Safe With Jesus
Matthew 8:23-27
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 8:23-25 23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. 24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. 25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord…When the storms of life come crashing in around you, what do you do? To whom do you turn? Maybe you don’t want to answer that question. Maybe God’s Word has already convicted you today for your lack of trust in God at times when it seems to you that He doesn’t care what’s going on in your life, or that you are so overwhelmed with stuff that you don’t turn to God at all.
The disciples of our Lord in today’s reading didn’t have much of a choice when their storm came. They were in a boat in the middle of a sea during a sudden storm. The only one they could turn to was Jesus. “But,” as Matthew tells us, “Jesus was asleep.” If Jesus is asleep and there’s a storm raging, then there is no one to turn to in this time of need.
And that is the way it is with all of us at times. God seems to be asleep. The Word of God teaches us to call upon God in every hour of need. Take Psalm 50:15, for example: “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Then there are the words of today’s Introit which proclaim, “They cry out to Yahweh in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm so that its waves are still.” (Ps 107:28-29) So God Himself says to call on Him, and He promises in His Word that He will deliver you. That should be good enough!
These verses I read from the psalms just gave away the ending to today’s Gospel. Even though there is a happy ending for the disciples, perhaps you don’t have a happy ending for some of the times you have called on our heavenly Father in the day of trouble. You pray for deliverance, and your prayer seems to go unanswered. You pray for healing, and you’re still sick and your body still betrays you. You pray for a job or a change in your situation, and every single day you wake up in the same situation. Your prayers seem, at least, to go unanswered as far as you see it on this side of heaven; God seems to be asleep. When shame and vice come screaming into your life, perhaps you even blame God.
Perhaps you have even cried out, “What have I done to deserve this? Why has God allowed this to happen to me? I sure wish He would help me out of this one, but the last time I asked, He didn’t come through.” Nice little pity party, that. And even if you haven’t said those words out loud, you would be lying if you didn’t at least admit that you thought them.
The people on the boat with Jonah in today’s Old Testament reading asked the same questions. Jonah 1:7-8 – 7 And they said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this trouble has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 Then they said to him, “Please tell us! For whose cause is this trouble upon us?” It’s not God’s fault.
Here we recall the explanation to the Sixth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer where our Lord teaches us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” And the first four words of the answer to the question, “What Does This Mean? are, “God tempts no one.” Then Martin Luther, in his brilliance, explains how it is that we are drawn astray: “We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature would not deceive or mislead us into false belief, despair, or other great shame or vice. Although we are attacked by these things, we pray that we may finally overcome them and win the victory.”
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So, who tempts? It is the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. One of Blessed Martin Luther’s Christian Questions with their Answers asks, “But what should you do if you are not aware of this need [for the Sacrament] and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?” Another way of asking the question would be, “What should I do if I think God is tempting me and I need help to know whether or not to receive the Lord’s Supper?” The answer to the question is, first, to touch your body to see if you still have flesh and blood; if you have flesh and blood, then you have the sinful human nature. Next, look around and see whether you are still in the world. There is no lack of sin and trouble in the world. Scripture says so. Same for your human nature. Scripture says human nature is corrupted with sin. Last of all, if you have a human nature and are in the world, then the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour you.
Wondering whether Jesus is in the boat of human life is natural for us sinners. Scripture teaches us not to expected calm seas and sunny skies when you became a Christian; we will leave those false teachings to others. The truth is that when you believe in Jesus Christ and are baptized, a target gets slapped on your back. Satan desires to sift you like wheat. He wants you to believe that Jesus is napping until Judgment Day. He wants you to think we have a clockmaker God who started the action of the heavens and the earth, but now just sits back and watches His creation mess it up. Satan wants you to believe that God won’t get His hands dirty in our mess, and that He shakes His head and wonders why He lets us go on the way we do.
This, dear fellow redeemed, is not the God we have. Though Jesus may seem to us like He’s sleeping at times, He is in total control of every situation that we encounter. After all, Jesus is both God and man. The same Word-made-flesh that brought creation into being also controls creation. All the squalling of the disciples wakes up Jesus. And the first words out of His mouth are, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” And it’s a fair question. Why are you afraid? Even with a little faith, that same faith can move mountains.
At the end of today’s brief reading from Matthew 8, the disciples, in wonderment, proclaim, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” Though they did not quite fathom exactly what was going on, we, by God-given faith, do. This is Jesus; He is our port in the storm. We cannot calm turbulent waters by merely willing them to stop. If we try that, it gets us nowhere but in trouble. But Jesus can calm turbulent waters, and He does; and He does it even when we don’t deserve it. The storms should rage, the waters should roar and foam against us, and the winds should knock us down and drag us around, but they don’t because Jesus is in the boat.
Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Yahweh of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” This same Yahweh of Hosts is with us every time we hear the Gospel proclaimed – that sweet freeing and forgiving truth which is that Jesus paid for all of our sins by His agony and bloody sweat on the cross. Even though we deserve only God’s wrath and damnation because of our sins, and in spite of the fact that we do not deserve His love, Christ poured out His blood on Calvary in love for all.
And we thank our good and gracious God that He pours out His blood for us, yea, even into us, in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Here in this Holy Meal of all Meals we have the forgiving flesh and blood of our dear Lord who, under the elements of bread and wine, delivers to us what He bought and paid for on His cross.
And in our Baptism with water and His Word, God has also given us everything we need to live until He calls us Home to be with Him: forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation.
Just a bit ago we sang in the Hymn of the Day, “All helpers failed; /This Man prevailed, /The God-man and none other.” Jesus Christ stills all of our turbulent times by applying His atoning blood and His innocent suffering and death to those who fear that they will perish in the storms of life. Our Lord Jesus rescued you from drowning amid the seas of sin and death. He placed you safely in the ark of the Church which is the boat that sails through this world and nurtures you with forgiveness and life. You are saved. You are fortified with sustenance in preaching, absolution, and Supper that brings salvation now and at the hour of your death.
There is a great peace amid the raging waters. That great peace is found only in Jesus Christ Who cleanses you from all sin and makes you a new creation ready to love one another as Christ first loved you. As we sang a while ago: “You are my Lord; /Your precious Word/Shall guide my way/And help me stay/Forever in Your presence.” Be still. Do not be afraid. Jesus is in the boat.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit
