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Sunday 23 February 2025 Second Sunday before Lent
The unsinkable saviour
Luke 8:22-25
Context: a Eucharist in a rural church beside the sea – the congregation are mostly older with a variety of people regularly joining us on holiday
Aim: to assure us that in life’s storms we won’t sink beneath the waves
I wonder if you’ve ever seen the sea at its most stormy, most ferocious and chaotic? Perhaps you’ve looked out at the bay on days like that, the waves crashing against the rocks. Perhaps you’ve been at sea in such a storm, thrown about upon the waves. The sea is powerful and unpredictable, impossible to control. We’ve mastered many aspects of nature but not the sea.
As impressive as storms are to watch from afar, it’s a very different story when you’re caught up in one. The men in this boat with Jesus are accomplished fishermen, they’re used to these waters and all that it can throw at them. The fact that they’re so afraid gives us some insight into just how big and how dangerous this particular storm is.
They’re terrified, there’s nothing to secure themselves to, everything is in flux, the waves crashing over the side, the spray peppering their faces. The risks aren’t just loss of property or serious injury, their very lives are at risk.
Sometimes our lives can feel like we’re caught in a raging storm. Everything seems to be spiralling out of control, and we can’t get a grip to reign it back in. We’re thrown this way and that as the things we relied on for safety and reassurance are stripped away. Everything is in flux, nothing is fixed.
When it feels like everything is falling apart. When you were having a nice time on the lake and now your boat feels like it’s going to sink as you bail out bucket after bucket, there’s something important this passage teaches us. The boat won’t sink with Jesus in it.
THE BOAT WON’T SINK
The storm raging about the boat is huge, the disciples are terrified, yet Jesus is fast asleep. Is he unaware of the storm? Is he a heavy sleeper and can sleep through anything? Perhaps, but there’s something greater going on here; Jesus knows that the boat won’t sink with him in it. With God, the Lord of all creation, in the boat, it can’t be pulled beneath the waves. As big as the storm gets, as out of control as it feels, the boat won’t sink, for Jesus is in it.
Yes, when woken Jesus stills the waves and the wind, but not because he has to save them. He does so because the disciples need reminding just who is in the boat, just who their master is; the one whom even the wind and waves obey. They were just as safe in the storm as they are now in the calm.
In our storms, when the waves are crashing over the boat of our lives and it feels we’ll sink without a trace, when everything is in flux and there’s no fixed point. Remember that as Christians, Jesus is in the boat with us, he promised to be with us always, and it won’t sink with him onboard.
KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS
They say if you’re nervous on a flight to look at the cabin crew. They’re used to flying, if they’re calm, you can be calm. In much the same way we’re to fix our eyes on Jesus. When everything else is uncertain and changing, Jesus remains the same as he was yesterday and will be forever, a fixed point to steady our gaze.
And what do the disciples see in the boat as they look at Jesus? He’s fast asleep, he’s so secure, so assured that all will be well that he isn’t even bothering to be awake to keep an eye. The boat won’t sink.
And what will we see when we fix our eyes on Jesus in our storms? Jesus, stood at the right hand of the Father, fully in control, guiding us through them.
When the storms of life are raging, two things remain certain. Jesus is still in full control, even if we aren’t, even if the storms don’t calm as soon as we would wish. With Jesus in the boat, it cannot sink, even in the very worst of storms we will ride them out together, and he will bring us safely to that eternal shore.
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Issue 195: Speaking of Last Things
