Ref: Jesus Stills the Storm (Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25)
The most common boat on Galilee was designed for a crew of two or three, and when loaded with a good catch, sat pretty low in the water. With no fish, but a dozen or so adult men, it was probably a bit crowded and still low in the water.
The Sea of Galilee is still notorious for sudden wind storms. Not the kind with rain and lightening, just high winds that whip up the waves that would rock a little boat like that. Water would start washing over the sides pretty quickly. At least some of these men had spent most of their lives on this sea as professional fishermen, and knew what they were up against. This wasn’t some silly boyish fear of the unknown. Their panic wasn’t from facing a storm, but with the way the boat sat so low in the water. Still, Jesus says their fear was unjustified.
Of course, the principle was teaching them that He was the Son of God, someone with authority over the natural elements. If He was sleeping, then obviously there was no real threat to them. But on top of this, everything He did was well within the authority granted to them under the Covenant of Moses. If they really were Sons of the Law (bar-Mitzvah), then they had no reason to fear.
I doubt most of you have ever encountered the kind of training given to certain groups of special operations forces. You may have seen movies about such things, but it’s never the same as being there. Indeed, just standard induction training for the US military as a whole is poorly depicted in media. I’ve been through US Army Basic Training twice, so I can testify that you cannot really grasp it from watching even an accurate documentary. Fiction is far less accurate. You have to be there and experience what it does to your head.
On the one hand, Army Basic is tough enough. On the other hand, it can’t be too difficult or too many would never get through it. Everything has been carefully tested repeatedly to be within the reach of your average Joe and Jane. But the physical part is really not the hard part; it’s the attitude adjustment the training seeks to make. I’ve never seen more pitiful whining, even after the training is done and folks are sent to a regular unit where things are more relaxed. It’s not a question of seeking to make you fully embrace the training as the best of all possible worlds. It’s simply a matter of realizing the system demands things you aren’t going to enjoy, but you are obliged to play along.
Surely you recognize how the military standards and techniques drift on one track, changing all the time. Meanwhile, the average social influences on people before they sign up for enlistment shifts and drifts on yet another track entirely. The shock of the demands of military training, and the natural instinct to think that one can somehow get a special exemption here and there, has always been there. Even those who seem well adjusted to life in uniform can react to some new demand with strong emotions. Military life raises some peculiar sensitivities.
Those who seek the higher levels of training in special operations require an entirely different mental orientation than is commonly found in the military. Jesus chose His disciples to become the Covenant special forces. His heart knew what each man was made of, and nothing they said or did would surprise Him much. Still, they were humans and often did not rise to their own potential. Had they been in the right frame of mind, rather like special operations troops, they would have seen that stormy moment as just another tough training experience. “We’re gonna get wet guys. Start bailing!”
There was a shortage of “can do” attitude here. My experience in the military tells me that is nothing new with human nature. I’ve learned to tolerate rough conditions, but these men had a far more primitive experience, so what I consider military normal discomfort was just dandy for them. It wasn’t the conditions, it was the attitude. The one ingredient missing in that moment of the storm was the assurance that God was always right, and always in control. There was nothing they faced that was out of His control; nothing escaped His notice.
Even if it meant dying, they should have faced that calmly. Their attitude was a deviation from the ancient Hebrew view of life. It was more like the Western worldliness, something that came with the Pharisees’ Hellenized thought processes and assumptions. They didn’t have enough otherworldliness.
