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And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"
- Matthew 8:18-27
We have just finished reading through the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). In yesterday's reading, we were told that when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him." The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go, and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you." And his servant was healed that same hour. Now when Jesus had come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother lying sick with a fever. So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them. When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."
And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." A note here in my study bible tells us: "Since the term Son of Man refers to the Messiah (Daniel 7:13), it expresses both His humanity and His divinity. Here it refers to Christ's human condition; in 25:31-33 it describes His divine authority."
Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead." My study bible says here that Jesus doesn't negate the command to honor parents, but rather He's teaching us to put the things of the Kingdom as our highest priority. It says, "Those who ignore this priority are spiritually dead."
Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us! We are perishing!" But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?" Jesus' mastery over creation is yet another sign of His divinity -- my study bible says it's yet another sign that He is the Messiah. "Commands to the sea and waves can only be issued by God (Job 38:8-11; Psalms 65:5-6; 106:9). Jesus was asleep because, as a man, he needed rest. In His Incarnation, He assumed all the natural actions of the flesh, of which sleep is one. The image of Christ and His disciples in a boat is traditionally used to illustrate the Church. God both permits storms and delivers us through them, so that we can see His protection more clearly. Christ's rebuke of the storm is also an illustration of His calming the tempests in the human soul."
Perhaps one of the most truly awe-inspiring things about Jesus, as Son of Man, is just this juxtaposition of both the Divine and the human. He is not just a man of miracles, extraordinary acts of healing, even "rebuking" the winds and the sea in the same way He would "rebuke" a chaotic demon (the Greek uses the same word), but -- as we read in yesterday's reading, in the quotation from Isaiah -- He is also a man of afflictions. The first statement we read in today's Gospel reading about the Son of Man is that He has nowhere to lay His head. Loyalty to Christ, to this Divine-man, is going to require that we, too, follow in His footsteps, and that perhaps we, too, will have to bear affliction as He does. As He will say later on in Matthew's Gospel, the disciple or student isn't greater than the Teacher, nor the servant greater than the Master. And to be loyal to this Master is also to put no one, and nothing else, above Him, above His call to us. If you think about what lonely places those might be (say, apart from family), it is a strong call of loyalty indeed. We may somehow, each one of us, also look like that Man of afflictions, one smitten by God, even as we take on others' burdens in His name. This nearly incredible juxtaposition of the afflicted and the ultimately powerful, the Source of the miraculous, is the true measure of Jesus, the Incarnation of God into our world. It is all to teach us something, to give us a sense of just what loyalty may be required of us, even in following the One of afflictions -- and also to see Him in the afflicted, and to remember His compassion. All of this is included in our faith, the source of endless paradox, of those things so far beyond our worldly understanding as to inspire us to keep going, in His Way, on the path of His leading. The road is infinite, but let us remember the gate is narrow. His Way may be difficult, but we are not to think like the world; perfection in His eyes may seem like affliction in ours. This is His truth that we seek to live when we truly follow the Master.
