Luke 8:22-25--Jesus Calms a Storm

Luke 8:22-25
English Standard Version
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Jesus Calms a Storm
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, 23 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. 24 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. 25 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?”

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Jesus is now going to begin His ministry to the Gentile regions.  He's spent some time in Judea, and quite a bit of time in Galilee going from town to town, and we have studied in the Gospel of John that Jesus has even spent some time ministering to the Samaritans (though that is largely left for Philip the evangelist and some of the apostles in the book of Acts) and now Jesus is beginning to show His disciples that this good news that He's proclaiming is "good news of great joy that shall be for all the peoples" which we read in Luke 2.

Today's passage is also going to be closely connected with tomorrow's passage as Jesus is going to once again show that He is Lord of all creation and that the natural and supernatural obey Him.  It was commonly believed by the Jews that the sea was stirred up by demonic forces and that some of these fierce storms had a supernatural influence to them.  There is also a connection between the sea and the troubled waters of the Gentiles--always shifting and blowing wherever the wind takes them and unstable in all their ways.  So then the "sea" is one of the ways to allegorically talk about the Gentiles or more generically than that, all those who are living their lives in rebellion against God.  Are such people under the influence of demons in the way that people believed that these waters could be stirred up by demons?  Sometimes, but it is also the nature of the water itself to be unstable and so it is with the heart of man.

Why do I even bring this idea of demons up now?  It will tie in next time.  Jesus is going to speak to the storm in much the same way that He's going to speak to a demonized man on the other side of the Lake.  For now though, here are some key points about this passage.  Jesus is the one that tells them to get into the boat.  We don't know for sure that Jesus knew the storm was coming (there are some indications that Jesus chose not to know certain things while He was here on Earth, but somehow Jesus had it revealed to Him that the next place that they were to go together was to the other side of the Lake--a Gentile region that was known for its worship of pagan deities and as we'll see next time, they raised pigs--something that was definitely anti-Jewish.  Again, more on that next time.

One of these storms that I mentioned arose while the disciples and Jesus were crossing the Lake, and it was so fierce and terrible that these men, so many of whom were seasoned fishermen and made their living fishing this very lake were afraid for their lives.  The waves are coming over the side of the boat and the boat is filling up with water and naturally the disciples assume that the boat is going to break up or sink and they are going to drown.  While not recorded here, we see some additional details that are interesting in the book of Matthew 8: 23-27 (I assume the same event).  Jesus was exhausted from being on-the-go for so long.  He got into the boat and He fell asleep, and even this fierce storm did not wake Him up.  The disciples went to Him and woke Him and said, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing" (Matthew 8:25).  They knew their only hope of survival was for Jesus to save them.

Jesus rebukes the storm (showing that He has authority over it, just as He has already rebuked the demons in Luke 4 to show He has authority over them).  Jesus is also going to offer a soft correction to the disciples here (which is astonishing to me, because their reaction seems more than natural, and they turned to Jesus when they knew they were in over their heads),  Matthew 8:26-27 says, 

26 And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Notice how their response was one of worship, and how Jesus didn't stop them.  Even though they see something here, Jesus is going to solidify this lesson for them with what happens next on the other side of the Lake where these same principles are at play but now the storm that is raging is most definitely supernatural and demonic, and the reaction of the people of that region when they see the power that Jesus has is going to be a different type of aw--they will find Him to be awful and someone to be feared instead of awesome and someone to be worshiped.