Discipline of Christ [Epiphany 4]

` ` ` LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE ` ` `

 READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jonah 1:1-17

• Romans 13:8-10

• St. Matthew 8:23-27

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)
 
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.”
 
Last week we talked about organized religion and how true, organized religion has nothing to do with voting or bank accounts. It has to do with our Lamb of God offering Himself as a sacrifice in order to organize the free forgiveness of sins into neatly packaged sacraments for us to organize ourselves around.
 
This week, Jesus has made sure that His organization stays organized, or at least has men on watch. For what we encounter today, in the Gospel, is the famous “stilling of the waves” along with the accompanying, “Jesus even has power over the wind and the waves” revelation.
 
So it becomes “Christian teachers” to teach this as the “winds and waves of outrageous fortune” that you encounter in your life. Jesus can help get your bank account on track. Jesus can help you through your grieving. Jesus can make you a better person. Jesus can make the world a better place. For you. For me. Just you wait. And see.
 
There’s just a little problem with this sort of “glorified teaching” and it is one that our Introit for today has brought up sneakily. In the Antiphon the Lord says, “He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still”, but in the body of the Introit He says, “He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.”
 
God may have stilled the storm, but He caused it in the first place. What this means is that though the Son has set us free indeed, we are still in need of discipline and therefore become disciples, as in “those who are disciplined”. Such is the case today with Jesus’ disciples. They are not in a state of unbelief. Far from it. They believe Jesus can do something about the storm. What they don’t yet believe is that He can do something about it, even asleep.
 
Repent. He Whose essence is untouchable is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a babe.
The God Who from of old established the heavens sleeps in a manger.
He Who showered the people with manna in the wilderness, feeds on milk from His mother’s breasts. The same Lord that stills the waves, makes the waves and we can’t believe God would be such a meanie. Listen to Hebrews 12:
 
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
    ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
    nor be weary when reproved by him.
    For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and chastises every son whom he receives.’
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (v.4-11)
 
The storm is the way; is where God is. Jesus doesn’t look at the storm and say, “Let’s turn back”. He says this is the way. We are going forward. And even though the wind and the waves were stilled, they were not stilled to make life easier for the disciples, but harder. For now they must believe. Notice their response to this event: “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
 
What sort of man indeed. 
It is not enough that we have a holy man that can care for and calm the metaphoric storms of this life. We need a man who can face real storms head on. It is not enough that we have an alert God, we need an active God not just patching up wind and wave, but curing the root of the problem.
 
For, the storm did not just disappear, but Jesus, the God-man, took the storm into Himself. Meaning, He is traipsing around earth for 33 years in order to soak up all that sin, death, and the power of the devil has ruined. Thus, it is not enough to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds”, says James 1:2.
 
Because, Hebrews 12 does not begin with our works in discipline, but with Christ and His work. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
 
Jesus is the Son Who is disciplined in our place. His are the stripes, the wounds, the nails. Jesus is the man Who is able to guide us when we are awake and guard us when we are asleep. Such that we can wake and watch with Christ, and sleep in peace. Why? Because God is always awake, even when He sleeps, even when His sleep is behind a sealed tomb stone.
 
It is the testing, temptation, and discipline of Christ that creates peace between God and man, so that when we face down the wind and the waves, we have the promise of God to still them, though we can not. Not because we have leveled up enough to withstand it. Quite the opposite. 
 
We will never be able to withstand the storms that death throws at us. God must suffer, die, and fall asleep in the tomb, in order to rescue us from the storms and gates of hell. The storms of this life are nothing compared to what our Christ faced for us.
 
And that is the point. Not that you are disciplined and trained or that you have a personal weather god at your beck and call, but that your Lord and Savior is disciplined, trained, and capable. Capable to still the storms and capable to quench the fires of hell all for our sake. 
 
The result of that is the Ark of His Church, which withstands all such assaults. The result is God being made man, purchasing and winning a Rock, a solid place for tempest-tossed sinful Christians to stand on and return to in need. On top of that, going further on to prepare a place that will never have to face such things ever again, by His side, for all eternity.
 
In the disciplining of Christ, a man is made watchful for all eternity, sitting at the right hand of God, ruling the heavens and the earth, and giving you Faith that endures. In the disciplining of Christ, God is offering Himself as the Way, through the storms, through the fire, and through death. 
 
And even though we face storms and demons we can not conquer, we have already been brought into the Boat, the Ark, that has conquered and will rise again, because her Savior rises again. And in that discipline, our discipline is an easy yoke: a splash of water, a sermon, bread and wine. 
 
While we are smacked upside the head every once in awhile and are tempted to get out of the boat to walk on water, Jesus’ rebuke to the wind and the waves is “Peace”. His rebuke to us is “Peace”. “Peace be with you”. Not worry, hysteria, or despair, but peace.
 
Peace to weather the storms, for we are being watched over and we are being brought into eternal life. So really, what can a storm do to you anyway?