Is Jesus asleep or are you?

Is Jesus asleep in the boat or are you and I asleep?  I received this sermon from the Christian Magazine, Whosoever,  titled, “Jesus, Wake Up“.  And loved it.  The text that forms the basis of the sermon is from Matthew 8:23-27 (NET Bible)

As he [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him.  And a great storm developed on the sea so that the waves began to swamp the boat. But he was asleep. So they came and woke him up saying, “Lord, save us! We are about to die!” But he said to them, “Why are you cowardly, you people of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was dead calm. And the men were amazed and said, “What sort of person is this? Even the winds and the sea obey him!”

Some backstory and context for you:

• The Disciples were professional fisherman by trade.  They knew the Sea of Galilee well
• Just prior to this event, the Disciples had seen Jesus: Cleanse a leper (Mt 8:1), Heal a Roman Army Centurion servant (Mt 8:5), and heal Peter’s Mother-in-Law (Mt 8:14).  So they had seen what kind of power their simple friend and teacher, Jesus, had.
• Since the boat held all the disciples, it was probably very large
• The disciples followed Jesus even though they did not know all about him yet.

So what about the sermon?  Well it’s great, and you should click over to take a read with your afternoon latte, but here are some teasers:

• We can’t blame ourselves, however, if we often forget who holds the greatest power in our universe. As we survey our world, we see many opulent displays of human power – nuclear weapons, terrorist bombs, loaded guns, and armored vehicles. These are certainly powerful enough to bring destruction to our world and perhaps annihilate our world all together. Yet, not one of them is as powerful as the God we serve.
• We are like the disciples who, panic-stricken, accused Jesus of not caring about their fate.
• Thomas Merton tells us that “to keep ourselves spiritually alive we must constantly renew our faith. We are like pilots of fogbound steamers, peering into the gloom in front of us, listening to the sounds of other ships, and we can only reach our harbor if we keep alert.
• When things are going well in life it’s easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, believing nothing bad can befall us again. We have fallen asleep at the wheel and we awake in a panic when the storms of life begin to blow. We wonder where God is and if we have been abandoned to the waves that threaten to capsize our boat. We accuse God of being asleep – leaving us to be swallowed up by our problems.

Is Jesus asleep or are each of us?  Read the sermon at Whosever to find the answer.  Click to the Whosoever site at this link here: “Jesus, Wake Up!“

(Photo courtesy of Shayan’s Photos)