the story (Cf. Matthew 14: 24-33; Mark 6:47-52). The three accounts vary in the details they record. For example, it is here in Matthew’s account that Peter attempts to walk on water. John leaves that out, possibly to keep the focus on Jesus. But they all emphasize the terror that gripped these men. Perhaps, it was the suddenness of the storm or the darkness of the hour or the worry about Jesus and his puzzling reaction to the adoring crowds that made this storm worse than others they had faced. But each account tells of the miraculous appearance of Jesus on the water. This too struck terror in their hears. It was something totally out of the ordinary and unexpected. They were afraid!
Fear is like that. Sometimes it is not just the particulars of the situation that heightens our fear; it is the condition inside us. Fear is intensified by being alone or worse yet feeling lonely. That’s why just having some one sit at your side in a hospital makes it better. Darkness doesn’t help. Anything is worse when you don’t know where you are headed or what may lurk behind the next shadow. The familiar is seldom scary for long. But change, even good change, can be terrifying because fear mostly springs from feeling out of control. You sense that you are just being carried along toward some impending doom by forces totally beyond yourself. That is the stuff of fear.
Jesus’ simple message to those terrified fisherman is the same message he has for you and me when we are caught alone in the darkness, tossed by the winds of life, or feeling helpless. He said, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Jesus climbed into the boat and suddenly all was right with the world again. Mark’s gospel makes an important connection. “{51} Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, {52} for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened." They shouldn’t have been surprised that the same one who can feed five thousand plus people with a few loaves and fishes can also stay the storm. But they didn’t make the connection and neither do we! How often we claim to believe in Jesus the Savior, the crucified and risen one who can take our souls to heaven, but then we fail to understand that if he can do that he can also carry us through the tumult of next week or the uncertainty of next year.
I am here to remind you today of what Jesus said two thousand years ago. It is his word to you in the midst of what ever fears, uncertainty, storms, or doubts you are or will ever encounter. “Don’t be afraid! It’s me!”
In the midst of your storm, don’t be afraid! He is here. “Lo, I am with you always,” he promised his followers (Mt. 28:20). The night before the cross he told his men, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” (John 14:18)." David echoes this so beautifully in Psalm 139: “You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you “(5-12).
Whatever it is you fear, whatever the storm you feel caught up in—it will not, it cannot separate you from the presence of Jesus.
In the mist of your storm, don’t be afraid! He is here. But there is more. Secondly, don’t be afraid. He is praying for you. This is where Mark’s account of the event is so precious. Jesus had left the disciples to go alone into the hills to pray. This was not the first time he did this. In fact, he spent the night in prayer before he called them to be his disciples. He would later spend his last night before the cross praying in Gethsemane. When he came to them in the midst of the storm, he didn’t say it but he could have. “Don’t be afraid. I have been praying for you.”
In one of his most unforgettable stories Robert Louis Stevenson tells about a storm tossed ship at sea. The passengers were all order below deck while the crew contended with the winds. They were terrified as they huddled nervously in the galley hearing and feeling the storm, but not knowing how the crew was fairing. One passenger volunteered to venture out to check on conditions. Several minutes later, he returned and simply reported, “All is well. I saw the captain and he smiled.”
Regardless of the terror of the storm, you can rest assured that the captain of your soul has not forgotten you. No doubt he was praying for those disciples all the while during that long night. To have remembered that should have calmed the inner storm, if not the outer. It is to us caught in storms here and now, not just to the disciples, that the writer of Hebrews says, (Heb 7:25) "Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them." Don’t be afraid. Jesus is praying for you, too.
In the midst of your storm, Don’t be afraid! He is here! He is praying for you! Finally, don’t be afraid! He knows. Here again Mark adds a detail left out by John. From his prayer vigil, “{48} He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them.” They couldn’t see Jesus. But he could see them. They didn’t know for sure what he was doing, but he knew for sure what they were facing. That hasn’t changed.
Don’t be afraid! He knows. He knows your circumstances just as assuredly as he knew about the wind and the waves. He knew their limits. He knew their fears. He knew their peril. He saw it all. He still does! He sees every problem you face. He even sees the ones you would face if he hadn’t intervened and rescued you before you ever knew you needed rescuing. He knows!
He also knows when to intervene. This is the sticky part. We wonder, “If he can rescue us, why does he wait so long? Why does he sometimes let us go through so much or get in so deep before he steps in? Why does it sometimes look like he doesn’t rescue? Why does it sometimes feel like he has abandoned us?” Remember the Foot Prints in the Sand poem. That part of the answer.
C. S. Lewis, the great British Christian writer, has another answer in his book The Problem of Pain. Some of you may have seen the Anthony Hopkins’ movie Shadowlands which tells the story of Lewis’s faith and grief at the death of new bride. Lewis married late in life to an American women after they knew she only had a short time to live. One of the greatest speeches in the movie comes from Lewis’s book The Problem of Pain. Anthony Hopkins, portraying Lewis says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (p. 93). Later in the book, Lewis writes about how sometimes life’s storms are really God’s spiritual curriculum. Remove the storms and we might never learn the most important lessons of life. He says, I am going through life enjoying everything when suddenly “a stab of pain threatens serious disease or a newspaper headline threatens us all with destruction, sends the whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I’m overwhelmed and all my little happiness looks like broken toys. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys. . . . Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours, then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe the sword for a minute, and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over. I shake myself as dry as I can, and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulation cannot cease until God sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless” (p. 106-107).
If you are a disciple of Jesus, if you have made the decision to welcome him into your boat, you don’t have to be afraid though the wind blows and the sea billows roll. Fear not! He is here. Don’t be afraid! He has been praying for you! Don’t be afraid! He knows! He knows about it. He knows just the right time to intervene.
However, if you are not following him—I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I do—you do have much to fear, a very great deal! But you can change all of that! You change it today!
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College of the Bible, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
