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‘The ship was covered with the waves.’
Mat_8:24
I. Absolute helplessness.—Most men, at some time in their lives, have known what it is to touch the last limit of strength. The powers that overmatch us, tire us out, and run us down, are various—time, hereditary maladies, sudden sickness, the superior strength of other people serving their own interests against us. Most plainly it is a part of God’s scheme of mercy to lead us, in our self-confidence and self-will, every one of us, to just that point, so that when we are obliged to stop trusting or calculating for ourselves, we shall come willingly to Him.
II. Seeking Christ.—When, at last, the voyager comes sincerely and anxiously to that, and utters the prayer, Christ does not refuse him because he did not call sooner, or because when he prayed his prayer was not the purest and loftiest of prayers. Hardly any heart’s prayer is that, when it is first agitated under the flashing conviction that it is all wrong. While its deep disorder is first discovered it can think only of being delivered. ‘Lord, save us, we perish!’ The Gospel approves and blesses such asking. When they have gone deeper into the real motives of disinterested religion, and have drunk more deeply of the Spirit of Christ Himself, their petitions will rise to loftier ranges of spiritual desire. At present this patient Intercessor and Redeemer accepts the crudest supplication, so only it comes out of a penitent, contrite heart, and is directed to Him. This is enough. He fosters the faintest glow of faith. He cherishes the nascent, half-formed purpose of obedience.
III. God in everything.—The Person of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, is the actual bond of a living unity between the visible world of nature and the invisible world of God’s spiritual kingdom. Scholars will never explore nature thoroughly, or right wisely, till they see this religious signification of every law, every force, and every particle of matter, and explore it by the light of faith. God is in everything or in nothing—in lumps of common clay, as Ruskin says, and in drops of water, as in the kindling of the day star, and in the lifting of the pillars of heaven. The naturalists of antiquity were quite as original and acute, in the purely intellectual quality, as the moderns. But none of them, of any nation, ever really grasped this doctrine of creation till Christ revealed it. Hence, Christ must be Lord of life and death, of seas and storms, of diseases and demons, of every mystery and might and secret of created things. ‘The winds and the sea obey Him.’
IV. True use of miracles.—The miracle thus discloses to us the true practical use both of the gospel miracles themselves, and of every other gift and blessing of heaven, in leading us up in affectionate gratitude to Him who stands as the central figure among all these visible wonders, and the originator of all the peace-making powers which tranquillise and reconcile the turbulences of the world. The wonders fulfilled their office when they gained men’s ears and hearts for their Redeemer. Feeding on Him, dying with Him, at liberty with His freedom, walking daily in His light, forgiven through His mediation, enriched and sanctified by His intercession—what can the brave and true Christian need more? ‘When He giveth peace, who then can make trouble?’
—
Bishop Huntingdon.