The
disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The majority may well have been
fishermen by profession. They were used to being out on the water. They had
experienced the quickly appearing storms in the area. They knew what had to be
done. Jesus was asleep in the boat. Wake him up! (Luke 8:22-25)
We are given
no details as to the efforts of the disciples to save the boat before they woke
up Jesus. They had tried what they knew and they were still sinking. Who knows
what they expected Jesus to do? Maybe he was to add his own two arms to the
bailing process or help hold the rigging tight against the wind. Whatever their
expectations were, they wanted Jesus awake and aware of their circumstances.
“I can do
it” constitutes one of the first full sentences learned by toddlers it seems. Deep
within our spirits there is the drive to be independent. We can do it
ourselves. We can handle this without any outside help. It’s the old “by your
own bootstraps” philosophy of self-reliance. Then we meet the storm that is
bigger than we are.
The storm
may be financial in nature. It may be a family relationship crisis. Disease or
illness may strike with complete surprise. We are left struggling to find the
resources to deal with it. Finances. Wisdom. Physical strength. When all we
have is not enough, what is our next recourse?
This drive
to be independent and self-reliant tells us not to wake up Jesus. We are sure
there is a solution that will not require us to admit we don’t have the
resources to meet the challenge. We will still be able to say we handled it
ourselves. We did it our way. We don’t need God. We don’t have to wake up
Jesus.
Experienced
though they were, the disciples knew they had met their match in that gale on
the Sea of Galilee. They may have been experienced, but the wisdom gained in
earlier situations served to alert them to the truth they were confronting
something beyond their control.
We will
never know what those disciples expected Jesus to do when they awakened him in
the midst of the storm. All we get to read is their cry for help and
understanding, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (Mark 4:38) The gospel
writer Mark’s record emphasized simply the disciples wanted company in their
misery, “Master, don’t you care?”
How many
times have we seen people suffer and perhaps even sink beneath the load because
they would not seek or accept help? Becoming independent is a part of growing
up. We need to learn what we can and should be doing on our own. There are
matters in life which are our responsibility to handle and complete. There are
issues which we must decide on our own.
We are also
called to use wisdom to recognize when we are up against something we cannot
handle alone. We were never intended to be independent and solo creatures. We
need cooperation. We need community. We need each other. Ultimately we need to
recognize we need God.
Too often we
still revert back to our demand for independence. We point to natural causes as
major influences in our lives and develop ways of dealing with them. We point
to human influences in our daily existence and learn methods of making the best
out of those relationships. There are even times when we are forced to say we
don’t know what is going on, and then we try to rationalize something to
satisfy our natural demand for an answer. We’ll do anything to keep from waking
up Jesus.
We cannot
ignore him. He is there, maybe seemingly asleep, but he is there, and he knows
everything is under control. If we need him, if our perception of life’s
situations leaves us trembling with fear, he is there. In the midst of the
storm all we have to do is wake up Jesus. He has it all under control. He
brings peace to the storm, especially the one in our souls.
