Dear Friends,
Do we think of God being present in difficult times like these? It’s sometimes hard to do. What might it be like? Think of being in a great storm in a small boat on the sea. We look at the wind and the waves and we’re frightened. But if Jesus were in the boat with us, would that help? I hope you won’t mind if I share a story with you about that very thing. But let me start with a favorite passage from the Bible I have been thinking of: it’s Psalm 89:9, which says, “You, O Lord, rule the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, You still them.”
These words remind me of a scene from the story of Jesus and his disciples in a storm on the Sea of Galilee. The scene I have in mind is one that the great painter, Rembrandt, imagined in his seascape, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” painted back in 1633, almost 400 years ago! I have included it, pasted above so you can see it.
Do you know that it’s the only seascape ever painted by Rembrandt? It depicts Jesus in a boat in the midst of a terrible storm just before he calmed the waves of the sea. He rescues the men in the boat with him from panic and fear by stopping the storm. The painting shows them just before that happens—when all seems lost. That’s exactly when Jesus reassures them. There are fourteen people in all in the boat, if you count them carefully. Try it. Can you find all 14? Rembrandt has included a self-portrait of himself in the boat, too! He’s the 14th person. One other person is hard to see if you’re counting—he’s near Jesus and you can barely see him. So in the boat it’s Jesus, the twelve disciples, and Rembrandt, who’s standing in for you and for me!
Sometimes we feel the same way these men seemed to have felt, don’t we? Panicky and afraid? Look at the picture of the painting. Do you see how fearful the situation is? Do you see how alarmed the disciples are? But Jesus is calm. Some of the men are struggling with the ship and some come to Jesus—waking Him up because He was asleep! They’re beseeching Him, “Lord, don’t you care that we’re about to drown?” And Rembrandt pictures himself in the boat, looking right out at us, the viewers! He’s showing he knows what it’s like to be in the boat with Jesus and he, too, is struggling with fear. But he shows he wants to trust Jesus—he wants to be close to Jesus, which is why he put himself in that boat. That’s how I want to be and I want to encourage you with this picture to yearn always to be with Jesus, too, and especially when in a storm.
The painting shows a passage from the 8th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Here’s how it reads: “And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, `Lord, save us: we perish.’ And he said to them, `Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?’ Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”
The canvas of Rembrandt’s painting of this scene was big–over 5 feet high and more than 4 feet wide. Those numbers help us appreciate how large a canvas that was. I saw it a number of times in a museum in Boston a long time ago. In the painting it looks like a disaster is imminent and these followers of Jesus are close to panic. The only one looking directly at the viewer—it’s a bit hard to see in our copy—is Rembrandt himself wearing a pink-tinted hat—a sort of painter’s cap. He puts himself right there, near Jesus, toward the back of the boat beside someone else who’s looking forward.
Now if you look at Jesus in this painting you can see He is not afraid at all and is saying to them, “Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” A moment after the disciples came to Jesus in panic as depicted in Rembrandt’s painting, the storm ceased completely as Jesus says to the wind and waves, “Peace, be still.”
At that point the disciples say to one another, though they’ve already been following Jesus for something like a year, “Who is this man?” They are just beginning to understand who He is. They have been hanging around with Jesus for twelve months, but here they are only beginning to comprehend. Here’s what the Bible says they actually said—it’s in Matthew 8:27: “And the men marveled, saying, `What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?’”
Which brings us back to Psalm 89:9, which again says: “You, O Lord, rule the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, You still them.” This is a reminder that the Lord is in control, even if the storm seems terrifying and we feel completely helpless. You can trust in Him! We may have liked Jesus or admired him, but here the followers of Jesus are learning they can also trust him.
In the Bible there’s a promise of the Lord’s loving rescue not only in storms of this world, but in the passage to the next—if we will only turn to him and away from our own efforts to overcome our guilt for all our shortcomings and justify ourselves by our own performances. He is so ready to forgive us of all our wrongdoings, if we’ll only come to Him, confess our sins, and trust in what He did for us by paying for our sins Himself on the cross. The whole idea of the cross is that we are the guilty ones, but Jesus has taken our place—the only sinless man who ever lived; that’s what the Bible teaches us of him. He willingly took my place—he substituted himself for me, so that I could be spared in the final day of justice when all sins are to be reckoned with by the Father. This, of course, is the teaching of the Triune God which is at the heart of the Bible. So, when Jesus said in John 8:51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death,” he was saying that what he was going to do—die on that cross—would ultimately be the way for all who trust in what he was doing to be rescued from the ultimate penalty for wrongdoing, which is death. To “keep” His word means to believe and trust it! It’s a miracle to learn to trust in him, but we can ask Jesus to help our unbelief, that we may believe.
Oh, I hope you will trust him and keep on trusting in Him! He will see you through the storm! There is peace in the midst of the storms of life when one is near Jesus and trusts in him! Jesus and the Father really do love you! This is good news! God bless you in these difficult days!
P.S. Rembrandt’s painting used to hang in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston—until it was stolen many years ago! It’s never been recovered. But do you see Rembrandt, looking at us in his pink-tinged hat, his hand holding a line? And there’s Jesus, somewhat in shadow and saying, “Why are you so fearful, O you of little faith?”
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