Snapshot
Cross ✝️, Crossing🚶🏿…
Jesus' disciples had a crossing to do. Bearing the cross might likely have lessons conveyed through their very acts. This, we shall consider below. Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive attempt at description. Rather, the views here are limited to the author’s spiritual exposure and experiences.
Difficulty: “…the sea began getting rough, because a strong wind was blowing. (vs. 18)”
With delays come doubt, allowing the devil a space to strike with as much devastation as he has in coffers. First is the knowledge of distance. Then travelling or trying to cross the distance and because of our childishness, confusion looms. Then the cross comes with unavoidable delays, which we cannot explain. How this time gives the devil a free space to disrupt and threaten us with destruction! Some through the fire, some through the flood,” renders that song so valid for weathering the time of distress. Oh, the devastation associated with the cross, how it purifies! How it sanctifies! How the great wind that arose was sent to blow away the chaff of unbelief from them and blow strength to them! How sanctified are the pains associated with the cross! How free of sorrow they are! How they joy us when these chastening winds subside! How it matures us, perfecting us in the aspect of life, it was meant to address!
However good-intended God is with these events, there is no questioning that they disrupt us. There’s no questioning that these events disturb our peace. They intrude on our plans and interrupt our planned progress. This is what it is to take up the cross. Projects may literarily be crossed out by a supreme divine will of the Lord. Perhaps our beloved fore-gone brethren had plans slated for their arrival on the other side of the sea of Galilee. Possibly each may wish to share his portion of gathered fragments with his family to justify following Jesus. However, they must have flung the baskets overboard to save the boat from capsizing. Not alone did it destroy their plans; it also deemed their possibilities. It was hard. Oh, following Jesus could mean death to the legitimate. Taking up the cross could mean crossing out your harmless intention and superimposing God’s in its stead. Crossing to the other side from our lower nature to the divine may entail disruption through intervening wind! How unpleasant this will be, but how well God means with them!
Have you decided to follow Jesus by putting the world behind you and the cross before you? And since then or along arose the sea “by reason of a great wind?” Relax, dear friend; this disturbance is well-meaned. It was doctored, tailored, and sustained by one who gauged your ability before letting these billows roll. Oh, He knew the valley’s length, breadth, and depth before He sent you there. And the only reason why you were sent there is to refresh your soul with an experience so unique. These experiences are unknown to those who were never disrupted. This disruption may be so well-pronounced when the One who promised never to leave nor forsake us seems unreachable, aloof, or unconcerned.
Row, brother, row, it is your boat to row! He was sure the devastation would not drown you before He let it. Experiences gathered when rowing is far handier than their avoidance. When considered in conjunction with other gospel accounts, this event reveals that it occurred after Jesus had fed 5000 with fish and bread. It was no surprise that the beheading threat of Herod could do nothing to hinder Peter’s sweet night rest in the Prison. Jesus had told Him what sort of death He should die. Thus, after making 3000 and 2000 Jewish coverts that summed up to 5000, it was no surprise to him that a disturbance was underway. What could other experiences have sufficed? Which miracle would have been better: Jesus sending His disciples chariots of fire to avoid the storm or eventually subjecting them to them it and then intervening? There is no waste in God; even when He permits darkness, it must work together for good.
Distressed deeds: “… rowed for about 25 to 30 stadia. (vs. 19)”
How we react instantaneously uninspired and consequently uninformed when faced with unprecedented difficulties! Can our deeds in response to darkness, delay, and disturbances associated with the distance being crossed or covered measure up with God’s expectation? They rowed the boat for about 4 to 6 hours, not reaching out to the former miracle Jesus did by commanding the sea. They kept trying. Maybe the experienced fishermen amongst them came forward alphabetically. In this, Peter, the great rock and foreteller of the Messiah, would have surfaced as the last man standing. They must have thrown out all the fragments of leftover gathered after feeding the 5000. Given all boats could be lightened by throwing the food items overboard. It signified they gave up hope throwing overboard every word of God they had ever heard from Jesus.
Taking up the cross to follow Jesus is well manifested in our character. What are our reactions when we witness cross-associated delays, confusion or disturbances? Don’t we easily despair? Don’t we easily give up?
Thank God there was a Peter who had an expectant at heart. Perhaps, influenced by the faith of the woman with the issue of blood, Peter hung on one hope: “If only the Master was here.” Little wonder when Jesus’ visage motioned along. While others perceived a Ghost, He reached out for Him as a miracle worker. Granted, we might zone our first point of call to last resort; Jesus, whose help we should seek at first, may be the one we consult at last. This does, nevertheless, not occur without significant losses. Yet when He motions along, 11 of 12 disciples proved that majority will lose hope of the possibility of receiving any help.
From experience, in specific Christ-curated, cross-related incidences, consultation is made with the Master on what reactions to maintain in a storm. His response could be typical in providing a disposition to possess. Others not: we must learn through the unravelling of the circumstances. Still, the best is to relate with the curator of the storm. Paul asked God to take an infirmity away thrice… He did not suddenly begin to despair. What a reaction! Our reaction must be just this way. Like a respected man of God says, “I do not pray for storms or difficulties. But when they come, I pray God gives me grace or take them away.” Is this sort of dependence not child-like enough.
Every occurrence in the life of a Christian - good or bad - is a miracle. The miracle of the event in one difficulty will help in another predicament. Not the miracle of “no storms” could have calmed Peter when faced with death and Herod. But the eventuality of the occurrence helped him weather the storm, sleeping in stocks and afore sword for his neck. This disposition may help us since the veritable Christian life matures. It is a life growing from one degree of glory to another. It also advances in the variance of light to be manifested. This stresses cumulative growth, wherein future growth is dependent on past growth. Thus our reaction to current difficulties should be, “God, what will you have me do?” and in case we rush into action without consultation and find out that our first point call has become the last after the loss of all things have been made. We should not lose hope that when the Master shall appear, help will appear with Him.
Christ was King in all realms, but obeying death was obeying God, His Father. Subjecting ourselves to trials may manifest Christ attitude’s helpless dependence on God. Let the cross stand its ground or be taken up as demanded by Christ. That great virtue - patient dependence on God - will take its course if and only if we maintain the attitude of not disposing of hope as means of lightening our supposedly sinking ship.
