Friday, 13 March Seeking the Messiah. Matthew 8:18–34
Again, depending on whether or not you have a Bible that inserts little breaks and headings, such as ‘Jesus Calms the Storm’, you may be led to think that this passage is a collection of separate, discrete events. I do not think that such divisions are entirely helpful. The core question is why Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and following his own intelligent mind to organise his material, chose to include certain stories and why he sequenced or grouped them as he did.
Rightly or wrongly, I'm seeing this passage as a unit in Matthew’s mind. It starts with a crowd around Jesus, hanging on his words, with two Jews making wild promises to follow him – but Jesus doesn’t seem to trust their sincerity for reasons not given to us. It ends with an entire town begging him leave their district, and two Gentiles who were completely delivered from darkness and fear.
The whole section is one of tumult and noise – crowds shouting and pushing, the passionate ones who always come up to the speaker after his address with earnest questions and comments, madmen, demons, wild weather and stormy seas.
Right in the middle, there is this marvellous moment, when Jesus calms the storm. I said, right in the middle… In fact, I have just gone back and carefully counted the words in my Greek New Testament. Count 135 words in from the beginning of v18, and 135 words back from the end of v34, and you will read this statement: there was a great calm. They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?’
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this sort of thing a coincidence. I find it a God-incidence. Whenever I make this sort of discovery in scripture – and it has happened many times, I just sit in a moment of quiet amazement. Surely Matthew (or, more accurately, the Holy Spirit) really did want us to see this! How beautiful and reliable is his word!
It wasn’t until I focussed closely on this counting exercise that I noticed the word used for calm. It is the word galene. This ancient Greek word, meaning serenity, tranquillity, calmness, comes from one of the minor goddesses, named Galene. In Greek mythology she was the goddess to whom you would pray to provide calm seas, of which she was the divine personification.
Jesus does not pray to a goddess. He, himself, is the Lord of wind and waves, and he rebukes them for their disturbance of the peace. It is this peace which rests calmly in the middle of all the chaos of this entire passage that Matthew has given us to think about today. Crowds, faithless friends, panicky disciples, demons, crazed human beings, angry crowds, dangerous journeys and wild weathers – all these are part of what it means to live in the kingdom of heaven.
We are not taken out of this wild world – but we are enabled to live in it with safety and in peace. Blessed are those who…
Jesus rebukes the disciples also: Why are you afraid, you of little faith? I’m reminded that when I call out to Jesus for help when I'm in a panic, he might reasonably say the same thing to me:
Oh Graham, won't you ever get it?! I'm here. I'm in charge. Stop fussing about. There’s nothing happening here that I don’t know about. You might think that I'm having a sleep and not paying attention to you – but I know everything that’s going on. In fact, I know it much better than you do. And I'm not worried – so why should you be? Just trust me, Graham. It will all be OK. Just you watch. Don’t worry if you cry a little, sometimes. I’ll probably be crying too, if you are. But we’ll cry together, and you will be all right. All things shall be well. Peace! Be still!
He calmed that storm for the disciples because they did not yet have Matthew’s Gospel to read. They were living out the prototype. But I've got Matthew’s Gospel. And Mark’s. And Luke’s. The same story is repeated in all of them.
Here’s the revelation! He actually calmed their storm for me (and you).Because I've got the book and can read it, he may not always show up to calm my storms. More is expected of those who have more. I have the written Gospel; the disciples didn’t. I know he is the King; the disciples were still learning it. I might just have to trust a bit more to find peace in the midst of my storms; but the source is still the same.
That’s probably enough for today – but I just want to correct a possible bit of muddled thinking that might emerge out of the last part of the story. Some have constructed a whole theology about the punishment of demons in the end times on this short passage. Matthew records that they said to Jesus: Have you come here to torment (torture) us before the right time?
We may not like the idea of God torturing anyone, even demons. We must assume that Matthew recorded this exchange accurately. Does this mean that God is going to spend eternity torturing demons?
I don’t intend to build an entire future-things theology around the words of demons. Their evil masters may well have caused them to believe a lie. The idea of Jesus torturing demons came from the mischievous mouths of demons, not from Jesus Christ!
What we must do is choose to describe and believe Jesus according to his own words and his own actions, not according to the words of those who hate him.
There is more than enough beauty and glory to worship him for in this passage. Don’t let it be spoiled by demon-chatter. The Evil one would love that. Don’t give him the satisfaction. He is a past master at muddling humans’ thinking. God is love, not a torturer.
Remember that the ones who begged Jesus to leave did so because they were more impressed by the demons’ work than by Jesus’ work of healing a crazed, violent man. It was the demons who drove the pigs into the sea – not a difficult thing to do. Jesus performed a miraculous healing.
The Gadarenes foolishly sought ‘peace’ by expelling the Prince of Peace. The madmen sought peace by coming to Jesus to seek his grace and mercy for them. Jesus calmed their minds and settled their disrupted spirits. Whom will you choose to worship?
Prayer: Oh, Lord Jesus Christ! How I love you for your bringing of peace. How often I need to hear that voice in my own life. Help me to read this story often, to remember it often, when I am being beset by worries and fears and the black dog of depression. You are the only bringer of peace. You are the still centre of every storm. Help me to seek you, and find you there. Amen.
