Tuesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 30, 2020

Matthew 8:23-27

As Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by waves; but he was asleep. They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” He said to them, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”

Immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, St. Matthew presents several miracles in quick succession, each of which showing a different aspect of the Law-giver’s power, and together which validate his teachings in the three preceding chapters of this Gospel.  So far we have seen him heal a leper, which shows his power to heal.  Next, he heal’s the centurion’s slave, which makes clear that the Lord can heal from a distance.  Following that, he heals Peter’s mother-in-law and then a large number of the sick.  This reveals that his power cannot be exhausted.  In the reading for today, we see the Lord Jesus calming a storm, and here we see particularly his power over the forces of nature.  

“Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea.”  The Sea of Galilee is about 13 miles long by 8 miles wide, and is a freshwater lake.  At its deepest point, it is about 140 feet in depth, almost half the length of an American football field.  The boat in which the Apostles and Jesus were traveling would have been about twenty feet long.  A storm coming upon a fishing boat in the middle of the lake poses a mortal threat to all aboard.  There would not have been enough time to get to shore.  As it was, “the boat was being swamped by waves.”

“But he was asleep.”  Amidst the fury of the storm and the cries and frantic bailing of the Apostles, Jesus slept.  This shows the extent to which his physical condition was reduced by his nonstop work since the day before.  It also shows an absolute trust in his Father that he could rest safely anywhere.  Matthew presents quite a scene.  Jesus and the Apostles had embarked while it was still daylight.  Enormous dark clouds fill the sky as though at a moment’s notice.  The heaving lake casts the boat up in the air and down nearly to the lake bottom.  The Apostles bail out the water, but not quite fast enough.  They can hardly hear each other’s shouts and cries, and they can only see when the lightning blasts at them.  Somewhere, in the midst of the hurling chaos, the Lord Jesus sleeps.  The rain pours onto him and runs down his face, but it does not disturb his peace.  

“They came and woke him, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ ”  Perhaps the storm and its violence had raged for only five or ten minutes.  It does not take long for a really bad storm to destroy a boat.  But the Apostles pray like they have never prayed before.  Their prayer, though, is not confident but despairing.  The fact that they did not dream that Jesus could command the weather is shown by their wondering afterwards, “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obeys?”  They say to him, “Lord, save us!” not because they believe he can, but because there was nothing left to do.  They had tried everything else first, and they were going to die.

“Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?”  They could not have predicted this response.  He is not terrified at their predicament; he is perturbed at them.  We ought to think about this.  It is as though he were saying that their own fear, a fear that characterized their lives, had brought the storm about.  The Lord seems to blame them for the storm.  Jesus says to them, in the Greek text, Why are you δειλοί [deloi].  The Greek word is a substantive adjective in the plural, describing “you”, which is plural.  Literally, the Greek means, Why are you cowards? or even, Why are you unmanly men?  The English translation we have in the reading turns the Greek adjective into a verb and so warps the actual meaning somewhat. With the question, Why are you cowards? in the present tense, Jesus is not asking why they are frightened at this particular moment, but why are they fearful in an abiding sense.  He is saying to them, You have always been cowards.  This is who you are.  Jesus does not speak to them in this way in order to gratuitously humiliate them, but to teach them a very necessary lesson.  Now is he disgusted with them, as though finding out for the first time that they were cowards.  If this were true, he would have let the boat sink and then calmly walked across the water to the opposite shore.

“Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.”  First, he rebukes his disciples, then the winds and the sea.  Both men and sea were acting according to their natures, but Jesus is not satisfied with their present weaknesses.  By calming the storm so that there is “great calm”, Jesus is showing the Apostles the faith he desires for them.  That is, we can understand the sea storm as a manifestation of the fear, the trepidation, the tumult within the hearts of the Apostles.  Jesus quiets it and shows them the state for which they must strive, the perfect peace that comes with perfect faith and trust.  Indeed, the trust in his Father that Jesus showed in his sleeping.  One day, the Apostles would face down their persecutors and rejoice in their suffering for Christ.  This is their beginning, when they see themselves as they are.

“What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?”  Whether we want to admit it or not, we live in fear, too.  Only the saints do not.  Fear controls us so much that we hardly notice it is there.  Only love and faith drive out fear.  Let us pray for the grace to live as the Apostles came to live, really living life as free men and women, living life filled and transformed by our faith in Christ, in “the great calm” of God.