Muse: "...Do You not care....?"

I have been basking in Matthew 8 for a while.

From Jesus cleansing a bold leper, honouring the faith of a humble Roman centurion, doing yet more healing... to disclosing the costs of following Him, I have arrived at the part where He calmed the storm (Matt 8:23-27).

It is not my first time reading Matthew's account of the fascinating event. I can understand why Matthew, Mark and Luke all found it so necessary to include the event in their respective gospels. The jaws of Jesus' disciples must have dropped. Winds and waves kowtowing to a mere man, or so he seemed. Like a sort of finale, Jesus - the healer, the one who reconciles, the miracle worker and the exorcist - had yet one more surprise for His disciples - a display of His authority over all of God's created world.

God's groaning creation (cf. Rom 8:19-22) would continue to groan towards Christ's eschaton. But on that very day, it availed humankind a glimpse of the promise God had enfleshed in the man who slept peacefully upon a cushion on the tossing boat (cf. Mark 4:38). The Time Creator and Keeper Incarnate - in whom eternity graced time and sought to redeem it.

However, it is my first time pondering on this :

Jesus' disciples woke Him, terrified, while their boat was being swamped by waves - crying, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing!" (8:25)

To this, the Lord replied, "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. (8:26)

Why did Jesus rebuke His disciples (albeit gently) for their lack of faith when they had cried out to Him to save them; wasn't this a display of faith already?

The Markan narrative seems to give us a better understanding of their attitude in crying out to the Lord. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mk 4:38) The disciples certainly sound more frustrated, resentful and disappointed in Mark's account. More whiny. Jesus, You have let us down! We have believed in vain.

Apply the same whiny tone of voices to Matthew's narrative, and Matt 8:25 would sound like the disciples were fed up and just as dissatisfied. Short of saying, "O come on... You've worked so many miracles for the heathen - but you aren't going to lift a finger to save us, your faithful followers?"

While Matthew emphasised to his predominantly-Jewish readers the right and only way to enter a saving relationship with God (a.k.a. through faith in Jesus Christ, as opposed to merely doing the Law), Mark targeted a more Roman/Gentile audience who were under heavy persecution from Emperor Nero... and therefore, might have purposely highlighted the disciples' lack of faith in Jesus at a time of turmoil in order to strengthen believers in their faith-zapping sufferings. 

It was as if Mark had wanted to drive home to his readers these exhortations: Jesus cares. He cares that you are perishing - and He knows your pain. Do not give up on Him. You have not believed in vain. Do not doubt that He is with you - even when He seems so faraway, so removed, so unconcerned. Do not doubt that He cares for you. Do not lose hope. He is able to make you an over-comer, even when things seem so bleak and impossible. The storm may be all around you - it threatens to crush and destroy. But fix your eyes on Him. Cry out to Him, yes, but do so, being convicted that His authority and purposes prevail; and His promise stands firm.

Christ is greater than Emperor Nero - or any power and principality of the world for that matter. You know whom you have believed. Come what may, your lives are in Him. Your salvation is secure. Death, even while tragic and terrifying for the moment, can only have a happy ending - one that is glorious, eternal and unmatched in its beauty.

The wind and waves stood still, because the King of kings had spoken.


And today, He still speaks.