Matthew 8.23-27
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
In this world—broken by sin and inhabited by sinners—dreadful things happen. We were reminded of this again on Wednesday when we heard that a commercial airplane collided with an army helicopter, killing everyone aboard both aircraft. And while there is a great scurrying to assign blame, that is not our concern, nor is it our duty. This tragedy should remind us that danger can come upon us suddenly in this life, and that situations can quickly become perilous. It should remind us to give thanks to God that He daily delivers us from many unseen evils, even as it should spur us on to pray all the more faithfully that God would guard and keep us from danger and every evil. It also reminds, however, that there are times when God removes His gracious protection and allows us to fall into danger. He does this for two reasons. He does it to exercise our faith so that it grows, and we learn to trust His word the more quickly and confidently, or, if He allows us to perish, then He has allowed that danger to come upon us to bring us out of all danger to our heavenly home.
This is what Christ teaches us in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus’ disciples are confronted with a dangerous, life-threatening peril. Jesus gets into a boat. His disciples follow Him. They will sail to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It is a normal occurrence and several of the disciples are fishermen who traverse these waters regularly. But behold, suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea. Literally, a σεισμὸς μέγας, a great, earthquake-like storm, so sudden and powerful that the boat was covered with the waves. Marks adds that the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling (Mk 4:37). What had been a normal trip across a familiar lake becomes, in the disciples’ eyes, their last moments on earth.
I say, “in the disciples’ eyes,” because they had no reason to fear, and not because Jesus was with them. No promise is given that those who are with Christ are safe from dangers, hardships, and death. No, they had no reason to fear because they had Jesus’ word, if they had considered it in that moment, would have comforted them in through their trial. St. Mark tells us how Jesus was the one who had originally said, “Let us cross over to the other side” (Mk 4:35). Would the One who turned water into wine and healed a centurion’s paralyzed servant with a word not fulfill His word now by bringing them safely to the other shore? When He first called them, had He not told them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mt 4:19). As of this point in the gospels they had fished no men. If they were to perish now, that word of Christ would fall to the ground, or rather, plummet to the bottom of the sea unfulfilled. These men believed Jesus to be the Christ. They confessed Him to be the Son of God in human flesh. But the more the wind and rain lashed against their skin, the less they thought of who Jesus was. The more the rocking of the boat attacked their balance, the more they forget the words Jesus has spoken to them. As the danger grows their faith gets smaller.
This is not the first we have heard of faithful believers taking their hearts off God’s word and promises. In our study of Genesis, we heard how Abram, as he approaches Egypt, fears that the Egyptians will kill him so one of them can take Sarai as his wife. He asks her, “Please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you” (Ge 12:13). But just before he sojourned to Egypt, the Lord promised him, “To your descendants I will give this land” (Ge 12:7). Abram had no reason to cower in fear. If the Lord had promised descendants, he would need to be alive to father those descendants. Yet in the moment he allows the cowardice of the sinful flesh to crowd God’s promises aside. And as if Moses wanted to impress upon the corruption of the human heart, he records not only that Abraham did this same thing again when sojourning among the Philistines, but that his son Isaac fell prey to the same little faith while he and his wife sojourned among the Philistines. But it was not that the Patriarchs had no faith. They knew the true God. They believed His promises. But as the danger appeared, they turned their gaze away from God’s promises to their peril instead, and by doing this, their faith shrunk.
The scriptures do not sugarcoat the lives of the patriarchs or the disciples. Each of them had had moments in which they were of little faith. Yet, a little faith is still faith. The patriarchs trusted the Lord, though they should have more carefully considered God’s promises and applied them more tenaciously to themselves. The disciples, too, believed Jesus to be someone who could help them amid the life-threatening storm, so they woke Him. “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” Jesus asks, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” to rebuke, not to break, for “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench” (Is 42:3). He chides them so that they see the purpose, why He has allowed them to come in harm’s way. He exposes their fear to them so that they might be fast to fight against it with faith. He communicates their cowardice to them so that they might quickly confront it with faith in His word.
He calms the storm with a word, turning a life-threatening tumult into a great calm. The disciples, still learning, wonder, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” The eyes of faith begin to see Jesus more clearly as the divine—the Word of God through whom all things were made—and who upholds all things by the word of His power (Heb 1:3). They begin to see more that as true God from true God, His word is living and powerful, accomplishing its purpose, and worthy of their full confidence. With this miracle, Jesus exercised their faith so that the next time danger, peril, or crises came upon them, they would more quickly and more fervently cling to His word and promises. For the days would come when He would no longer be with them in the flesh. The days would come when Christ would allow danger and peril to come on them. Christ would still be with them, just as He would promise them, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). But that did mean they would never experience danger, peril, or crises. In fact, the day would come when Christ would allow them even to fall into danger and perish by martyrdom. Christ exercised them in the boat, and throughout their lives, so that in all danger, they quickly calmed their hearts by faith, trusting in their Lord whom even the winds and the sea obey.
This is what our Lord Jesus would work in us as well. By this manifestation of His glory, He would teach us to more firmly believe that He is the Son of God. By this manifestation of His glory, He would also teach us to trust His word more confidently, especially in crises, peril, and danger. The example of the disciples—as well as the Patriarchs—remind us of what we so often see in ourselves. We believe in Christ. We know who He is, and we believe His promises. But when dangers appear, when life-threatening situations arise, our faith becomes small and little, so that we turn our eyes away from Christ’s promises and fix our gaze on the difficulties and dangers we face. How often we do we set aside Christ’s word so that we deal with the crises we face, only to return to thinking about God’s word after we have escaped or put out whatever was on fire? How often do we, like the Patriarchs, see the world’s wickedness and assume we must figure out a way to keep ourselves safe? How often do we, like the disciples, experience sudden difficulty, disaster, or tragedy and feel the anguish of hopeless?
It is in these moments of little faith that He exercises us, training us to look to Him first, to look to His promises and take comfort from them, whether the difficulty or danger lets up. Even in life-threatening situations—especially in these—He wants us to cling to the promises He has made to us in His word and when He baptized us. And He wants us to move quickly from fear to faith, from cowardice to confidence in His word. His word is true. His promises are sure and certain. In Him we have the forgiveness of sins. In Him we have the promise of everlasting life. In Him we have the promise that all things work together for the good—especially the eternal good—of those who love Him. He exercises us, so that in each danger and every peril we get to faith faster than before, more confidently than before, trusting more firmly in the promises He has given us in His word and sacraments than what we see with our eyes and feel within ourselves. May God grant this to us all.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
