Epiphany 4 The Sunday of Calming the Storm January 29, 2017
Epiphany 4
Matthew 8:23-27
January 29, 2017
“When God Wakes You Up”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I got one of these Fitbits a couple weeks ago. I normally wouldn’t wear it to church but I did this morning since I was going to mention it. Our health insurance is practically giving these away to try and force us to be healthier people so that they have less insurance claims. Anyway, if you’re not familiar with these they pretty much track everything about you. How many steps you take in a day, your heart rate, how many calories you burn, when you exercise or work out. Your thoughts (no, I made that up).
But one that really surprised me is that it tracks your sleep. Pretty cool, really. Tracks when you fall asleep, when you’re restless, and when you’re awake. How does it do it? Who knows. But it does. And every night you can look at how your sleep was. And it kinda looks like one of those printouts you know where you want this nice steady line of solid sleep and not a bunch of spikes and valleys where you’re restless or awake. And I was thinking, that’s kinda funny. So our goal is this solid straight line, right? That’s what we’re all after? The perfect night of sleep, right? That’s our dream? “I just want a good night’s sleep,” we say. Huh. Let’s consider this.
Is this really what we should be after? Do we all just want to sleep? That’s it? After all, if that line is perfectly straight and steady and never has any spikes of valleys—then guess what? You’re not alive anymore. Actually, if you think about what Holy Scripture says about sleeping and being awake—the Bible tells us a whole lot to be awake. Not to be sleeping. Or to have a perfect night’s sleep. Jesus tells us to be awake and ready. Paul tells us to be awake and ready. Not to sleep, as some others do. So perhaps we should reconsider this whole goal of sleeping. It seems it might be better to be awake. Right? After all, when we get to heaven we’re going to be awake, right? Of course. We’re not waiting for heaven so that we can sleep all day there.
Yes, actually, it’s good to be awake. All of this comes up in our Scripture readings today because you’ve got a bunch of people sleeping and others staying awake. The disciples can’t sleep because they’re in a boat in the middle of a huge storm and they’re convinced they’re going to die. They’re having one of those moments where life is flashing before them and all the mundane little things of life don’t seem to matter too much at the moment. Just living.
And then there’s the guys on Jonah’s boat who are in a very similar position. They’re also caught in the middle of a huge storm and they also think they’re dying. And they’re calling out to their gods to save them, and they’re tossing all their stuff overboard to lighten the ship, and they’re hoping and hoping they will somehow survive this thing.
But then there’s the sleepers. There’s Jonah who’s down in the inner part of the ship fast asleep. Not a care in the world. Probably dreaming of sunny skies and cool breezes. And there’s Jesus. With His head on a pillow. Catching some zzz’s as the waves are crashing all around Him.
Now according to my Fitbit, Jonah is the good guy. He’s got this sleeping thing all figured out. He’s confident, cool, and collected, right? Not scared of a thing as the storm rages around him. And those scaredy cat sailors and scaredy cat disciples must be the dumb ones. They must not trust God, right? How could they be so afraid? Those wimps?!
So the moral then is that you should be like Jonah, right? You shouldn’t be afraid of anything and you should learn to sleep like a baby without ever tossing or turning or any times waking up. Is this the moral of today’s stories? That you should learn to sleep tight? Never have a care in the world?
No, it’s not. It’s not at all the moral of the story that you should never be afraid of anything and should sleep like a baby. No. Let’s remember why Jonah was sleeping there in the first place. He was running away from God. That’s why the storm is there in the first place. God, you see, is trying to get Jonah’s attention. But there’s Jonah—sawing logs. Not a care in the world. That’s not good.
God is trying to wake Jonah up. The Lord had told him to go to Nineveh, that great and wicked city Nineveh, and tell them to repent and turn to God. But Jonah didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go to that awful city with all those awful sinners and tell them about God. So he went the other way. He got in a ship and set sail for Tarshish. “Ha,” he thought, “God wants me to go Nineveh. Ha, I’ll show Him. See ya’ later. I think I’ll go down in the ship and take a good long nap.”
So God is pounding on the side of the boat, “Wake up, Jonah, wake up! You’re supposed to be on your way to Nineveh!” But Jonah sleeps on. Meanwhile, the storm is working perfectly on the other mariners with Jonah. They’re all calling out to their gods for help. Trouble is, they’ve got the wrong gods. It’s not until they finally go down and kick Jonah a few times when he wakes up and tells them who the true God is. And then they worship Him.
See, that’s what storms are supposed to do. Wake us up and turn us to God. That’s the point. It worked on the sailors. But for Jonah it would take three more days in the belly of a giant fish until Jonah finally woke up and turned to God.
See, it’s good to be awake. Yes, things like this fitbit will tell you it’s good to get enough sleep. Of course. But the Scriptures have a different goal for us. God wants us to be awake in this world. And there are many times that He is waking us up.
So look at the disciples now in the boat with Jesus. They were right to be awake. Of course they should be awake. The waves are crashing in on the boat. And they’re going to die if something big doesn’t happen really quickly. God is waking them up. And what He’s waking them up to is who this Jesus is who’s sleeping on the pillow next to them. So they yell at Jesus to wake up—just like they’re supposed to and just like we’re supposed to—and He shows them who He is.
Storms, no matter what kind of storms they are, are meant to wake us up and turn us to Jesus. God doesn’t want you to sleep through everything in the world and just say, “Oh, well. Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Just live and let live. Who cares?!” No, God wants to wake you up to the joy of life and salvation. He wants to wake you up to who He is and to His grace and mercy for you.
It’s like when we’re kids and we wake up in the middle of the night to a storm. And the rain is pouring down and the lightning is striking and the thunder is crashing. What do we do? We wake up and run to Mom or Dad and say, “Help! I’m scared!” Yes, that’s the right thing to do. When God is waking us up, we shake Jesus and say, “Lord, help! We’re scared! Have mercy on us! Save us!”
When you can’t sleep because of whatever storm is raging, then you pray. You pray. That’s the point. That’s what storms do. Turn us to Jesus.
It will often seem that God is sleeping. Just like the disciples thought Jesus was sleeping on the boat. When you think about it—how silly was that? Like Jesus really didn’t know that it was storming? He’s God?! He’s the One who sends the rain. Of course He knew it was storming.
But still, we often think God must be sleeping. We see horrible and sad stuff happening in the world and wonder if God even has a clue about it. This last week we saw two specific examples where we might wonder if God was sleeping on the job. Nine year old Maria from Secor died from a car accident and 19 year old Joey Gardner suddenly passed away. What was God thinking? Couldn’t God have protected them? “God, do you know that children are dying here?” That’s not right.
So many other things make us wonder if God’s awake. Friday was the March for Life in Washington, D.C. for the millions and millions of children who never even make it to birth before abortion kills them. “God, do you know that millions of babies are being killed by abortion? Where are you?” All around the world there’s pain and sadness. “God, do you know that people around the world are hurting, starving, fighting, dying? Where are you?” Are you awake, God?
Yes, God is awake. Friends in Christ, God neither slumbers nor sleeps. Ever. God knew all about nine year old Maria and nineteen year old Joey. He knew the hairs on their head and the thoughts in their heart. He was there by their hospital bedsides all the way through. Not sleeping. Deeply caring. He gave His Son Jesus for Maria and for Joey. He also knows every single one of those children that are aborted. He gave His Son Jesus for them too. God is never sleeping, despite what we might often feel.
In fact God uses all of these storms of death and disease and abortion and persecution as alarms for us. To wake us up. To turn us to Jesus Christ our Savior. To give us hope and comfort in this world of sin and death. So wake up and call for Him. Be like the disciples. Wake up and call out to Jesus for help. Wake up and pray.
You can’t sleep at night because you’re scared? Wake up and pray. You can’t sleep at night because you’re angry? Angry at things happening around you? Wake up and pray. You can’t sleep at night because you don’t know what to do next? Wake up and pray. Pray to God for mercy. Pray to Him for help. Pray to Him for forgiveness. Pray to Him for strength. When you can’t sleep, God is awake. Always. The rest of the world may be sleeping—but God is awake.
And the fact is—God has already sent our help. The one who commands wind and wave. “Who is this guy?” the disciples asked. He’s our Savior. The one who never sleeps. And yet He is the one who slept the sleep of death for us. Now He is risen—never to sleep again. He is risen—to forgive us our sins, to calm our fears, to be with us always, and to bring us to life everlasting.
Yes, He cares. Yes, He’s awake. So call on Him. Pray. Wake up and pray. Our goal in life isn’t to sleep through the whole thing as if nothing’s wrong and we don’t care about anything. Our goal is to be awake and ready. Always calling on the Lord for help and mercy. And all of our times of weakness, our times of fear, our times of anxiety, our times when we can’t sleep—all of them are times to wake up and see the strength of the Lord. The Lord who commands the wind and wave. The Lord who gives His life for ours. Wake up and pray.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.