Lord of the Storms

Matthew 8:23 -27; Mark 4:35 – 41; 6:45 – 52; Luke 8:22 -25; John 6: 16 – 25.
 
Apart from Mark and John noting His water walking buoyancy, it appears that there may be more than one incident when Jesus stilled the storms, but what are the implications of such shows of otherworldly command and control. In each of the accounts, the dangers these common squalls around the Dead Sea presented did not unduly perturb these disciples, as fishermen they were naturally good swimmers, but something else terrified them. The sight of Jesus walking on water towards them? Or His silencing of the storms? (Matt 8:27; Mark 4:41; Mark 6:50; Luke 8:25). Jesus’ deliberate demonstration was purposeful: proving He could control the physical elements by His mere presence or just a word, besides provoking an ‘internal’ storm within His disciples’ presuppositions about Him. I wonder what would be our reactions?
 
Within the context of John’s Gospel, the consistent ‘I am’ usage by Jesus defining His divinity provides us some indication of the nuance of His assurance, similar to an earlier assurance by Yahweh to Moses (cf., Ex 3:14; Col 1:13-20): “I Am, fear not” (Jn 6:20; a literal translation). Having been traumatized by His supernatural demonstration, they had to grapple with Jesus’ true identity as the pre-existing One, confounding their prior knowledge of Him. Similarly, our own reticence leads us to ponder at times, “If I completely surrender to God, He may ask me to do something I do not wish or have no present inclination towards it.” This extant conundrum challenges our peripheral relationship with God, despite His deep commitment to love us and never to leave us. 
 
Often our minute worldview constraints our appreciation of the infinite, and even when we do catch a glimpse of it, our temporal memory is unable to fully process its implications, and we fall back too soon on our own smug finiteness. The question the disciples had to face then became - if Jesus’ capability over the storm is unquestionable, what else would hinder them from trusting Him completely? The thrust of this question was to haunt them till His resurrection. It would not be unusual for God to send ‘storms’ into lives specifically to bring us past our crass prejudices and immaturity as He sovereignly walks us through it; that is, if we are consciously aware that He is behind them and continue to follow Him. What do you know, perhaps one day we may even walk on water!
 
The thought that our Lord is the One Who holds all things together, seen and unseen, from time immemorial, is incomprehensible to us, as our natural minds are unable to fathom a sense of His transcendence and omniscience. Paul hit the nail on the head when he said, “…no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3); to call Jesus Lord is to understandably relinquish unconditionally and absolutely ownership of our lives to Him. It would not only be spiritually dishonest, but intellectually too, to believe in God and yet not surrender convincingly to Him. The believer’s call has been consistently to faith and obedience, never to certainty (which is the bane of human values; for the same reason, Peter failed in his attempt at walking on water). Like His disciples, being confronted with an almighty Persona will surely begin to challenge our whole outlook and relationship with a God who desires to relate to us personally, yet One who holds the universe together (Job 38:31-38).