In the Boat with You

The three-hour trip to the other side of the lake started out peacefully enough. The sun was shining and in the warm afternoon sun, several fell asleep including Jesus. Then the wind and waves came up, and the boat took on a lot of water. But Jesus was
still asleep, his head pillowed in a spare sail as he was rocked back and forth by the waves, the water sloshing underneath him in the bottom of the boat. Then one of the disciples yelled "Master, wake up! Don't you care that we're all doing to die?"

Jesus awoke, looking a bit surprised at the change in the weather and even more so at their distress. "Peace, be still!" he called out, in a calm voice, commanding the weather to obey him. The wind ceased as though a door had shut, and in a moment, the waves slowed and returned to a rhythm normal for the middle of a large lake. The disciples were shocked and awed.  They had seen the master perform miracles before, but this one affected them directly instead of someone they were observing. "Who is this man?" they wondered.

"Who this is," of course, is what Luke is showing in chapters 7 and 8 of his gospel. Jesus is someone who could heal from a distance with a word (7:1-10), raise a dead person (7:11-15), heal many illnesses and cast out demons and preach good news (7:21-22), forgive sins (7:36-50), command the elements of nature (8:22-25) command multitudes of evil spirits, and they obeyed him (8:26-39), and heal a longstanding illness, as well as raise another person from the dead (8:40-56).

Who is this? Well, it's the one who came into the physical universe and joined our human flesh, who lived among us as the perfect human, the perfect worshipper of his Father, and was murdered by our own selfish humanity as we jealously turned him over to the authorities for execution. He's the one who rose from the dead on the third day in a new type of body -- still one we could see and touch and relate to, but immortal and unchangeable. This is the one who rose into the clouds 40 days later, to sit in a throne of all power and authority at his Father's right hand -- and who took us with him because we are "in Christ" and that was his plan from before the beginning (Eph 1:3-14). This is the one who will come again in power and glory to make his kingdom complete and eternal, and eliminate all other rebellious rule by people who think they know better than God.

The one who did all that, and will come again in even greater power, was in the boat with the disciples, and he says that he will always be with us as well (Mat. 28:20).  So when we're in the fishing boat or some other crisis and the water is coming in over the side, where is Jesus? He's right there with us. Even if we think he's asleep, he hasn't gone anywhere. He will always save us -- even if we don't understand his method -- because we belong to him and nothing can take us from his hands.

He's right there in the boat with you, right now. And he will take care of whatever storm is filling up your boat right now. You can count on it.