In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
1 Jesus stilled the storm that threatened His disciples’ lives, but so what? That does not mean He has promised to still every storm that threatens to capsize your little boat. Sometimes He does, sometimes He doesn’t. Sometimes He stills your financial storm, and you get caught up on your bills. Sometimes the storm never seems to abate. Sometimes He quiets the squalls that ravage your body, restoring you to full health again; sometimes the storm never seems to abate. Sometimes He calms the waves that rock your family, restoring unity between mother and father, giving peace to siblings; sometimes the storm never seems to abate.
2 What do you do when the storm surge never lessens, when the cancer progresses, when the tempest rages, when the addiction continues, when the wind destroys, when the unemployment checks stop, when the waves won’t relent, when the judge doesn’t understand, when the boat is filling with water, when the one you trusted hurts you the most, when all hope seems lost? What do you do when your prayers seem to go unanswered? How do you react when the godless seem to thrive, while those entrusted to the care of the Heavenly Father seem to do much worse, suffer greater trials and persecutions, endure greater hardships and heartbreaks? What do you do when Jesus seems to be sound asleep in the stern, on the steering cushion? Even then, pray, “Lord, save us; we are perishing.”
3 Jesus’ rebuke to the disciples is perhaps more stinging than the rain, more dangerous that the gales. Why are you so afraid, you littlefaiths? That’s a word Jesus made up: littlefaiths. It’s not a nice expression, more akin to the childish names given to playmates: bignose, fathead, chickenlegs. Hey, you littlefaith disciples, quit being such cowards. It’s a stinging rebuke, but one that is good to hear. What are you so afraid of, littlefaiths? The disciples’ fear seemed genuinely founded on a real concern. The storm could have sunk their boat. They could have died. So what? Fear is not a thing. It exists only in your head. It is only a reaction to an external threat. Jesus rebukes fear in His disciples because fear is shortsighted and misses the real goal of faith.
4 What are you so afraid of, littlefaiths? Disease? Pain? Heartbreak? Infidelity? Violence? Suffering? Loss? Hunger? Poverty? Sacrifice? Shortage? Missed opportunity? Death? So what? What can any of those things do to you? “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can begainst us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died- more than that, who was raised- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:31-39).
5 Jesus does care: He sleeps. The Incarnate God, the Holy God who watches over Israel and neither slumbers nor sleeps, who became God-in-Human-Flesh whose body needs sleep just as yours does, cares. He has taken human flesh, the kind of flesh that sleeps when it is fatigued after a day of preaching and teaching and a night spent in prayer. God has human flesh. That He sleeps is proof that He cares. He cares enough to take human flesh fully and completely. He has human flesh so that He can bear humanity’s sinfulness and die on the cross in the place of every sinner. A God who sleeps is a God who can die. For you. He cares.
6 The disciples would grow no longer to fear death. These cowardly little faiths, these men in the boat, would become martyrs, not flinching from the cross, sword, spear, torch, knife, stone, or other instrument of death. So what? They were willing to give their lives in confession of the faith because death is powerless. Who cares if they died? Their Lord, who died, rose. And He promised them—and you—resurrection. Death is lame. It has no power over you.
7 Once you can acknowledge that you are not in control, you are free to receive God’s gift of faith. He does care. He drowned you in Holy Baptism, plunged you under the sea of His mercy, put to death your sinful flesh and joined you into the death and resurrection of Jesus. He does care. He cares enough to give you new life, life that endures, life that is more powerful that anything that could cause you fear. Having been drowned in and raised from the ocean of Holy Baptism, what can the turbulent seas of life do to you? Nothing.
8 Jesus does care. His answer to your prayer, “Lord save us,” the same prayer—Hosanna—prayed by the crowds lining the way into Jerusalem, is to do just that: save you. He does. He cares. Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord; blessed is He who comes in His real Body and Blood to save you from sin and death. Even when the storms of life seem to rage, this remains constant: Jesus feeds you with His Body and Blood, the very medicine of immortality, to preserve you beyond death, to give you life that cannot be ended by any storm, even the little sleep of death. Who is this that wind and wave and bread and wine obey? Your Lord, the Creator, who has given His life for yours, so that nothing can separate you from His love, neither your sin, nor death. As certainly as He feeds you with His real Body and Blood today, He will raise your real body from the corruption of death, free from every storm it has ever weathered, on the Day of His return, when the One who slept in the boat will wake you from the sleep of death. Until then, blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. Hosanna, Lord save us; we are perishing.
In the Name of the Father and of the ? Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Soli Deo Gloria
Pastor Jeff Hemmer
Hope, Jerseyville