Tags
In the beginning of verse 24 it sounds a lot like me when I’m in trouble. “The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”” In the beginning of verse 25 I’m sure Jesus says the same thing to me that He says to the disciples, “Where is your faith?”. Then in the final part of verse 25 where the disciples seem surprised and say “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” It sounds a lot like me again where I seem surprised at His capabilities. I can be a real knucklehead sometimes (ok, often…). God may seem like he’s asleep a lot of times and that He really doesn’t care about what is going on in my life. The truth is God is very much an active participant; I just need to acknowledge His presence and be more expectant of Him.
The storm. I love this story as of late. Here you have this huge storm on the lake. The boat is rocking like crazy. The guys are trying to stay afloat. They know that they could die. I imagine they are using whatever they can use to get water out of the boat. They are soaked to the bone. They are screaming orders and commands at each other to raise some type of coordinated effort to survive this thing. And Jesus is conked out. I mean, out. So I imagine myself in this situation. I’m working my tail off to make sure we don’t die and one of people in my group is asleep! Are you kidding me?! He’s not doing his part! (I’m all about fairness:)) See, I used to think that the guys woke him up because they knew he could calm the storm. But you see right after he does the miracle they are looking at each other like, “Whoa. What was that? We’ve seen him do other miracles, but even nature does what he says…uh…” They are dumbfounded. I mean, these guys have a history of not getting it. Yeah, they’d been around Jesus, but in story after story, we see that they are just clueless. So I wonder if the only reason they woke him up was because they needed another set of hands. That’s all they thought they needed. Little did they know how much more they really needed. Little did they know how much more Jesus could provide than what they were asking him for. How often is my faith and trust that small? I fear it is too often.
I believe that the beginning of this chapter was included to show us how Jesus was preparing His disciples for their work after He was gone. The last part of verse 1 says, The twelve were with Him. Then, Luke goes into the parable of the sower and the seeds. I believe He told this parable for the disciples benefit. He wanted them to know that their work wouldn’t always reap success. That sometimes, the gospel would fall on deaf ears, but they needed to keep on sowing anyway. I believe this is a great example of Jesus’ intentional leadership with His disciples as He prepared them for their work.