Jesus is extraordinary, how do we respond? Luke 8:22-25
He is Lord over all of nature and creation.
The Message paraphrase of the Bible tells it this way.
22-24 One day he and his disciples got in a boat. “Let’s cross the lake,” he said. And off they went. It was smooth sailing, and he fell asleep. A terrific storm came up suddenly on the lake. Water poured in, and they were about to capsize. They woke Jesus: “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”
Getting to his feet, he told the wind, “Silence!” and the waves, “Quiet down!” They did it. The lake became smooth as glass.
25 Then he said to his disciples, “Why can’t you trust me?”
They were in absolute awe, staggered and stammering, “Who is this, anyway? He calls out to the winds and sea, and they do what he tells them!”
Who is this he even commands the winds and the water, and they obey him? This is a fairly extraordinary situation. Jesus wakes up having heard the disciples concern for their lives and with one command the storm is silent. This is not something that you hear about at all. Storms don’t just stop. The Sea of Galilee is 166 kilometres square; it is 21 kilometres long and 13 kilometres wide. It is Israel’s largest fresh water lake. This is a massive body of water! Incidentally the Otago harbour is 21 k’s wide from the heads down to South Dunedin but nowhere near as wide as the Sea of Galilee. Tell me can it cut up rough on the Otago harbour? Rough enough to sink your boat?
So Jesus tells the disciples that they are heading over to the other side of the Lake, a thing here to remember is that some of these disciples were very familiar with the Lake, they had formerly been fishermen on the Lake and we know that Jesus had called Andrew and Peter and James and John from fishing this lake to follow him. These disciples had a good knowledge of the Lake, and the state of how things happened on the Lake. I believe that when this storm came up it was a beut. The disciples were genuinely in fear of their lives and that it was not a storm that those who had been fishermen believed they could survive. This group of men, some of these disciples were men who had lived practically their whole lives on the Lake.
These guys were in genuine fear of their lives.
A question arises, did they know and I mean really know who Jesus was? At this stage I’m not sure that they did, we have this great advantage of retrospect and we have read the Bible. We know that Jesus has power over sin and death. We know that he defeated these things and healed the blind and made lame people walk, that he cast out demons and stilled the waves, not only that he walked on water.
We can look back and see that he did these things. We know the Spirit of God at work in our lives, living with us and in us so that we can reflect Him and show others what the Kingdom of God is through our faith and actions. But these disciple blokes were still in training.
If the disciples really understood who it was that said, “Let’s head over to the other side of the Lake”, would they have been afraid? If they really understood who it was sleeping while they were panicking, if they really understood who it was they woke and included in their concern for drowning would they have been afraid.
The boat is being swamped, they are in great danger.
I like this next bit, “Master, Master (they call Jesus Master because he’s their Rabbi, their teacher), we’re (they include Jesus in the doomed) going to drown.
Jesus takes a bit of a look at the situation and Yeah / Nah, he tells the wind to stop it and the raging waters to settle down. Sorted…calm as!
He then questions the disciples, “Where is your faith.” I wonder if there was a few embarrassed looks on the boat.
In fear and amazement the asked one another, who is Jesus, he tells the wind and waves what to do and they do it.
Remember this is no little pond, this is a massive body of water. The winds have been funnelling down from the hills and mountains that surround the lake, cutting up into massive seas, huge waves, these winds came from somewhere, and they stop. Naturally waves don’t just stop the instant the wind stops, because they come from somewhere also. But they do stop at Jesus command. This is 116 square kilometres of water calmed at Jesus command. The wind that stirred up this storm falling to the lakes location of 211 metre below sea level off hills and mountains some of which are 1400 metres above the Lake, stopped at Jesus rebuke.
All of a sudden this Rabbi Jesus goes from being Master to MASTER!!! Jesus the slightly above ordinary becomes extraordinary in the eyes of the disciples. Those whose faith was lacking, now see that there is something, no, someone to put their trust in to have faith in. He commands and all of nature obeys him.
The disciples response however is interesting, in fear and amazement they talked it over.
What would our response be I wonder?
In our lives we have a choice of how we respond to Jesus. The disciples were actually at this time fearful of Jesus, terrified and filled with awe, amazed and astonished at what he had just done.
1) I get the feeling that in the storm the disciples and I think particularly the fisherman among them were caught somewhere in their pasts. They had heard the stories, they may have even known of others caught in storms on the lake who had drowned, they may have even recovered bodies from the Lake. How often do we in fear of the present event, with an outlook tainted by our past experiences, not look for the possibility of God’s intervention in a situation? How often do we allow our fear to leave approaching God until the last minute, a little like the disciples leaving off calling on Jesus until they were sure that they would drown?
You will remember from last week when I talked about the sinful woman approaching Jesus, and her receiving forgiveness because of her faith. Do we stumble because of our pasts instead of holding onto the knowledge that God has forgiven us. At times we are reminded by people and by the powers and principalities of darkness of our past; that past that we have been set free from, by the grace of God. Hold fast to the knowledge that you have been set free.
At times even past learnings will restrict us from moving forward with God because we hold onto them instead of moving on with Jesus in faith.
2) Another thing about the disciples in this situation was that Jesus had already indicated that they were going over to the other side of the Lake. On the other side of the Lake was this region called Gerasenes. If you read on in Luke’s Gospel you will see Jesus doing some other really extraordinary stuff there. An interesting point here is that Jesus was not ministering to Jewish people in this place. The Jews thought that they had a monopoly on salvation and God but Jesus reached out to others. Gerasenes was part of the Decapolis. This was a region that had been Hellenised, which in itself sounds a bit rough. What that means is that the people there, non-Jews, Gentiles had been influenced greatly by Greek culture and traditions. This points out that Jesus ministry was not just to the Jewish people and that he was showing the people of this region also that the Kingdom of God was near. This is a case of those words of Matthews gospel where he talks of, “Land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles the people living in darkness have seen a great light. (Matthew 4:15-16a). Just as Jesus reached out to all people at that time. Now it is our place now as ordinary people to reach out bringing the extraordinarily good news of Jesus to all who need it.
3) There are so many ways to do this. This week alone as would happen most weeks I signed another petition to combat slavery, these petitions come through on facebook just about every week. Responding to them is a small thing that while individually small, collectively will make a huge difference. Yip there's still slavery in this modern world related to the manufacture of chocolate products. I don’t eat non fair trade chocolate anymore; the idea of people in chains and blood being spilt so that I can eat confectionary is repulsive. The action of supporting the grower through buying Fair Trade can make an extraordinary change in communities that currently exist on a scale of what we would call less than ordinary. Another thing to do, we are constantly in need of volunteers here. If you belong to this congregation there are opportunities for volunteering in the family stores or food bank. There is a huge need for volunteers in The Salvation Army, so if you find yourself wasting time during your week please put yourself forward, to do your bit, to advance the Kingdom of God. Those were just a couple of ways, how are your neighbours doing, is there someone near you in need, are there kids at the local school who could do with a cut lunch or help with their homework. Is there a parent in need of a baby sitter who can’t afford to pay? Someone who’s lonely? There are so many ways in which we can share the love we have found through Jesus, there are many ways we can make a difference, would a couple of you like to share a thing that you know of that makes a difference?
Where I'm going with this is in looking at the disciples they saw Jesus doing the extraordinary, in fact his actions in calming the storm where supernatural, this is Superman stuff! Except this is no cartoon depiction, and Jesus is not crippled by kryptonite, or any other thing, if we call on him he is there for us always.
We serve the King of Kings and Lord over all of creation yet we fear what might happen if we step up or step out. At times we can ask ourselves as Jesus asked the disciples “where is your faith?”
We serve an extraordinary saviour, how do we react? In fear cowering from the storm; afraid that we will drown in the storm under the weight of our pasts, our sins, others opinions or our own doubts about our abilities. How will we react?
In fear? No! William Booth in the prayer of his that we've sung over the last couple of weeks summed up how we must react, how we will be empowered to change this dark world.
The last verse of that prayer reads this way:
To make our weak hearts strong and brave,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
To live a dying world to save,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
Oh, see us on Thy altar lay
Our lives, our all, this very day;
To crown the off’ring now we pray,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire! (William Booth, Send the Fire)
Jesus calls us to respond the same way he called those scared for their lives, disciples were called to respond. Those scared ordinary men, now giant pillars of the church, immortalised in verse and art, revered as the greatest of saints were no more extraordinary than you and I. Jesus commanded them to go into the entire world taking the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and making disciples of all nations. What occurred was they responded empowered by God’s Spirit, their weak hearts become strong and brave. What occurred as they responded to the one with all power in heaven and on earth? What happened was that as they responded to Jesus they brought the kingdom of heaven to earth. Individuals and communities were changed forever as people responded to the Good News of Jesus. This occurred as the disciples and does occur as disciples of Jesus allow God to use them as they give their lives over to advance his kingdom.
You know what those early scared men did, great things! Sometimes for them it was extremely costly, even the cost of their lives they did great things. Great things happened, through ordinary people just like you and as the extraordinary was done God’s kingdom was advanced on Earth.
“In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the wind and the water and, and they obey him.”
Jesus is extraordinary, how will you respond?
