Gospel Harmony Joy Note 16...

With those parables concluded, Jesus and his disciples leave.  Their departure is in Mathew 13: 53, 8:18, 23-27; Mark 4:35-41; and Luke 8:22-25.

I found it interesting that each author/scribe began the story in a different place, but all agree they left in a boat, there was a storm, the disciples were afraid, Jesus calmed the storm, Jesus asked why they would be afraid, and the disciples were awed at One who could command nature.

Mark is the only one who included the accusation of the disciples: "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?" (v. 38)

I can easily envision such a cry spoken to Jesus.  They were dying after all!  And, if I remember nothing else about the disciples, I remember their proclivity to think of their interests, their needs, their futures first.  They are men of flesh, after all!

Yet, this is one of the very reasons I love the Psalter so.  Those prayers have the same cry.  Psalm 77 is a perfect example, but there are many psalms where the petitioner asks God when He will remember him, how long it will be before he is rescued, etc.  And, I would proffer, some of the listings—detailed and or lengthy—listings of sorrows and afflictions and persecutions are, on some level, the same cry:  Do You not care that all of this is happening to me?

To me, Jesus calming the storm, was showing that He did, very much, care for them.

By this I mean, Jesus knew what was ahead for Him. He knew of His trial and suffering and death and resurrection.  For these He was born. No storm was going to kill Jesus first, drown Him first so that we would not be saved.  How silly!  No, how sweet!  Sweet, sweet Gospel.  Calming a storm for you.

I am trying, ever so hard, not to read these verses as rebuke to me:

And He said to them, "Why are you timid you men of little faith?" (Matthew 8:26)

"Why are you so timid?  How is it that you have no faith?" (Mark 4:40)

And He said to them, "Where is your faith?" (Luke 8:25)

Am I not the very epitome of timid?  Do I not struggle with fear and doubts and despair?  Do I now have the weakest of faith, at times?  Do I not spend the times writhing in agony nearly insensible?

Yet ... I noticed ... the word "rebuke" is used for how Jesus addressed the elements, the wind and the water.  It was not used when Jesus asked His disciples about their faith.  Nor, I noticed, was there any recordation of a back and forth, a continuing of a discussion of their faith.

In one account, Jesus calmed the storm first, before asking.  In two accounts, the question came after.  Thinking about that, I thought about Jesus asking the question if it is easier to tell someone his sins are forgiven or to heal a person and then saying healing the paralytic so that others might know who He was.

So, was the storm not an opportunity to assess the disciples faith, to test them and see if they were yet faithful enough, but rather another opportunity for they and mankind to know that Jesus is God.

Thinking, too, about ours being a received faith, I thought that is was Jesus faith that kept calm in the midst of such turmoil, calm enough to sleep.  It is that faith I have received.  So, when I am timid, I still have His calm, His faith.

For me.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!