WHO ARE THESE TOSSED ON THE SEA?
Who Are These Tossed on the Sea?
Matthew 14: 22-27
Sunday, November 15, 2014, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Who are these who are tossed on the sea?
Jesus had sent the multitudes quietly and peacefully away. No storm burst on them. No danger threatened them. No fear disquieted them. Of all the thousands who had a few hours before listened to His voice, His own beloved followers alone were called to contend with the storm at sea.
Matthew 14:22-23: “He directed the disciples to get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent away the crowds. After He had dismissed the multitudes, He went up into the hills by Himself to pray. When it was evening, he was still there alone. But the boat was by this time out on the sea, many furlongs (1/8th of a mile) distant from the land, beaten and tossed by the waves, for the wind was against them. In the fourth watch (between 3:00 – 6:00 a.m.) of the night, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.” (Amp)
The miraculous feast to the crowd of five thousand being over, Jesus dispersed the multitudes. After dismissing the multitude, He gave direction to His disciples to enter their boat and re-cross the lake to Bethsaida. He gives no indication as to how or where He might join them. “He constrained them to get into the ship” (K.J.V). Did the disciples attempt to persuade him to go with them? We are not given that part of the story.
On a former occasion when the disciples encountered another storm on the lake, they felt that all was safe when their Master had said, “let us pass over” (Mk. 4:37). The Heavenly pilot was with them in the vessel. Now it was different. They had before them a night on a tempestuous sea, and He, whose voice alone could hush its fury, was leaving them to brave it alone!
They had just fed 5000 miraculously with five loaves and two fish. After that miracle, they would have approached the storm with fearless faith. They could face the storm as brave soldiers, who at the bidding of their Captain could rush on to the assault, determined to conquer or perish. The reading of the word indicates they were in a moment launched out into the deep encountering the crested waves and the gathering darkness.
It was twilight (about six o’clock) when they set out. When midnight came, they were little more than half way on their voyage. For nine hours they toiled manfully at the oars. Three o’clock (the fourth watch of the night) found them still pitching in the midst of that roaring sea.
If he had been with them asleep in the back of the ship as before, they could have rushed to His side, asked for his help, and in a moment the storm would have changed into a calm sea. But where is He now? They cannot tell. Their cries are inaudible. Their prayers appear to be in vain. Their cries are drowned in the rage of the storm. “Surely our way is hid from the Lord, and our judgment is passed over from our God!”
Viewing this scene as a picture of human life, let us first consider how sudden the transitions are in human experience. From sunshine to storm, and from storm to sunshine. A few hours before, the disciples had been dealing out the miraculous loaves and fish to the joyful groups on the green grass, partaking along with them of this mountain feast---the Great Shepherd of Israel Himself tending them with loving interest.
Never did the sun seem to go down more happily or promise a more glorious rising. But now the sky is clouded---night has drawn its curtains and worse than all, the Lord of the Feast is gone. The Shepherd has left and they are tossed like broken reeds on the waves of the sea.
Today God may be spreading for us a table in the wilderness; and by his gracious providence pour rich gifts into our lap---but after such a great outpouring of grace, the soul of man tends to become heady and aloof.
Who are these we behold tossed on that sea? It is his own disciples being trained to build His church. God often sends trials to His “elect”, from which the world is exempt.
God always has some wise end in view in sending His people into a sea of trouble. After all, Jesus directed them. Nothing is mentioned here of a satanic attack.
“Jesus constrained them to get into the boat and go to the other side.”
In the case of the disciples, it was evidently to discipline their faith, and to prepare them for sterner moral storms. That night at Tiberius would imprint on their inmost souls truths and lessons which never would be forgotten in all their future apostleship. This lesson served to brace their spirits for many an hour of perplexity and danger. And the danger to not become too prideful after a great victory.
The progression of these trials of faith and the severity of the test increases as the spiritual life advances. Just as a child is by degrees, step by step, taught to walk, so are these disciples tutored in the higher walk of faith. If we did not face the storms, we would become so self-righteous, self-absorbed, and self-sufficient that we would forget to have compassion for others.
A severer test, therefore, now comes. On the former occasion, Jesus was like the mother seated by her infant’s cradle, rocking it asleep with the tones of her well-known voice dispelling all fears.
“Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice.”
“If need be we are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of our faith being much more precious than of gold which perishes though it be tried with fire, may be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
As the disciples’ dangers increase, so also do their fears. Sadder and stranger than ever seems their Master’s absence. Trials of faith are usually “strange” to our own understanding.
God where are you?
It is unlike your kind heart to have deserted us and left us to the mercy of this pitiless storm.
Where in reality was their beloved Savior in the hour they most needed His presence? He seemed to have hid His face from them. Upon the heights of one of these mountains on the north-east corner of the lake, the Redeemer of the world, in the silence of midnight is alone with His Father God! That mountain summit is converted into an altar of Prayer. He is also watching every billow that breaks on their tempest-tossed boat. He knows every fear which disturbs their fainting hearts. He is praying for them, that “their faith fail not”.
We the people of God are often tempted to say, “My Lord has forsaken me, and my God has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isa. 49:15),
Storms and tumults may be raging without---temptations may be assailing within; besetting sins may now be disturbing the serenity of our spiritual joys; seasons of holy refreshment and peace may be gone. God may seem to be hiding His face and we are troubled. Behind these temporary clouds there sits a Savior of unchanging faithfulness, who though we may have forgotten Him, has not forgotten us. Yes! Blessed assurance Jesus is mine! At the very moment when we may think all is lost---the vessel which bears our eternal destiny is about to appear and carry us to destiny.
When faith is beginning to fail, and hope to sink---all dark without, all trouble within—and worse than all, when our heavenly Pilot seems to have deserted us---there is above A PRAYING SAVIOR! He who watched the disciples boat tossed and turned by the storm from Galilee’s mountain is now ever interceding for us on Mount Zion, directing the roll of every billow that threatens His people’s peace and “praying that their faith fail not!”
As in this marvelous story with the disciples of old, He will not long deny His people of His grace and presence. In the darkest hour of their trial, when they least look for Him, and least expect Him, He reveals Himself.
Coming in the very pathway of their troubles going “through the flood on foot”, and causing them to “rejoice in Him”. Jesus comes walking majestically with His radiant form across the troubled waves. He is so near His disciples they can hold a conversation with Him. But strangely, his appearance terrifies them.
Matthew 14: 26: “When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said it is a ghost! They screamed out with fright!”
How quickly they reverted to superstition and their fear of the spirits of darkness. They had after all seen the herd of wild pigs plunge in to the depths of a lake. Who knows what a storm could churn up?
When Jesus comes to them on a stormy night of trial, he comes with radiant beauty to calm the storm and steer the boat to safety. However, they can see nothing in the looming mist but a phantom spirit.
Matthew 14:27: “But instantly He spoke to them, saying, ‘be of good cheer; It is I, do not be afraid’.” (Exod. 3:14).
It is night on the Sea of Galilee, a night of tempest. The Lord of the sea and the storm walks majestically on the waves. “He made darkness his secret place---his pavilion round about him are dark waters and thick clouds of the sky.”
Our Lord as the Man, Christ Jesus, occupied in prayer comes forth from the mount of Prayer to tread the waters. As the great ideal of Humanity---the Exemplar of His people, He would teach them, that if they would overcome the greatest difficulties, they would triumph on waves of trial and persecution.
Let us not be hard on the disciples. They had seen Jesus feed the multitudes, heal the sick, and cast out demons, but they had not yet met Him in resurrection glory. They were still afraid of death. At Gethsemane, Jesus poured out his soul before God sweating great drops of blood. On the cross, he was in an agony in his very spirit and cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”? We on the other side of the resurrection know that in that moment of travail, Jesus delivered us from the fear of being forsaken. We are able to exercise our faith on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are able to find strength in the midst of our storm by faith in Jesus and bringing His strength into our soul. Because we know him, we never have to despair in the midst of life’s storms.
Here the disciples meet Jesus as Lord over the sea and the storm.
Psalm 42: 7-11: “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your water spouts; all your waves and your billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted with me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.”
“Be of good cheer,” Do not be afraid.” It is I” your Lord and Master who has spoken peace in your hours of trouble. I who have bidden the weary and the heavy laden. I whose word has given light to the blind; health to the diseased; comfort to the mourner and life to the dead. Do you not think I will have compassion on you, My own sheep, who “follow me, and know My voice?” “Be of good cheer, It is I” – Fear not.”
Jesus lives! It is His presence, power and love which is the secret of the Christian’s strength and peace.
Jesus, the personal Savior, the Living One, the Acting One, the Controlling One. That little word rose from the bosom of Tiberius, and has gone forth to the end of the world, comforting souls and drying tears. It gave peace to the chained apostle in his Roman dungeon. “All men forsook me,” says he, “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, and delivered me out of the mouth of the lion.”
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? The floods have lifted up their voice, the floods have lifted up their waves; but the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea.”
Let us learn from this passage, that we are always safe when we follow the will and directions of our Lord and Master. He constrained them to get into the ship. They had no cause to fear because they followed His directions.
When seasons of trial overtake us, hold on amid all difficulties cleaving faithfully to Christ. If we faint not, He will bring us into a wider place.
The occasions recorded in the Holy Scriptures of the Lord stilling the storm are typical of two great epochs in the Lord’s administration of His Church on earth. The first (when He was with His disciples) symbolizing the period of His earthly ministry---when as God “manifest in the flesh,” He was visible among them. The second when after His ascension, he is present with us through His Holy Spirit, seated at the right hand of the Father and from the Heavenly Hill controlling every storm.
As He appeared to the disciples at the fourth watch of the night, hushed the storm and took them safe to shore, so it will be in the deepest hour of our personal midnight and the world’s midnight, the sign of the Son of Man shall be seen --- “His way in the sea, and His path in the deep waters---the trembling church, cowering amid the storm will lift up its song in the night, “Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof…before the Lord, for He comes! He comes…”
When we wonder if he has forgotten His word and His promises? Fear not! Jesus has not left the foundering boat to real and plunge. No! in the fourth watch of the night” when the darkness is thickest and the storm fierce, He shall come and will not tarry.
The Spirit and the Bride say come -- He comes! “Be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid”.
Carolyn Sissom Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from Amplified and K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of John MacDuff, “The Night Rescue”. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of John MacDuff.