The Ruler of the Storm
On Saturday evening at the preparatory service, Rev James MacIver preached on Luke 8: 22-25, a sermon entitled ‘The Ruler of the Storm’.
Jesus is always in charge – it is always He who takes the initiative, with the disciples following His example. When He calls, therefore, we respond and when he commands we obey. This is further illustrated in Matthew 8: 18 – 23 where the cost of following Jesus is so clearly laid out.
The great question at the centre of this passage in Luke is, therefore, designed to bring out the identity of this Jesus who commands such faith from His followers. When they ask, ‘who, then, is this, that He commands even wind and water and they obey Him?’, it is a question which has actually already been answered by Jesus’ actions as reported in the preceding verses.
Mr MacIver looked at two aspects of Jesus’ identity as revealed in these verses:
- Jesus showing that He is truly human;
- Jesus exercising His authority as God.
Jesus is asleep in the boat, demonstrating that although He was both divine and human, it was His humanity which was to the fore at this particular moment. The need for sleep is a human trait, a ‘symptom’ of our physical infirmity. It is significant that Jesus assumed this aspect of humanity, despite its limiting quality; He did not, as it were, draw on the powers of His deity to supply the deficiency.
Everyone feels tiredness, and experiences periods of stress accompanied by a feeling of being overworked. How wonderfully comforting, therefore, to know that God has experienced that for Himself and can meet us fully in those situations. It is not a top-down empathising, either, but one born of His having been fully human in the person of Christ and having, as a consequence, felt for Himself what it is to be human.
Implicit within the overarching question asked at verse 25 is this other, very important enquiry: who is this who is asleep in the boat? It is inadequate to simply say that it is Jesus Christ in His humanity, although that is certainly true. It is nothing less than the person of the Son of God who has assumed this human nature in order to be a High Priest to His people. God Himself in His Son is asleep in the boat.
We tend to think of the stilling of the waves as the great miracle at the heart of this story – and, of course, it is a wonder indeed. However, greater still is the miracle that the sleeping form in the boat is God Himself in the Son. Actually God, really God, asleep in the boat.
So, in preparing for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, this truth should be part of our meditation: the Son of God came into the world and obeyed in His human nature.
We see from this passage that hte disciples were – understandably – afraid, knowing as fishermen, the dangers inherent in such a storm. Their fear prompted them to waken the Lord from His sleep and although He spoke sharply to them, His first action was to rebuke the wind.
Only the Creator can rebuke Creation in this way, that it responds immediately to His command. And His actions were themselves a rebuke to the disciples, tantamount to saying to them that they had no cause to be afraid when the Lord of all creation is with them. In fact, what they feared was hampering their progress, and even threatening to overwhelm them, was entirely in His hand.
The sea, in the normal course of things, does not go from a raging storm to the calm of a millpond – only the Saviour could have achieved such an immediate effect. And what He did with the environmental aspects of creation, He also did with the human, as we see at verse 35 when Legion is at once restored to calm sanity at the Lord’s intervention.
There is clear instruction here for the believer, to apply passages such as these to our own lives, bringing our storms to the Lord who alone has it in His power to quell them.
Two vital questions arise from these verses, then. First of all, Jesus asked the disciples where their faith was, that they took fright at the storm.
Anyone would be frightened in such circumstances. However, the Lord rebukes them, having just demonstrated why they should not have feared. The mystery at the centre of this is that He was fully in control, though He slept. We cannot understand this, though we accept the truth of it nonetheless. As verse 15 makes clear, it is an exercise of Christian faith that we hold fast to the word of the Lord, no matter what pressure we come under.
Secondly, the question the awed disciples ask at verse 25 – who is this man? Their language concerning Him is respectful as is proper to the situation. It echoes the psalmist in Psalm 18 who describes the peril he had been in until God responds. When that intervention comes, the whole of Creation is turned upside down; God shakes all the earth in order to rescue one of His. It demonstrates the extent to which His authority and power are tied to His care for His own people.
Who, then, is this, that He commands even wind and water and they obey Him?
Our God, who is worthy of obedience, service and respect.
