Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Mark 4:39 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
OUR GOOD CAPTAIN
To act out this account of Jesus stilling the storm you'd need a boat, some oars, a sail and a pillow. And of those props, the pillow is probably the most important one.
"The pillow?" you say? Yes. The pillow. Because the pillow shows us that Jesus was comfortable. Now, I don't mean that his body was comfortable. Having a cushion to lay your head on was better than sleeping on the hard wood of the boat, but it probably wasn't all that comfortable.
What I mean was that Jesus was comfortable in His mind. He knew why His Father had sent Him to earth. He was to rescue sinners from their sins. Jesus wouldn't allow death to take Him until the right time had come. As God's prophets had foretold, God's Son would die on a cross for the sins of the world. No squall on the Sea of Galilee would take the life of the promised Savior.
If only the disciples had been so comfortable in their minds. And if only you and I could be this comfortable all the time.
We can. It wasn't the physical present of Jesus that made the disciples safe, it was the almighty God in whose Son they trusted. They should have known that God's Son would not allow them to die until the right time had come for them to take their place at His side in eternity.
As you go about your tasks today, lay your head on the cushion of trust in Jesus. The Storm-stiller and Sin-slayer won't let you down.
