Lord, save us! We are perishing!

 

 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 

 

Yesterday we read 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." Jesus uses the term Son of Man here.  My study Bible comments that since "Son of Man" refers to the Messiah (in Daniel 7:13), it expresses both Christ's humanity and His divinity.  Here He is referring to His human condition.  See Matthew 25:21-33 where Christ uses the term to describe 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 explains that Jesus is not negating the command to honor parents, but rather teaches us to put the things of the Kingdom as the highest priority.  It says that 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?"   One more sign of Christ's divinity, and that He is the Messiah, is His mastery over creation.  This is linked to the miraculous healings and other signs He performs.  My study Bible notes that commands to the sea and waves can only be given by God (Job 38:8-11; Psalms 66:5-6, 107:29).  Jesus was asleep, showing His humanity, as He needed rest.  In the Incarnation, Christ assumes all of the natural actions of the flesh, of which sleep is one.  My study Bible adds that the image of Christ and His disciples in a boat is a traditional depiction of the Church.  It says that God both permits storms and delivers us through them, so that we can see God's protection more clearly.  Jesus' rebuke of the storm is also an illustration of His calming of the tempests in the human soul; this event is in itself a depiction of the actions of Christ setting our lives in order and calming us under duress.

This image of Christ in a boat on the waters, with the panicking disciples in the boat with Him, summons up many ideas regarding our faith.  There is first of all the consideration that Creation itself comes out of the waters in Genesis.  One strong association with those waters of the creation story in Genesis is not that they are the waters of ocean and sea that we know, but that they are symbols given to us of chaos.  Genesis 1:2 tells us, "The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."  These senses of being "without form" and "void," and the "darkness on the face of the deep" are descriptions of chaos, something without order.  And it is the Lord who puts things in order; this is especially understood in Christ's identity as Logos, translated as "Word" but meaning so much more.  John's Gospel begins with a parallel to Genesis, and opens in ways related to the chaos which is organized into Creation.  We read (in John 1:1-5), "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."  Christ's identity as Logos names Him as One without whom "nothing was made that was made," as "life" and also the "light" that "shines in the darkness."  We can see all of these things in the creation story, and we can see them in the life of Jesus, and in how Jesus impacts our own lives.  So when Jesus, asleep in the boat (as God often seems to us), arises at the urgent behest of his panicking disciples in order to calm the chaos on the face of these dark waters -- a chaos that is threatening their very lives -- we can imagine the understanding that parallels what God does in Genesis, that suggests that in Christ is the presence of the Logos, the organizing principle of all life.  For these first century Jewish disciples, there is little doubt of these associations with the Genesis story.  This is why we also should understand these stories about Christ not as simple metaphors, but rather as stories that teach us what Christ does and who Christ is -- and possibly, most importantly for ourselves, what Christ's actions can be like in every aspect of our own lives.  It is a reality that permeates many dimensions without barrier or limit.  We pray in the midst of our troubles just as the disciples plead with Christ to save them from what seems like sure destruction enveloping them.  We pray to be saved from physical danger, spiritual danger, emotional danger, and even mental danger when we are overwhelmed with all forms of chaos.  In Twelve Step programs, it is reliance on a "Higher Power" (language reduced from the original Christian inspiration that began this movement in its infancy) that helps bring order out of the chaos that addictions bring into human lives, families, and communities.  We rely on Christ to set us aright, to lead us out of danger when we're out on a limb, to teach us how to build our home on the rock that is the true solid foundation for strengths and good order (Matthew 7:24-27).  When times arrive, as they inevitably will, in which chaos makes an appearance in our lives, we should consider all the meanings present in this scene and the depiction of Christ and the disciples on the stormy waters -- as an image of the Church in the world, and Christ's work in us.