From Helen
I don’t know about you but I get really fed up of people going on and on about their holidays ! I would never do that ... well, clearly I do but today I want to think about one of the most amazing places I have been which is by the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee can go from really peaceful and gentle to the most ferocious of waves and storms in no time at all. This is what happened to Jesus and the disciples in the gospel reading this morning (Luke 8:22-25) you can imagine a nice bit of quiet as they went across the sea, as they had done so many times before.
Then of course the water got stormy, and the boat was bounced around. Now the disciples had been with Jesus, they had seen Jesus do amazing things and they had followed him, safe in the knowledge that somehow with Him life was going to be better, but then this storm happened. Worst of all they turned and looked at Jesus and He was asleep. Understandably they woke Jesus up looking to Him to sort out the situation as He always did.
It is almost a bit comical when you picture the disciples all in a fuss and stress and then Jesus just wakes up and is remarkably relaxed !!! To be fair I don’t think any of us would have been very happy with this !
The disciples must have been very frustrated, particularly when Jesus responded to the situation by doing two things that were more than a little unusual.
Firstly, he calmed the water and then he asked them where their faith had been. The disciples had experienced some type of faith and this is why they were following Jesus in the first place and why they had left everything to do so, they had seen Jesus do some incredible things and yet in the midst of a difficult situation they managed to forget all of this.
Then Jesus asked them where had their faith gone ? Where was their faith ? I can understand a lack of faith at this moment but for the disciples there was a clear need to trust in Jesus, and when they did, He helped them. For us, things are no different – if we trust, Jesus will listen. In the middle of the darkest situations Jesus will be there caring for us, supporting us and strengthening us even when we find it hard to believe He is with us.
After Jesus calmed the storm He said to the disciples “Let us go across to the other side of the lake’. Again, the disciples must surely have thought, are you serious ? We are safe now but we have seen how this water can get ! But Jesus called them and again they needed to be able to trust Him.
I am sure you know the hymn, “Trust and obey.” In that hymn we sing trust and obey, trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”
I always think it almost sounds as if, “ obey God or He will be coming out to get you, you won’t be happy unless you trust Him” It is not that at all, it is just that God who made us, who knows all our fears and concerns knows what we need and so when He calls us to do something that seems frightening we can trust Him.
Into the disciples darkest, scariest moment Jesus was there, a little more relaxed than they would have liked but there all the same. It is the same for us, when Jesus tells us to cross to the other side it is not some strange thing to do, it is moving closer and closer to God.
When we get closer to God so we allow Him to change us, we learn to throw ourselves into the arms of His love. A great big cwtch from God, something we all need. There is no other way but to trust and obey, to seek to be more like Jesus.
Even when things don’t make sense for us we need to place our lives into the hands of God knowing that He loves us. For the disciples, they had been in a frightening situation, probably wondering why they had ever trusted Jesus but then just as everything settled down He called them to go back into the boat.
It is not often that you hear someone saying that we need to go across to the other side in a sermon but I do actually think that we need to go over to the other side.
Of course not in some spooky type of way but in being prepared to take a leap of faith and to follow Jesus wherever He leads trusting Him that He will be with us as we go to Him
For the disciples they had just been frightened and Jesus had helped them. He then encouraged them to continue in their journey with Him. Even though it meant staying in the boat, after all they could have said, “no, lets go back to what we know, let’s go back to where we are comfortable, and forget that this incident ever happened.”
However, they followed Jesus to something new, they trusted, they obeyed and they went with Jesus.
I know that it is not always easy to trust in God, I am sure that we all have times when we feel like the disciples, we feel like we are sinking underneath the pressures that life throws at us. These are the times when it is not so easy to trust in God. These are times that require a measure of faith from us, but we need to stay with Jesus and go across to the other side.
Faith is not easy, you can’t really define it but it is our belief in the God who we know we can trust who is waiting to give us a big cwtch.
No matter what happens, no matter how hard it is to trust, no matter what storms we go through we can know that God is with us waiting for us to turn to Him.
Trust and obey, trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.
May we always be ready to turn to God and His love knowing there’s a big cwtch waiting for us.
AMEN
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