The Christ who is not Safe -- Matthew 8:23-34
There has always been a tendency
among religious people, including Christians, to emphasize technique in order
to achieve a certain spiritual end. It
might involve technique in order to achieve a better prayer life, better
meditation, more peace and serenity, a more productive quiet time or Bible
study, or any number of things. Each of
these things are worthy goals and technique is not necessarily bad. But they are not ultimate goals. A better prayer life is meaningless unless it
brings you before God. It doesn’t really
matter how much or how long or how eloquent your prayer life is – or even how
personally satisfying – if it doesn’t bring you personally before the living
God. There are plenty of people who have
developed techniques to achieve a more peaceful spirit, but they may know
little about the true God. You see, the
danger is to take a technique and replace God with the technique. You can have a very robust spiritual life
without God, and the danger is to miss that because the technique you use to
achieve a spiritual life is so seemingly successful. Another way to put this is that it is so easy
to mistake religion for true and real godliness. I’m not saying that either religion or
spirituality is bad – but I am saying that they are equally useless if they
leave us without a knowledge of the God who is Holy. And I think one of the telltale signs of this
is an overemphasis on technique.
And we emphasize technique
because we can control a technique. A
technique is a procedure, a method; it is something that we can manage. We like to be in control and to call the
shots, even in the religious realm. It
is part of our sinful human nature. But
the problem is that you cannot control God, and if you try you will inevitably
fail. You cannot tame him. In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, someone asks whether Aslan the lion is safe, and
the reply is, “Safe? . . . Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Aslan is the Christ-figure in Lewis’ books,
and he was trying to communicate a very important truth about him. He isn’t safe; he isn’t under your
thumb. But he’s good!
Any religion that overemphasizes
technique has a domesticated god. He has
been tamed. You have put him on the
leash of your religious performances. But
the God of the Bible is not tame. He is
not safe. He is the sovereign King of
the universe.
I think the Evangelist Matthew
would be disappointed with us if we looked at this narrative about our Lord and
just looked for techniques to have a better spiritual life. I don’t think the point of either the story
about the boat in the storm or about the demon-possessed man, is how to have a
more peaceful life. The point is the
authority and power of Jesus Christ. The
reason Matthew wrote these stories down for us – the reason why the Holy Spirit
inspired these stories about our Lord – is to cause us to look to him. The main thing you need is not peace, or
courage, or strength to endure temptation.
You and I need these of course, but these are not the main things that
we need. Our greatest need is to know
Christ. And if we know him, we will have
peace and courage and strength to endure temptation.
This was the apostle John’s
reason for writing his epistle, and I think it applies equally to the Synoptics
as well: “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye
might have life through his name” (Jn. 20:30-31). So why did Matthew write these things in Mt.
8:23-34? “That ye might believe that
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”
This is the most important thing for any person. Knowing Christ is essential because you
cannot have eternal life apart from it: “And this is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (Jn.
17:3). To know God truly is to be known
by him (cf. Gal. 4:9), and I cannot think of anything better than that, for to
be known by God is to be loved by him and to be cared for by him.
So what I want to do this morning
is to let Matthew turn our eyes toward Jesus, and to meditate with him on the
power of God demonstrated in two events.
I chose to consider these two events together because they are so
complimentary and I don’t think it was by accident that Matthew put them
together. Of course, in the narrative
one event follows the other. Jesus has
embarked on a boat to get away from the crowds (ver. 18). As they travel across the Sea of Galilee,
they encounter this storm (ver. 23-27).
When they get to the other side, they then encounter two demon-possessed
men (ver. 28-34). Jesus stills the storm
and delivers the demoniac men from the legion of devils that possessed
them. But both events demonstrate in a
remarkable way our Lord’s authority, first over the natural and then over the
supernatural. The power of Christ!
These events are also tied
together in the way people responded to his power. You see this more clearly in Mark’s account
(Mk. 4:35-5:20). When Christ stilled the
storm, we read in Matthew that “the men marveled” (ver. 27), but Mark says that
the response of the disciples was that “they feared exceedingly” (Mk.
4:41). R. C. Sproul points out that Mark
has used the term “great” (Gk. mega)
three times in this story: once with reference to the storm (ver. 37), second
with reference to the peace that followed (ver. 39), and lastly with reference
to the fear of the disciples. But you
also see this response of fear following our Lord’s healing of the demoniac:
“And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had
the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid”
(Mk. 5:15).
Here we have the Gospel’s witness
to the fact that our Lord is not like us.
People are scared by people who are not like them. They are afraid of people who don’t act like
them or who don’t know their customs or culture. It’s why it is so easy to fall into
xenophobia – the fear of strangers.
There is an Andy Griffith Show episode
where a stranger comes into town who has never been there before and who is
recognized by nobody, but who knows all sorts of detailed information about the
townspeople. He knows their names, their
professions, their likes and dislikes, and so on. It scares the people of Mayberry that he
knows so much about them when they know nothing about him. And they try to run him out of town. So you can understand why the disciples were
frightened. Here was a man – a man who
could speak and stop the wind from blowing and the sea from raging. Here was a man – a man who could take two men
who were completely uncontrollable from a human standpoint and put them in
their right mind and bring them from insanity to sanity, from being
demon-possessed to wanting to follow Christ (cf. Mk. 5:18). And they understandably became afraid. Here is a man who is not like us.
And we probably have never really
come to grips with who Jesus is if we haven’t known a little of this fear that
the disciples experienced. Before a person
will ever come to grips with his/her need for Christ, he or she must see that
Christ is infinitely great – great in majesty, great in holiness, great in
power. You will never think sin is that
big of a deal if you don’t realize that the Lord whom you have offended is indescribably
great. And when you see this, there will
inevitably be a healthy fear in your heart.
It’s a healthy fear because it leads to repentance and faith. It’s the fear that Isaiah experienced when he
encountered God (Isa. 6:1-8). It’s the
fear that the apostle Peter experienced in another episode involving Jesus’
presence in his fishing boat, and that led him to cry out, “Depart from me; for
I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:1-10, ver. 8).
Jesus isn’t safe because he isn’t
like us. And that provokes fear. But he is also good. Power apart from goodness is an awful thing
to contemplate. We see what happens
every time evil men get control of a government. With sinful human beings it is a truism that
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But Jesus is not a sinful human being. He is powerful and good. He is not like us, and that is what makes him
the perfect Savior for sinful men and women.
Should we fear him? Yes. But we should also trust in him and love him.
So let’s consider how our Lord’s
power is demonstrated first in the storm on the sea in verses 23-27.
In verse 23, we are told that he
“entered into a ship.” Several of the
disciples were fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, and so there would naturally
have been a boat available for our Lord’s use.
This boat was probably about 27 feet long[1],
big enough for all the disciples and our Lord, but not too large and “without
sails.”[2]
They began to sail across the Sea
of Galilee. It is well-known that storms
can arise very suddenly on this body of water.
This is because the Sea of Galilee sits at 700 feet below sea-level, making
it the lowest body of fresh water on the earth, and it is surrounded by tall
cliffs and mountains. Valleys and gorges
that lead to the sea funnel winds that come west from the Mediterranean Sea or
east from the desert. Evidently,
normally these sudden storms usually happen during the day, so that fishing was
done at night (cf. Luke 5:5), and if you wanted to cross night was the best
time to do it. We are told by Mark that
this was precisely when they chose to cross, “when even was come” (Mk.
4:35). Thus, they would not have
expected to encounter the storm that they did.
Our Lord went to sleep (ver.
24). Mark adds the detail that he was
asleep on a pillow (Mk. 4:38). I think
it is interesting to ponder the strange juxtaposition of our Lord’s weariness
and need of rest and his subsequent demonstration of power over the
elements. If the disciples had just made
up this story, would they have included this detail? How strange is it that Jesus who is Lord of
heaven and earth was so exhausted that he not only fell asleep, but would have
slept through this terrific storm had not the disciples awakened him! I once saw a photograph of an American GI
during the Vietnam War sleeping on a pile of firewood in pouring rain. I can’t imagine being that tired. But our Lord’s situation wasn’t that much
different. Matthew tells us that “there
arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the
waves” (ver. 24). Water was filling the
boat and they were in danger of sinking.
The disciples were terrified, but our Lord was asleep.
The disciples figure that they
are about to die, so they wake up Jesus: “And his disciples came to him, and
awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish” (ver. 25). According to Mark, they added, “Master,
carest thou not that we perish?” (Mk. 4:38).
They were obviously scared. They
thought they were about to die. And yet,
they had enough faith to ask Jesus to save them. I think that’s important – they could have
handed Jesus a bucket and told him to get busy.
But they are not looking for another hand. They aren’t looking for someone to augment
their own efforts. They are at the end
of their tether. They’ve got nothing at
this point. Jesus must save them or they
will perish. In the same way, if you
would come to Jesus, you have to come to him, as the hymn puts it, with “nothing
in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.” That’s the kind of faith that our Lord
responds to. Faith recognizes that I am
powerless and the Christ is powerful.
But Jesus then delivers two
rebukes. First, he rebukes the disciples
(ver. 26a): “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Notice that he calls them “ye of little
faith.” They had faith in him and
demonstrated that in reaching out to him to save them. They believed to some extent in his
power. But it was “little” faith because
they had doubted his care for them. “Carest
thou not that we perish?” True faith not
only trusts in God’s goodness and protection when the seas of life are still
but also in the midst of storms. Their
faith was mixed with sinful fear. It was
also “little” because they didn’t understand fully the power of Christ.
And yet, our Lord responds to
their “little faith”! Thank God that he
is like that. God may rebuke us, but he
is gentle towards us, and responds even to defective and little faith. “Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the
sea; and there was a great calm” (ver. 26b).
He simply speaks a word and the winds and the waves obey his voice.
There is no one besides Jesus
Christ that has this kind of power. Men
are constantly trying to figure out ways to harness the power that is in
nature. We have power plants to harness
the power of water and wind. But in the
end, men cannot completely control either wind or water and we see this
constantly with tornadoes and hurricanes.
Our Lord, however, is in complete control. As it has been said, there is not a maverick
molecule in the universe. All bow to the
sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
Paul put it this way, speaking of
our Lord: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or
principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he
is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17). In other words, Jesus didn’t just create the
universe; he also holds it together. In
the same way, the author of Hebrews describes Jesus as the Son of God, “whom he
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being
the brightness of his glory, and upholding all things by the word of his power,
when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:2-3). He is
still sovereign over nature with his word.
Do you believe that? Whatever the disciples thought or believed
about Jesus, this event must have led to an immediate reordering of their
thinking about the Christ. “But the men
marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea
obey him!” (ver. 27). They were afraid. Even though they had been terrified of the
powerful storm that had nearly destroyed their boat and their lives, they now
realized that they were standing in the presence of someone who was more
powerful than the storm of which just seconds ago they had stood in awe. This is the Lord we serve!
But our Lord is not just
sovereign over nature. He is also
sovereign over the supernatural realm, and that is what is demonstrated in the
next event narrated in verses 28-34.
When they made it over to the other,
eastern, side of the Sea of Galilee, they were in a region known as
Gadara. This was a Gentile region, as
can be seen by the presence of a herd of several thousand pigs. Jesus had gone there ostensibly to get some
rest from the crowds, but he is immediately confronted by two demon-possessed
men.
Interestingly, Matthew mentions
two men here; Mark mentions only one.
But this is probably because subsequently one of the two became more
well-known among the Christian community and therefore was the one most people
remembered. In any case, there is no
discrepancy here; it is like when people tell you that they had seen a friend
they hadn’t seen in a long time without mentioning the fact that their spouse
was there as well. The fact that Mark
mentions one doesn’t mean that the other wasn’t present!
Now consider what Jesus was
confronted with here. First of all,
these men were demon-possessed (ver. 28).
Mark says that at least one of them was named Legion because he was
possessed by man demons (Mk. 5:9). In
the Roman army, a legion consisted of about 6500 men. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there were
exactly 6500 demons in the man; people used that word to denote any sufficiently
large group of things (even as we do today).
So not only were they demon-possessed, they were inhabited by a
multitude of devils.
Let me just say now that though
we don’t need to attribute every bad thing that someone does to the devil,
neither should we deny the reality of Satan or demons. They are real. They can hurt people. Demon possession is a real thing. Paul refers to demons as the “rulers of the
darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12).
Peter refers to the Devil as our adversary who goes about as a roaring
lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8).
The Bible begins with the Devil’s tempting mankind to rebellion and it
ends with his overthrow in a lake of fire.
So it’s obvious that to deny his existence is to fail to take God’s word
seriously. These two men didn’t just
have a mental illness. This was not just
a matter of a chemical imbalance in the brain.
They were controlled and inhabited by supernatural evil spirits who hate
God and hate people who are made in the image of God.
And they tried to make life as
miserable for these men as they possibly could: these men were “exceeding
fierce, so that no man could pass by that way” (ver. 28). Mark adds: “And when he was come out of the
ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit”
(Mk. 5:2) – remember tombs in Roman Palestine were not holes in the ground but
caves in the sides of hills, and probably it was in these caves where these two
men dwelt. It also meant that they were
unclean, on account of their living with the dead. But more than this, “no man could bind him,
no, not with chains: because that he had been often bound with fetters and
chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken
in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs,
crying, and cutting himself with stones” (Mk. 5:3-5). Can you imagine a life more unbearable, more
miserable?
Note that no man could help this
person. No one could tame him. And when they failed to do that, no one could
imprison him. He was uncontrollable and
inconsolable and unsavable. This sets
the stage for our Lord to again exert his power over a situation that no mere
man could control.
Mark says that “when he saw Jesus
afar off, he ran and worshipped him” (Mk. 5:6).
Now we shouldn’t read too much into that word “worshipped” (Gk. proskuneo). It doesn’t necessarily carry all the
connotations that we normally associate with it. Literally, it means to kneel in obeisance,
which sometimes even rebels are compelled to do in the presence of their
sovereign. One reason we know this is
what is happening here is because of what the Legion says. The text says that he “cried with a loud
voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high
God? I adjure thee by God, that thou
torment me not” (Mk. 5:6-7). Now Matthew
makes it clear that the demoniac was speaking these words under the influence
of the demons: “And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with
thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? Art thou come to torment us before the time?”
(ver. 29). They weren’t about to call
out a hymn; they were simply terrified about the possibility that Jesus had
come to send them to hell before the appointed time. Though many men do not realize this, these
demons knew that the fact of the matter is that Jesus Christ is the judge of
all and that all will give an account to him and that there is no power in
heaven or hell that can deliver you from his sovereign rule.
As with the storm, Jesus heals
these two men with a word: “Go” (ver. 32).
We are told in the previous two verses of a herd of pigs (Mark says that
there were 2000 of them, Mk. 5:13) and the demons’ request to be sent into the
pigs. Our Lord allows them to do
so. Here we see the power and authority
of Christ in two ways: first, in that by a word he heals the demon-possessed;
second, in that not even demons can move from Point A to Point B without his
permission. As Martin Luther put it, God
has the devil on a leash.
Now this sets up a problem: why
did Jesus let the demons go into the herd of pigs? Wasn’t this unkind to the men to whom they
belonged? (Better yet, wasn’t it unkind
to the pigs?) After all, as soon as the
demons entered the pigs, “behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a
steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters” (ver. 32). Why did our Lord do this?
I think D. A. Carson is right
when he suggests that there are a number of reasons why Jesus might have
allowed the demons to do this. First,
the fact of the matter is that Jesus is Lord over nature and therefore its
proper owner. The ultimate owner of the
pigs was not the men who tended them but Jesus Christ. And he can do with his own what he
wills. Second, the fact that he allowed
the pigs to be handed over to the demons illustrated to all that he had
delivered the demoniacs from the grip of the devils. It might have been hard for people to believe
that they had changed, but after such a dramatic display, it would be even
harder for people to deny it. Third, it
could be that in allowing this, “the loss of the herd became a way of exposing
the real values of the people in the vicinity.
They preferred pigs to persons, swine to the Savior.”[3] Far from rejoicing it the deliverance of
these two men, the whole city came out and “besought him that he would depart
out of their coasts” (ver. 34).
But again, the most amazing thing
here is the change that happened to these men.
Jesus got back into the boat in response to the people’s plea to leave,
but at least one of the former demoniacs wanted to go with Jesus: “And when he
was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him
that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus
suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how
great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. And he departed, and began to publish in
Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (Mk.
5:18-19).
This is the power of Christ. These men didn’t ask Christ to save them; the
demons completely controlled them and all they were worried about was their own
skins – they didn’t want to be sent to hell right away. But Jesus, seeing their miserable condition,
threw the demons out and not only gave them back their sanity but also a love
for the Son of God and a desire to be with him.
He saved them not only from demons but from their sins – which as the
next chapter will demonstrate is really the greater miracle.
Later in the Matthew’s gospel, we
read of another time when the disciples marveled. It was when the rich young ruler walked away
from our Lord’s call to follow him. We
read: “When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who
then can be saved? But Jesus beheld
them, and said unto them, With men it is impossible; but with God all things
are possible” (Mt. 19:25-26). Even so,
our Lord is the one who can do the impossible because he is the Son of God. He can calm the sea, he can cast out devils,
and he can save sinners who deserve nothing less than hell. He can take the blackest heart and make it
clean.
What should be our response? Simply this: to recognize Jesus for who he
is. He is good and he is powerful. And to recognize us for who we are: we have
nothing. Don’t hand Jesus a bucket and
ask him to help you to bail out your sinking ship. That’s not what he came for. He came to seek and to save those who are
lost. Look to him, find life in him, the
Son of God!
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