Life Project Blog

Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”

Matthew 8:23-27

In the last section, Jesus denied the anonymous disciple’s request to go and bury his father, then they went into the boats to cross the Sea of Galilee; the timing of this is no coincidence. As so often happens in that region, a storm came upon the Sea of Galilee very suddenly, they were awash in the winds and waves, but Jesus was sleeping, at peace.

His disciples, including several professional fishermen who knew these waters well, became alarmed; they were in a precarious situation. They awakened Jesus asking for Him to “do something”. His reply is telling: “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”  If I try to imagine myself in the disciples’ shoes here, Jesus seems a bit out of touch with the perils of the moment; the disciples’ fears seem entirely rational to me… but from Jesus’ point of view, they seem almost silly. Jesus was the very coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, He is on official “God business”, God’s own Son, and so are the disciples; is God going to allow a storm to destroy His eternal plans?

Not a chance.

Jesus essentially tells the storm to knock it off, and the storm abates; the winds and waves are calm once again… and the disciples are blown away.

Let’s regroup:

1. Jesus told the disciple to “let the dead bury their own dead” and didn’t allow him to take time off for the burial.

2. They took to the boats to cross the Sea, and when the disciples were afraid of a sudden storm, they found Jesus sleeping through it peacefully.

3. When awakened by the frantic disciples, Jesus asks them why they were afraid, and tells the storm to abate.

4. The disciples wonder just who and what this Jesus is.

With these material facts, we can ascertain the following:

1. The disciples’ lack of faith came from the fact that they didn’t comprehend who and what Jesus was, and as a consequence, they didn’t comprehend what sort of mission they were part of.

2. That disciple who wanted to bury his father was in a storm of a different kind, a storm socially, for he wasn’t doing his earthly duty as a son. I can only imagine what the folks back home were saying about him running off with this Jesus guy. Thus, I’m guessing that at that precise moment, his mind was in a bit of turmoil, yet Jesus, who completely understood the larger picture, was entirely at peace.

3. The storm on the lake illustrates a much larger reality for those of us who read this account, for it not only was a literal meteorological event; it illustrates the storms of this life.

Therefore, as followers of Jesus, we can weather even the most furious of storms by placing our lives fully in God’s hands, as Jesus was doing, secure in the knowledge that as we serve Him, God will see us through to accomplish His perfect will in spite of the cost or social consequences.

The real question for us is this: Will we trust God with our lives or will we be battered about by the storms of life?

…comes with a cost.

When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Matthew 8:18-22

In the last post, I mentioned what we discovered about Peter, and what it apparently cost him to drop his fishing nets and follow Jesus; in these verses, we see the cost again in two brief examples. The first of these is the teacher of the law who declared his intention to follow Jesus where ever He might go. Jesus’ reaction to this declaration is interesting, don’t you think?

He might have said, “Great friend, we’re delighted to have you along on the journey,” but His reaction was quite different. No, the Son of Man had no home, for He had given all of that up to do His Father’s will; fair warning for the teacher of the law. Right at the moment, I cannot recall that any of the Twelve were this teacher of the law, can you?

The second example is a tough one, for here we have a “disciple” requesting leave to “bury my father” before heading off across the lake. There is nothing in the text  to indicate a bad motive, neither is there anything that would tell us that this disciple (whoever he was) is seeking anything more than to accomplish the sacred duty of a son that the Law required of him. In other words, this was a very reasonable request for him to make. Yet Jesus didn’t say what we might expect, something like, “OK, give my best to your family and meet us at such and such a place day after tomorrow.” Instead, Jesus says, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

This may seem a little harsh, and in a sense, maybe it is, but Jesus is going about the business of His Father, and so are His disciples; there is no “leave of absence” from the calling of God.

His remark about “the dead” burying the dead refers to the recognition that there are many people who are spiritually dead, who are not following God’s call to do His will on earth; they have time on their hands. Notice the strong implication that if we are spiritually alive, we have a calling to serve God. It would seem that there is no such thing as a follower of Christ who does not have a calling, even though some might think otherwise.

So, what is the cost of following Jesus? It is leaving the things of this world behind and really following Him.