Luke 8:22-25 "Storm God"

We started going through the Gospel of Luke with a fine-toothed comb back in November. What’s the point of calling ourselves Christians if we don’t really know much about Jesus?

So, we’ve been walking verse by verse, looking very carefully to find all the grace and truth we can squeeze out of it. Still barely scratching the surface though—that’s just how it is with God’s Word. The deeper you go, the deeper it gets.

This week we’re going to meet Jesus the Storm God, the God of Thunder. He’s going to kind of freak out the disciples. He’s going to show us that it’s never a bad time to take a nap—and teach us what our faith is really for.

Prayer: Father in heaven, as we turn to Your Word today, help us to listen, to be open, to receive what You have for us. Speak to us with grace and truth. Build our faith. AMEN.

Luke chapter 8, starting at verse 22:

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”  Luke 8:22-25

We know from the account of this story in Matthew and Mark that it happened right after Jesus taught on the Sower and the Seeds. He taught the crowd, went back to a house and explained everything to the disciples, then a bunch more people showed up, including His mother, brothers and sisters. 

It seems like Jesus needed to take a break and get away from everyone. He’s like, “How about if we get in that boat and go to the other side of the lake where it’s a little quieter.” It was probably Peter’s boat. As soon as they get out in the waves, Jesus falls asleep—He’s out.

Kind of like me on most Sunday afternoons. You guys take naps? We’re big fans at the Hart house. For me, it’s pretty much only on Sunday, but for everyone else, it’s almost daily. Or if we’re going to be in the car for more than 10 minutes—someone will go into “power saver mode” like Jesus on the waves. Naps are good. My doctor highly encourages a mid-day snooze to stay healthy.

So Jesus is sound asleep and a nasty storm breaks out. Apparently, Lake Galilee is surrounded by cliffs that swirl the wind around and create these windstorms called squalls—like mini hurricanes. Tornados on the water. They happen suddenly and can be very dangerous. 

So the water’s raging, the boat’s filling up, the men in the boat—most of them are experienced sailors and capable swimmers—they’re panicking. They’re in real danger. 

So, what do they do? They’re freaking out, so naturally they wake up the carpenter from Nazareth who probably hasn’t sailed a boat in His entire life. “Let’s get Jesus, He’s a smart guy, He’ll know what to do!”

I point that out because they clearly had faith in Jesus on some level. 

“Master, Master! Wake up! We’re all going to die!” Luke 8:24

They had to be a little impressed that He was asleep. Or maybe disturbed. I don’t really want to feel like I woke God up when I pray. In Mark the disciples say, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”

Jesus opens His eyes. Looks at the storm the way we look at our alarm clock in the morning. It says He “rebuked the wind and the raging waves”—yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel about my alarm clock, too. Ha.

Jesus “rebuked” demons. He “rebuked” sickness. Now He’s rebuking a bad storm.

Every culture has a storm god. Like Thor, Zeus, Jupiter—there are hundreds of them. One of the main gods the people of the Old Testament dealt with was Ba’al, who was a storm god—a god of thunder. The Psalms are full of illusions to Yahweh defeating and being more powerful than the pagan storm gods. When Elijah defeated the prophets of Ba’al—it was in the context of a famine and a draught. Who’s god would be able to control the weather and bring rain?  Yahweh showed His mighty power and destroyed the prophets of Ba’al and their altars. Then Elijah went to the mountain of God, where he was confronted with a massive wind storm—but he learned that Almighty God wasn’t in the storm. Instead, Yahweh, The Almighty Creator God was in a peaceful whisper.

The disciples were about to learn the same thing.

You might think it sounds superstitious of the ancients to worship gods because they thought their gods controlled the weather. As if these days we’re not worried about such trivial things. Every hurricane season we moderns are soberly reminded that for all our advances in science and technology, we are completely at the mercy of the weather. Disasters caused by the weather are still called acts of god.

Jesus woke up, rebuked the storm, and it ceased—instant calm.

I think it’s interesting that Jesus shows His divine power by creating peace and quiet. All the demonic storm gods in their mythological stories do the opposite. They rage and thunder and throw around lightning bolts to intimidate and scare people into worshiping them. 

A couple of the disciples, the ones Jesus called the “sons of thunder” (obviously teasing them about being like little storm gods) they get frustrated with people not responding the right way when they shared the Gospel—so they asked if Jesus would let them be like a thunder god and rain fire down on them. Jesus rebuked them and said they were acting like demons.

It’s always easier to throw a fit and make a mess than it is to use your words to create peace. 

They were pretty sure they were all going to die. They show a little faith by going to Jesus and waking Him up.

What do you think they were expecting Him to do? 

Maybe they were just waking Him up to warn Him. “Master, wake up! You don’t want to be asleep when you die!”

They probably expected Him to do some kind of miracle so they could make it through the storm. Ride the storm out. 

They did not expect Him to just flip a switch and stop it. “Alexa, turn off the storm.”

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was raging with chaos and darkness was over the deep—the terrifying waters. And God said, “Let there be light.”

And Jesus said, “Peace, be still.”

There’s only one way to explain what happened. It could only mean one thing.

Jesus said to them, “Where is your faith?” Luke 8:25

I mean, to be fair, they did go to the right guy when they were in trouble. They had faith.

Still, Jesus wants to know: “Where is your faith?”

They thought Jesus could probably keep them from dying in a shipwreck. That’s the kind of faith most people have when they’re in a tight spot. “Lord, if I survive this I promise I’ll go to church every Sunday from now on.” “There’s no atheists in foxholes” kind of faith. The kind of faith that, once we’re out of the storm, we dismiss the idea of it being a miracle—we probably would have made it anyway.

Well, that’s not the kind of miracle they got. They weren’t going to be able to rationalize this one away. Jesus speaks to the wind and says, “knock it off! I’m trying to sleep here.” 

But the kind of faith Jesus is looking for isn’t the kind that just comes running to Him to bail them out. He’s looking for the kind of faith that allowed Him to sleep through the storm.

This isn’t a story about how if you’re in the boat with Jesus nothing bad is going to happen to you. This is a story about the kind of faith where it doesn’t matter if something bad happens.

The story starts with them afraid they’re going to die. Death was their biggest fear.

The story ends with them afraid of Jesus instead.

I preached on Matthew’s account of this story at a friend’s church in New York City a few years ago. I was still in seminary at the time. After the service, I was talking with some people in the congregation and one guy and his wife were being particularly kind about the sermon. They were asking me about what I said, and I was just going blah, blah, blah—having a really nice time answering all their questions. My friend Pastor Matt, the pastor the church, came over to us and said, “Oh great, I see you guys have already met.” He said he wanted to introduce me because the guy was the number two professor in charge of the homiletics department at Concordia St Louis. My seminary. Homiletics is preaching. So now I’m suddenly trying to remember if I had said anything particularly embarrassing in that post-sermon conversation—I was sure glad I didn’t know who he was before I got up to preach. 

The disciples had been having a really nice time hanging with a guy they were pretty sure was the Messiah. Someone wise who did miracles and could probably get them out of a jam.

Now, all of a sudden, they realize they’re in a little boat with someone who has the power of God.

That was suddenly more terrifying than death. Which is not a bad thing. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fearing the Lord above all things includes storms and drowning. 

Followers of Jesus are not to fear death. They had no reason to fear even if they did die in the waves. Facing death is what our faith is for. We don’t have any promise that because we have faith in Jesus bad things won’t happen to us and we’re not going to die. The world would be filled with 2,000-year-old Christians if that was the case. Because we belong to Christ, because we’re Christians, because we’re in the boat with Jesus, we have the assurance that when we die—and that’s only going to happen once—that it’s our appointed day and we’ll be with Him. We should die in confidence, not fear.

The brave only die once. Cowards die a thousand times.

We’re always in the Father’s care. Whether Jesus is physically present or not. Whether we survive the storm or not. We can always rest in the knowledge that God works all things together for good. That’s where our faith should be. 

So they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to each another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” Luke 8:25

That’s the point of this story. Jesus is God. Creation obeys Him.

There’s only one thing in creation that doesn’t obey Him—us. People. We’re the only thing in creation that’s foolish enough to disobey God. 

Even the devil and demons do whatever God tells them to do.

We don’t. God told us what He wants from us. He wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He wants us to love each other. We’re usually selfish and stupid instead. We don’t usually create peace with our words but act like little storm gods instead. But He also wants us to know that He sent His divine Son Jesus to forgive us for all the times we get it wrong. For all the times we don’t obey. To offer us true peace.

At the end of this week’s story, the disciples are sitting in a little boat on very calm water, realizing with great fear and amazement that this Jesus guy they’ve been following around is a lot more than they thought He was. They haven’t fully comprehended that He’s Yahweh, God Almighty. But they are sitting there with their eyes wide open wondering who Jesus is that wind and waves obey Him. They’re filled with the kind of fear you might feel after a near-death experience—if you were saved from the near-death experience by a powerful lion who just happened to be in the same little boat with you as he woke up from a nap.

It was safer in the storm.

This story has been allegorized to death. “What’s the storm in your life that you need to trust Jesus to calm?” “Don’t worry as long as you're in the boat with Jesus.” When we do this, we get the wrong idea. We think God promises to rescue us from storms. He doesn’t. He also doesn’t promise to give us enough strength and wisdom to navigate through them. That’s not what our faith is for.

He does promise that your life is going somewhere good. He promises to never leave you, to lead you and guide you all your days, all the way up to and including your very last day. Then He promises you will die in the safety of knowing you’ll be with Him and you’ll rise from the dead when He returns. That’s where your faith needs to be. That’s what your faith is for.

I know a lot of us are going through some stuff. Scary stuff. Raging, terrifying, disturbing things. Upset about the way things are going all around us. Nervous that something isn’t going to work out the way we hope. Afraid the pain won’t go away, the sickness will come back, the awful things that have happened in the past will happen again, the people we love will never figure out how to make their life work—the past is painful, the present is troubling, and the future is always uncertain, nerve-wracking. This is what our faith is for.

Today’s lesson is a powerful reminder that this whole Christianity thing—it’s very comforting. Jesus, the One who came down from heaven to rescue us and promise eternal life to us, He’s actually able to keep His promises—unlike anyone else in the world— because He is God Almighty. That’s where your faith goes, put your faith there. AMEN