Epiphany 4
Mt
8:23-27
2/2/19
When making plans to visit someone,
we check our calendar to see when we are free, and then consult with the other
person to find out when their availability matches ours. Once a date is found, we agree on it and mark
it on the calendar. And so our plans are
set and everything is arranged.
We do this all the time. We do it for the spring and the summer and
the fall. When the date arrives, we make
the trip as planned. We make trips like this
so regularly, that it really doesn’t occur to us that there could be anything
to make our travel difficult or even cancel it.
We forget that travel plans in the
winter are not always so simple. Our
plans and the weather may not cooperate, and when they don’t our plans usually
lose. We just had an example of this on
Friday, January 19. If you had plans to
drive somewhere in the Midwest on that weekend, they probably didn’t work out
because of the snow that moved through. Bad winter weather is an unpredictable
factor that can make travel dangerous and prevent us from going. Many of us have probably had the experience
of being stranded in an airport because of weather, or of having to find a hotel
because it was just not possible to continue driving.
Life around the Sea of Galilee for
Jesus and the disciples was very similar.
This body of water was a convenient way to get from one place to
another. After all, a straight line across the lake is shorter than going
around its circumference. It was certainly
much easier to sit in a boat and let the wind do the work, than it was to walk.
Among Jesus’ disciples were a number of men who had been fisherman – they had
spent their lives on the Sea of Galilee and knew all about sailing there.
It’s not surprising then that we
find Jesus traveling on the Sea of Galilee on a number of occasions. Our text begins this morning by telling us, “And when he got into the boat, his
disciples followed him.” Yet again they
were going to travel on the lake. But
like our own experiences, travel there was affected by weather. We
learn, “And behold, there arose a great
storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was
asleep.”
Literally,
the Greek text says that the boat “was being covered” by the waves. This was a very dangerous situation, and a
number of the disciples were experienced enough on the water to know it. The
situation had passed over from concern into real fear that their lives were at
risk.
Jesus was
in the boat with them. And what was he
doing? He was asleep. It’s not hard to understand why he was tired.
Last Sunday we heard about how our Lord healed the leper and the Centurion’s
servant. Next he went to Peter’s house
and healed his mother-in-law. After this
Matthew tells us: “That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by
demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick.
This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses
and bore our diseases.’”
From the
Gospels we get a sense of how Jesus’ ministry pressed in on him. People wanted to hear him and interact with with. Jesus had just done this with two would be
followers just before our text. Crowds
came to him for healing and to have demons cast out. According to his divine nature Jesus was true
God, begotten of the Father. But according to his human nature he was true man,
born of the virgin Mary. As someone who
was true man, Jesus got tired just like you do.
He doesn’t know what it is like to be worn out just because he is the
omniscient Son of God. He knows because he experienced it in his own flesh. Our Lord was tired, and so he was asleep in
the boat in spite of the storm.
The
disciples woke Jesus, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” Despite the fact that Jesus was there in the
boat with them, they feared for their lives. They woke our Lord and appealed
that he save them.
Jesus’ response to them and his
action that followed teach us about our life as Christians. He said, “Why
are you afraid, O you of little faith?”
Our Lord said that there was no need for fear. In fact, the presence of fear demonstrated a
lack of faith. Note that this was still
faith. In their fear they had turned to Jesus. They did believe in him as the One who could
do something about the situation. But they woke him because of fear that the
sleeping Lord was not enough to protect them.
Jesus’ use of the term “little
faith” should be a comfort to us. The good news is that even in our fear and
weakness, faith that Jesus considers to
be faith, is still present. It was
for the disciples. That is why they woke Jesus and begged him for help. It is for us.
Yet Jesus’ rebuke, ““Why are you
afraid, O you of little faith?” reminds us that it’s not ok to remain there. Little faith is faith that is being attacked
by sin and unbelief. Little faith is
faith that is at risk to succumb. If we
are content to live there, it will.
Our Lord responded to the disciples’
plea by rising and rebuking the winds and the sea. The Creator of all creation took control of
his creation that was disordered by sin and ended the upheaval. We learn in our text, “Then he rose and
rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” When the disciples saw it, they marveled
saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
We know the
answer to the question. Jesus is God in
the flesh. He is the incarnate Son of
God. And this demonstration of his saving power was just a foretaste of what he
had come to do. He had come into our world in order destroy sin and all that it
produces. Earlier I referred to how
Jesus was healing and casting out demons and Matthew tells us, “This was to
fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took our illnesses and bore
our diseases.’” Those words are from Isaiah chapter 53 – the chapter about the
suffering Servant. They teach us that
Jesus’ healing ministry was of a piece with his work to take away our sin by
dying on the cross in or place. Sin is
the source of all that is wrong in our world and lives. Jesus was here to deal with sin and all the
ways it manifests itself.
Our text
calls us to believe in Jesus. It draws
us from little faith to greater faith. It teaches us about who Jesus is as our
Savior – the authority he has to save us.
We need this because the boat is not always saved. Instead, sometimes the boat shares in the
fate of the Wilhelm Gustav.
The Wilhelm
Gustav was a German cruise liner that was taken into German military service
during World War II. First used as a hospital ship, it was later employed as a
floating barracks for U-boat trainees.
In January 1945 the army of the Soviet Union had become an unstoppable
force that was pressing west.
All
involved knew that the Soviets intended to seek revenge against German
civilians because of what the German invasion had done to Russia. They would be murdered, and the woman of all
ages faced the likelihood of rape. They were desperate to escape. In East and West Prussia, more than ten
thousand people boarded the ship. Nine thousand of those were civilians. Five thousand were children. On January 30 a
Russian submarine hit the Wilhem Gustav with three torpedoes. The ship sank in less than an hour in the
frigid water of the Baltic Sea.
More than
ninety six hundred people died, making it the deadliest sinking in maritime
history. No doubt, many of those people
were Lutheran, just like you and I. Our
Gospel lesson this morning does not promise that Jesus is going to save you
from every disaster. Instead, it calls you to ever greater faith in Jesus
because of who he is and what he has done for you.
Jesus is
the Lord who was died on the cross in order to win the forgiveness of
sins. And he is the Lord who conquered
death when he rose on the third day. He
has done this, and he has done this for
you. Because of this he gives you
forgiveness and life no matter what
circumstances you experience. There
is nothing that can happen that will separate you from Jesus Christ’s
forgiveness, love and salvation – not even death.
This Jesus
calls you to believe and trust in him in ever greater ways. You don’t summon this up in yourself. Instead this faith always comes from the
outside. It always comes from the Lord
through the work of his Spirit. He does
this through his Means of Grace. To grow
stronger in faith – to not be of little faith – you must be fed. You must receive
our Lord through reading, hearing and studying his Word. You must actually think about your baptism
and what it means for you. You must
receive the true body and blood of Jesus Christ in his Sacrament. This is how you go from little faith to faith
that rests secure in Jesus Christ no matter what happens in life.
And it’s
not as if this is something then just locked in place. Instead, the devil, the world and your own
sinful nature are always working against faith.
If faith is to remain strong against such attacks we must live lives
focused on Jesus – and that means lives focused on the ways that Jesus is present for us. In means lives that place Christ’s Means of
Grace at the center of who we are and what we do.
The more we
do this, the more our doing will be that produced by Jesus. This life of faith is one that the Spirit
leads not only to trust in Christ in the midst of all circumstances. It is also a life that seeks to love and
serve my family members and fellow congregation members. It is a life that seeks to restrain the sin
the old Adam wants to do. It is a life
that seeks to do those things that are true to God’s will – those things that
are in fact good for me. The life of
faith – the life sustained by Jesus Christ’s gifts – is one that is ready for
anything, because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.
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