Through the Storm

Luke 8:22 – 25

 

On November 17^th, 2017, life as I’d known it was about to shift. I got a call while at work at the dairy that morning that my dad was in his kitchen yelling for help but the door was locked. So I rushed over there, from across the big town of Hilmar, and found that our mechanic who, had a key to the house, had arrived and helped my dad from the floor into a chair.

 

We got him into bed and I quickly realized my dad needed to go to the hospital, even though he hated the idea of it. My dad never came home. He died from sepsis two days later on 11/19, less than 2 whole days from turning 75.

 

As he lay in a hospital bed, as his organs were shutting down from the infection coursing through his body, his mind started to go. He started having vivid dreams and hallucinations. I had never in my life witnessed anything like that, and I can tell you I don’t think I’d ever been more afraid in my life.

 

This man, who had been a real pain in the neck for most of my upbringing, was still the hardest worker and strongest and most resilient man I’d ever known. And there he was, lying in a hospital bed, dying. Fear, confusion, grief, all mixed together made for a pretty powerful storm.

 

The year that followed wasn’t any easier. Navigating his estate, having to evict squatters and tenants alike, and preparing to sell the place I had always called home, even when I wasn’t living there, was a rough ride for me, and my wife and two oldest boys. But, by the grace of God, I, and we, made it through that storm, though it took me years to realize that it was God and not me.

 

As we shift in the Gospel of Luke from Jesus’ preaching, we get to see Jesus’ power on display by way of four miracles. The first example of that power is witnessing how Jesus and His disciples handle a wicked storm on the Sea of Galilee. Open your Bibles and let’s read God’s Word together beginning with Luke 8:22.

 

As the Gospel of Luke moves on, Jesus tells His disciples to cross to the other side of the lake. They don’t know yet what waits for them over there, but Jesus does. Along the way, they are about to learn something about the One they’re following that they haven’t fully understood yet.

 

They set out, they pushed off from shore and headed across the sea, and as they sailed, Jesus fell asleep. Preachers, me included, spend so much time and energy preaching about the divinity of Christ, of how He is God the Son.

 

But ignoring the reality of the incarnation, that Christ is just as human is He is divine, would be bad theology. A lot of effort was spent throughout church history to clearly define what we so easily say today: Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and He needed naps too.

 

Jesus taking a nap at the back of the boat shouldn’t have been an issue anyway. At least four of the disciples were experienced fishermen from Galilee. They knew how to sail a boat on that lake.

 

But that also means that when this windstorm came down on the lake causing such raging waves that the boat began to fill with water, their recognition of the danger they faced was real.

 

For them to say they were in danger meant they really must’ve been in danger. They knew they were going to sink, and drown, and die.

 

So they go and wake up Jesus crying out, “Master, Master, we’re dying over here.” My first question is if the storm was indeed that bad, how is Jesus still sleeping? Man, I wish I could sleep like that!

 

Seriously though, there’s two interesting observations here: first is that they called Jesus Master, not Lord. Often, when we see them refer to Jesus as Master instead of Lord it’s because in that moment, they don’t truly understand Christ’s power or His purpose, despite what they’ve witnessed.

 

The second observation here is not that they went to Jesus when they found themselves facing imminent death, that makes sense, but that they don’t ask Him for anything! They just go and wake Him up, saying, “Hey, look around we’re dying!”

So Jesus wakes up, takes a look around, and immediately quiets the storm and calms the sea. The Bible says, He rebuked the wind and the raging waves. That same Greek verb was used earlier when Jesus rebuked a demon and rebuked the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law.

 

Look at how Mark tells it in his Gospel, ³⁹ “And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”

 

Understand, there weren’t any nefarious forces working against them here, there was no demonic power behind the storm. Jesus’ verbal command was directed at the wind and the waves.

 

Christ doesn’t just control nature; He does so with as little as two words. He doesn’t merely pray for God to calm the storm. He rebukes the wind and the waves Himself, and they obey His divine authority.

 

The tension on the sea and the tension on the boat is gone, and everyone on board is safe. Except that the storm may have gone away at Jesus’ command, but there’s a deeper tension on board that boat.

 

Christ asks them, “Where is your faith?” Mark’s Gospel includes, “Why are you so afraid?” The storm, though life threatening, uncovered a deeper issue in the disciples. They weren’t just afraid, they lacked enough faith to realize just who was on the boat with them.

 

Jesus doesn’t minimize the danger of the storm; in fact He doesn’t address it at all. Instead, He stands before them on the boat, essentially asking them, aren’t I bigger than this storm you’re facing?

 

These twelve have already witnessed so much from Christ, so many miracles, they’ve heard Him preach and speak truths that cut to the heart. He told them that the secrets of the kingdom are revealed to them.

 

But yet, when faced with a deadly storm, they were afraid. They failed to realize and trust that the presence and power of Jesus meant that they had no reason to fear the storm they were in.

 

When Jesus is driving out demons and healing people, they’re glad to be in His presence. But when they in their human wisdom believe they’re facing death in this storm, they forget precisely was on the boat.

This is what I mean last week when I said the good soil needs to be broken up and cultivated for the seed sown to become productive. Right now, in this boat, their hearts seem like rocky soil.

 

The reality is that we often lack the kind of deep faith that helps us persevere in times of testing and trial, in life’s biggest storms. We get distracted by the wind and waves, and we panic, even when Christ is within us.

Fear doesn’t make you weak, that just makes you human. One thing I love about the Twelve disciples is just how human they are, and Jesus chose them and built His church through them. If God could use them, He can certainly use you and me.

 

Jesus could’ve stayed awake on the boat and prevented the storm from ever beginning. He could’ve whisked them away in an instant to the other side and avoided the storm. But He didn’t.

 

The storm in our passage has a purpose, it reveals who Jesus Christ truly is. Jesus allows His disciples to experience this momentary despair so the roots of their faith might penetrate even deeper into His divine glory when—not if—when harder trials come.

 

These men will eventually literally suffer and die for Christ. They had to learn from Jesus to anchor their faith in who He really is, not just who they think He is or want Him to be, in order to face and make it through the storms on their horizons.

 

In His full humanity, He went to sleep, and in His full divinity, He allowed them to go through this storm, this trial, to grow them and ground them further in Himself. He demonstrated His divine power to bring them through it.

 

His disciples witnessed Christ’s power over creation, and so were afraid and marveled. That’s really the proper response to witnessing diving power wielded in your life, holy fear and awe. That is a response of worship.

 

And these guys who have already seen so much, after witnessing this ask themselves, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

Who is this Jesus of Nazareth that even storms and raging seas obey Him? Who is this Jesus of our Christian faith in whom we believe? Who is this that has the power to control the wild fury of nature, the way only God can? Truly, He must be someone unique.

 

The disciples begin afraid of the storm and they end afraid of Jesus—not because the second fear is bad, but because they’ve suddenly realized the terrifyingly wonderful truth of who is actually in the boat with them. Jesus Christ is God the Son. That’s the truth of our passage today.

 

Look at Psalm 65:5 – 8. God of our salvation, who stills the roaring of the seas and calms the roaring of their waves, also eases the tumult of His people.

 

Look at Psalm 89:9, “You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.” Look at Psalm 107:28 – 29, they cried to the Lord, He delivered them, He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea quiet.

 

Clearly the power that is reserved for the God of Israel, the God of all creation, is being exercised by Jesus on the boat. The person who was asleep on the boat a minute ago exerts divine Lordship over creation now.

 

We don’t have to understand this complex picture of how the divinity and humanity of Christ go together, but we have to accept that they do and believe it by faith.

 

You must anchor your faith in who Jesus is, even in the face of life’s greatest storms.

 

This story isn’t a metaphor or allegory; it’s a real demonstration of Christ’s power over His creation. The storm in our passage had a purpose, to reveal the hearts of the disciples and to reveal who Christ is.

 

God allows trials, He allows storms, and sometimes He even sends the storms and trials, to drive you to your knees at the feet of Jesus. God can and does use the storms in our lives to reveal our hearts, to deepen our faith, and to drive us more deeply into dependence upon Him.

So, anchor yourself in God’s Word. Time spent studying God’s Word and meditating on it will show you that Christ has always been present, since the beginning of time He has existed.

 

It is the primary way that you anchor your faith in who Christ truly is. Scripture will show you that the Christ of the Bible with the power to calm the storms and seas is the same Christ who lives in you.

 

He is the same Christ who is with you in every storm and is powerful enough to sustain through it. So spend time immersed in God’s Word, that will reveal to you that Christ is your anchor in the storm.

 

Next, anchor yourself in Christ’s church. We are created in the image of a Triune God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are always in perfect communion with one another, perfectly united in one God.

 

The need for community and interpersonal relationship is an integral part of being created in God’s image. Christ has given us His church, His body, that we would be an integral part of it so we don’t face our storms alone.

 

Being part of the church, being part of the body of Christ, is designed so that we help anchor one another, in Christ, to persevere through life’s storms, to help us keep our faith grounded in Christ through life’s trials.

 

Lastly, anchor yourself in Christ’s presence. Overcoming a storm in your life doesn’t mean you’ll never face another storm again. We all know, just as sure as the weather brings more storms, life brings more storms too. But Christ is always faithfully present.

 

What walking through a storm with Christ does mean is that you’ll be better anchored to face the next storm differently than you do now. You’ll handle them with more capacity to withstand, more wisdom to navigate, more tools and more experience to know what’s on the other side.

 

But most importantly, you’ll have the foundation of having walked through life’s greatest storms with Jesus already. He was always there with you, even when you didn’t realize.

 

I didn’t realize that Christ was there when my dad was dying. But after surrendering my life to Jesus two years later, I began to see He had been present all throughout my life.

 

That prepared me for the unexpected storms that were ahead of me then, and gives me assurance that in Christ, I can face the storms that are still ahead of me now.

 

Jesus is greater than anything you’ll face in life. Because of who He is, you don’t have to be ruled by fear in anything you face.

 

So don’t fear, but believe, because your Lord is greater than the storms that rage against you, and He will faithfully carry you through.