Sleeping Through Storms
In Luke 8:22, Jesus has just finished an exhausting day of ministry, and the only way he could get away from the crowds who were clamoring around him was to climb into a fishing boat and sail across the Sea of Galilee, under the cover of darkness, to a remote area on the other side of the lake.
So, Jesus stepped into the boat and said to his disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side.” He then collapsed onto a cushion at the back of the vessel and fell asleep. Now this obviously wasn’t the only time that Jesus slept, but it is the only time in the Bible that we see him sleeping -- so it’s significant!
As their small boat sliced through the choppy waters of the Sea of Galilee, the wind started to pick up, and soon gale force winds were sweeping across the lake. The waves that were gently rocking their little fishing vessel a few moments before, were now crashing over the sides of their boat and threatening to sink it.
The disciples went into full crisis mode. Peter, James, and John were veteran sailors; in fact, they were probably in one of Peter's boats. But this storm was so violent, that even these veteran sailors couldn't control the ship. If someone had snapped a picture of that moment and posted it on Facebook, we’d see the disciples drenched in rain, some of them straining at the oars, others clinging to the sides of the boat so they wouldn't be thrown out, and still others frantically bailing out water -- and of course Peter holding onto the mast and shouting orders, trying to keep his ship from sinking.
But in the middle of all that chaos and mayhem, we’d see Jesus sleeping in 4 inches of water at the back of the boat as it pitched and lurched through the waves. There was lightning cracking, thunder roaring, and men yelling at the top of their voices; and yet, there was Jesus, sleeping through it all. It was a surreal moment for the disciples, and when they couldn't take it any longer, they woke Jesus up saying, “Master, Master, we’ re going to drown!” The Gospel of Mark adds, “Don’t you care?”
Who is This?
I think most of us know exactly how those disciples felt when they saw Jesus sleeping through the storm -- because when we are in the middle of a mess and God is silent, our natural reaction is to panic, to shake our fist at heaven and to accuse God of not caring. Just like the disciples, we can’t imagine that there could be any other reason why Jesus wouldn't swoop in and rescue us from the mess we are in!
Storms have a way of revealing whether our faith has any depth. If our faith is weak and shallow, we will assume the worst about Jesus when he is sleeping through our storm. We’ll say things like, “If you gave a rip about me, you wouldn't let me go through something like this. And if you don’t give a rip about me, then I don't give a rip about you.” And then we set our jaw and turn our backs on God.
But notice what Jesus did and what he said when the disciples woke him up. The disciples went and woke him saying, “Master, Master, we are going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging water; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement, they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him” (Luke 8:24-25).
When the disciples woke Jesus up from his nap, he first rebuked the storm and then he rebuked the disciples. He told the storm, “Be quiet!” And the wind stopped and the waters became calm. And then Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, “Where is your faith?” Why are you panicking? Why are you so angry? You see, they were in a boat with the Son of God! God’s Messiah was taking a nap in the stern of their vessel. If they had just let that truth sink in for a moment, they would’ve realized that there wasn’t a safer place on this planet for them to be than in that boat with Jesus, in the middle of a raging storm!
So why did they panic? Why did disciples assume the worst about Jesus’s motives? Why did they accuse him of not caring? Well, the answer is, they did all of these things because in the middle of this storm, they forgot who was in the boat with them -- and they forgot who Jesus is!
Did you notice what they said when Jesus rebuked the storm like it was some yapping dog, and the wind and waves cowered and obeyed him? They said, who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” You see, they didn't need to be rescued from this storm; they needed to be rescued from their shallow faith. They needed to be rescued from a faith that forgets who Jesus is every time a storm blows through life.
You see, if the water and waves obey Jesus’ commands, then Jesus is God! And if Jesus is God in the flesh, then the safest place that you and I can be in the middle of a storm, is in the boat with Jesus! Because Jesus holds you and your storm in the palm of his hand. You are an indestructible force for God in this world, as long as you are in a boat with Jesus. The safest place you can be in this world when a storm hits is in the boat with Jesus! And the most dangerous place you can be in this world when a storm is raging through your life, is on the shore without Jesus.
And if you walk away from Jesus in anger because he let some hardships come into your life, that’s exactly where you are: on a peaceful shore without Jesus. And that’s the worst place in the world that you could be!
Sleeping Through Storms
Though Peter didn’t get this at first, he later came to understand that the safest place that he could be when a storm hits was in the boat with Jesus. Before Jesus left this world, he told Peter in John 21 that when he was old, he was going to face the storm of martyrdom and die for his faith. A few years later, in Acts 12, Peter was arrested by a scoundrel named King Herod. He was put in Herod’s prison and sentenced to have his head cut off the next morning.
Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty serious storm to me. So how did Peter react to that storm? Well, he did what Jesus did in Luke 8. In the middle of one of the greatest storms in his life, Peter laid down on Herod's cold, hard prison floor, and slept like a baby.
You see Jesus had told Peter that he would die as a martyr when he was old; but wasn’t old yet. He was still a middle-aged man when Herod arrested him. Peter didn't know what was going to happen, but he knew this: he was in the boat with Jesus in the middle of a storm, and there was no safer place for him to be. So, he pillowed his head on the promise of God and fell asleep.
Later that night, God sent an angel to break him out of Herod’s prison, and he was sleeping so soundly that the angel had to slap him on the side to wake him up. You see, if you are going through a storm, your natural reaction is to want to get out of the boat and escape the storm. But what Peter learned was, there’s no safer place to be in the middle of a storm, than in a boat with Jesus. And you’ll never really know that truth, until you stay in the boat and ride out a storm with Jesus!
