Sleeping through the Storm

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service in 23rd February 2025. The gospel was Luke 8:22-25. I hope you enjoy reading it!

I love a nap. I don’t just love it – I’m pretty good at having a nap too.

Honestly. if napping ever becomes an Olympic sport, I’ve a really good chance at representing the country.

Let me tell you some of the places I’ve had a nap:

On a cold, hard bench outside Sydney airport in Australia. Not so much a nap that one as an attempt at a night’s sleep – I had an early flight the next morning and didn’t think it was worth booking a hotel, as I could get a few hours in at the airport. No-one told me the airport closed overnight until security came along and kicked me out! Not my most comfortable night’s sleep, but I still managed to get an hour or so in.

In the middle of a packed, very noisy pub during the 2007 England-France Rugby world cup final, head down on the table, snoring away. I’d honestly not even had that much to drink!

On the Berlin underground. Whilst standing up. Honestly.

Jen, who doesn’t speak German, woke me up to find out what the persistent tannoy announcement was saying. It was “mind the doors”.

I have to take my hat off to Jesus in our gospel though. Hat? Sleeping cap, maybe? There are many ways in which I aspire to be more like Jesus, and genuinely, his napping ability is high up on that list…

Our gospel reading this morning is only short, but it packs a lot it.

Let me paraphrase it:

Jesus and a few of his disciples get into a boat – most likely a small fishing boat with oars and a small sail; able to carry about 4-6 people probably – and Jesus says to the disciples, “let’s go over to the other side of the lake”. This is the “sea” of Galilee – about 64 square miles in size. It’s pretty big.

So, they start to sail over and Jesus decides this is great time for a nap. I don’t blame him – he’s been doing a lot of preaching, which definitely brings on the desire for a snooze. If not from the preacher, then perhaps from the people listening?

Anyway. Jesus falls asleep and suddenly, there’s a storm. Storms on the sea of Gallilee can apparently rear up in no time at all. And this one seems to have been a big one. Waves crash against them, and water starts to fill into the boat, but despite all this, Jesus keeps on sleeping.

The disciples on the boat wake Jesus up, shaking him and shouting at him, shouting that they are all going to die… and we know the rest, don’t we? Jesus shouts back, but at the storm – he tells it off – and just as suddenly as it started, everything is calm again.

Now, if we tie this reading in with our other readings this morning, from Genesis, and from Revelation, there’s a theme here about Christ being the master of creation; that God created all things, and has power over all things – the disciples ask themselves the very question: “who is this that even the winds and water obey him?”.

But I think we know that. I think we understand that God is our creator, that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. So, I’d like to look at a couple of different bits from our Gospel today, if that’s ok?

For me, there are two pieces in this story that I find more interesting than the fact that Christ commanded the storm. You might have guessed the first?

Yup. I love naps! But even I couldn’t sleep in a tiny fishing boat, whilst a major storm starts filling that boat with water, and my friends start panicking about me. You can imagine they’re trying to bail out the water, and bring down the sail, and keep the boat upright, whilst shouting above the noise of the wind and the waves, and then they eventually come over to Jesus to wake him up to tell him this is it – they’re dying.

 He’s not a fisherman, by the way; they didn’t get him to help take down the sail, or wake him up to bail out more water. I’m not even sure they woke him for help; I think they were all pretty certain that this was the end.

And through all this, Jesus slept.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt

Throughout the Old Testament, the sea and storms are symbols of chaos; a world in turmoil. It’s obvious here in our gospel reading. The sea and the storm are dangerous; they are the turmoil around us that is uncontrollable. No matter what we do, no matter how much water we bail out, no matter whether we bring down the sail and shout and row and try to keep our boat steady, these are the things that happen to us that we cannot control. The 3am phone call that jolts us awake in the middle of the night. The conversation with the doctor that starts with a tilt of the head and them drawing their teeth across their lips. The sudden email invitation to a no-context mandatory call in the next 30 minutes from senior management.

And through these things, Jesus sleeps.

It feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it? Jesus, don’t you care that we’re drowning?

But, here’s the bit we miss I think. And it’s odd, because it’s clear from the story, and it’s such a common phrase. The panicking disciples and Jesus? Us, drowning in the chaos around us and Jesus? We’re all in the same boat.

Jesus is there with us in the chaos. He’s impacted too. He’s there with us as our world crashes around us – and, let’s be honest – it does for us all at some point. And, if he’s taking a nap through that, I think that says something about the fact he’s not worried. Not that he doesn’t care, but that he knows it’s all in the hands of his – and our – Father in Heaven. 

That doesn’t mean everything works out the way we want it to, mind you. One day, a storm will come and it will be our last. But that means our race is won, and our Father has called us home, and we will see him running towards us and hear him say “Well done!” 

It just means that Jesus knows that God has a plan and that, in the end – at the very end – order triumphs over chaos, and peace triumphs over fear, and love triumphs over evil. That brings a sense of calm, don’t you think?

And that leads me to the other interesting point I want to call out.

Once Jesus calms the storm, he turns to the disciples and asks them a question – “Where is your faith?”

I’ve always read that as an admonishment. Jesus, grumpy after being woken from his nap asking why the disciples were panicking and disturbed him.

I don’t think it is, though. And – the more I read it – the more I think it’s not a question about why they woke Jesus up, but perhaps about why they left it so late?

We all do it, don’t we? When those unforeseen storms suddenly spring up, our instant reaction is “what am I going to do?”. The disciples bailed out water. The disciples pulled down the sails. The disciples panicked and shouted. Where is their faith? In the buckets? In the sails? In the boat? In themselves?

I wonder what would have happened if they woke Jesus first? If that was their first reaction? If they weren’t so concerned about not disturbing him and trying to fix things themselves? If their faith was foremost in Christ rather in what they themselves could do to fix the situation they were in?

What would happen during our own storms in life if our first reaction is to turn to Christ?

Maybe those storms won’t actually calm any sooner. But I wonder if we ourselves would? 

Maybe enough to know that God our Father holds us all in the palm of his hand; whatever the outcome.

Hey – it may not enable us to nap through each storm. But I think it might help us find peace in their midst, maybe?

Amen.