The Lutheran Hour
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"God’s Cross-Over Move"
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Text: Matthew 14:22-33
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I have her full permission to share the story of the time when my best friend had a disturbing sinking feeling on an airplane. Once on a late night, all-night, cross country flight through some rough, bumpy, turbulent wind, in a cabin full of sleeping passengers, my traveling companion seated next to me was suddenly struck with a sense of our danger and blurted, “We’re going down.” With that I sat straight up. With that, most people around us who were asleep came awake, and some who were awake began to pray.
I saw a tense, tight-looking lady make the sign of the cross. Fear gripped me, too, but I tend to suppress my anxieties churning them into stress while my best friend, my traveling companion, my wife, tends to release hers in a much healthier pattern. Concluding this was not the right time or the right place to be announcing our doomed destination, I suggested as we made our treacherous way on this all-night cross country flight that the next time she had a need to “release,” she call on Jesus instead. Jesus, the conqueror of storms; Jesus, the calmer of stress.
I don’t think I was that eloquent about it, but you get the point. Well, more turbulence came, as it always does, and this time she did exactly what I suggested, announcing to the entire plane in her loudest voice yet: “Lord, Jesus, we’re going down!” How we felt on that bumpy flight and how the disciples felt on the choppy Sea of Galilee and how Peter felt going down out in the middle of the lake, were probably a lot alike. In both cases, it was night. In both cases, the storms struck without warning. In both cases, the passengers were afraid. In both cases, they called on Jesus, in a sense. Jesus called to His disciples, “Let’s cross the lake over to the other side.”
Picture this. The same Jesus whose idea it was to get into the boat in the first place is not with them en route, even as a storm is stirring up and the tiny ship is getting tossed. I am sure the disciples really started “tripping out” even before the trip got started, because this particular travel plan pressed the disciples at their deepest point of prejudice and faithlessness. Our Lord’s invitation to those who boasted, “Lord, we’ll follow You wherever You go,” was to go to “the other side,” the other side, where good Jews ordinarily do not go.
Doesn’t Jesus know what kind of people live over there on the other side? These are not our kind of folk. I mean if you read Mark you’ll discover on the other side, there lived a man we politely call a “maniac,” or theologically, a “demoniac.” This guy gives his address on the other side as #1 Cemetery Blvd. Please say it isn’t so that we’re going across the tracks into that neighborhood. Are there really any potential Christians over there on the other side? Over on the other side, they don’t look like us or talk like us or walk like us or sing like us or speak “American” like us or dance like us. (You’ve heard the excuses). That’s it! They don’t pray like us. Let’s base our opposition on religious grounds.
They are Gaderenes or Gerasenes, or what do they want to be called anyway? Things are evil over there on the other side — demon-possessed people. Things go bump at night over there, and yet it was “when evening came” that Jesus said to His disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”
Not only is it nervewracking enough that we must go there, on the way, what happens? On the way to mission outreach, on the way to doing God’s will. What happens? Storms strike!
I’m told that because of the unique geography of the Sea of Galilee, it was (and is) a place where storms strike without warning. When the cool air of the Mediterranean mixes with the hot, humid air in this narrow lake valley called Pigeon Valley, violent weather can erupt, without warning. The storms of life often strike like that, don’t they? On the way to doing something good and for God, without warning, without fault of our own, a storm strikes. You can be in the middle of a journey or a season of life, and without warning, sickness strikes. Without warning, a family member stresses out with unspeakable distress. Without warning, that same old temptation has switched over into a new form and tricked you again. Without warning, spouses go on leave from love, relationships get beyond fixing, and you find the relational fracture too late. Somebody wishes they even had a relationship for a storm to strike. Without warning, or maybe you missed the warning, it came in the mail. The bills you thought were due are suddenly past due, and now you have more month than you have money.
We know the story of Peter crashing down through the waves. We know how Jesus rescued him and the storm-beaten craft from their certain death. I hope we all know the Good News story of how Jesus rescues us from eternal death by His dying on the cross. Knowing this is the most blessed bit of information in life, and believing this is the most precious gift–giving us eternal life. As the Spirit works faith in us, Jesus’ work of salvation is completed for us by Him completely closing the gap between a righteously angry God and you and me. Listen to the words of Jesus as John writes them in chapter 5 of his Gospel book: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. That person has already crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).
Because God has already crossed over for us, our future is secure, our present is in His hands and our past is forgiven. But sister, brother, with this momentum of our salvation, I want to take us directly to the end of the reading, where our work on the other side begins. The storm has subsided. The calm after the storm has arrived. Verse 34 says, “When they had crossed over, the people of that place recognized Jesus.”
How can we help more and more people recognize Jesus? This same Savior we have seen; this Redeemer has crossed over into our lives to save us. There is somebody in your life and mine living on the other side who needs to recognize Jesus–somebody needs to know Him as an ever present help when they’re at the deepest point of doubt. Somebody needs to love Him as a friend who will never forsake them, even in the unfriendly, choppy waters of this world. Somebody needs to hear God’s Spirit speak God’s peace in His Word, like they’ve never known peace before. Somebody needs to be brought to the cross-over point like the Spirit has brought us. That point is the cross of Jesus Christ–a vertical wooden beam intersected by a horizontal beam, but so much more than mere wood. At the cross Jesus entered our journey in the midst of our storms or stressors or struggles, or even in our own sinfulness. We can look to Jesus at the cross and see for sure that God is with us.
When we wonder if we’re going to make it, see Jesus, and see God making a way out of no way. See Jesus and you’ll find forgiveness for the alienated. See Jesus and you’ll find new energy to share the Word among the least, the last, the lost, the laughed at, the over-looked and the left behind in life. Recognize Jesus and you’ll find new reconciling power for husbands and wives who aren’t speaking to one another, maybe on the way to church this morning. Don’t take your eyes off of Jesus like Peter did, or you may end up where Peter almost ended up. See Jesus crossing over 2,000 years ago, as true God born in the natural way, like us, but born of a Virgin mother, nothing like us. See Jesus crossing over into a world of sin, like all of us, but living an absolutely sinless life, nothing like any of us. With sin on Him, just like us, but crossing over with no sin in Him, nothing like us. Crossing over to die in our place Jesus did die–like we all will one day. Since He got up with all power in His previously pierced hands, one day we will rise just like Him and cross over to the place He has prepared for us.
I love the way Paul puts it in Colossians 1: “And God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Jesus, and through Jesus, to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.”
I won’t lie and say that with Jesus in your life the journey will be all “smooth sailing” and sunny skies and calm wind whispering at your back. What I’m saying is that if you stick it out, if you keep the faith in spite of the storm, stay on board, remember your baptism, hold onto God’s promises, and keep your eyes on Jesus, He will see you through. The flight sometimes feels like it’s going to crash. The boat felt like it was going to sink. Peter thought he was going to drown. But because Jesus has crossed over into your life and mine, we will get through the storm.
My wife and I did get through that stormy flight. We arrived alive and so will you, in God’s eternal safekeeping. Jesus promised it and I believe it. His Word is sure. “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; that person has already crossed over from death to life.” Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for August 11, 2002
ANNOUNCER: What will the bodies of Christians be like in the resurrection of the dead? I’m Mark Eischer. With me in the studio is Dr. Ken Schurb, Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Moberly, Missouri.
SCHURB: Hello, Mark. The Lord be with you.
ANNOUNCER: And also with you. A listener writes asking how old the bodies of Christians will be when, on the Last Day, Jesus returns and raises them to live with Him forever.
SCHURB: This question is a good one, Mark, not so much because we have a definitive answer. We really don’t. It is good because of the biblical teachings behind it.
ANNOUNCER: What do you mean?
SCHURB: First of all, the question assumes the biblical teaching (echoed in church creeds) that Christ will raise all the dead on the Last Day and judge them. The Christians–those who received the righteousness of Christ in this life by God-given faith–will rise in glorified bodies and join Him in heaven. Those who did not trust Christ as Savior will be sent to hell where they will dwell apart from God’s loving and saving presence forever. But that’s not all. It seems the listener asking this question is more biblically astute still.
ANNOUNCER: How so?
SCHURB: This listener apparently realizes two more things. First, that there will be a continuity between the bodies we Christians have in this world now and the bodies we will have in the new heaven and earth. That is: these will be the same bodies, but glorified in heaven. Second, and on the other side of the coin, as it were, the life of the world to come after the resurrection of the dead will be different, vastly different, from anything we have experienced. We know it will be different enough to make us wonder right now about what will happen to an element of our common experience today, physical age.
ANNOUNCER: It also occurs to me that we all go through different ages as we get older. God could resurrect my body at any age I have been — four, 14, or 40 — and still keep a continuity between my body in this world and my resurrected body.
SCHURB: Right. So, as I said, the listener’s question is a good one.
ANNOUNCER: Does God give any clues in His Word to help answer this question about the age of the resurrected body?
SCHURB: Over the years, many Christians have thought that God will raise all the dead at the age they were when they died. This is a pious opinion, but it has some biblical foundation. At the end of the Gospels, Jesus’ own resurrected body was of the age of His body crucified on Good Friday–same body, same age. The book of Revelation mentions all the dead raised at the resurrection and calls them “great and small.” It might be that some of the “small” are children. That is, people who died at early ages. But in Scripture God certainly does not promise to raise us at any particular age, and He really doesn’t say any more about the whole subject.
ANNOUNCER: So our listener has a question best reserved to ask our Lord in heaven?
SCHURB: Yes. Of course, in this case we may get the answer simply by taking a look at our own resurrected bodies.
ANNOUNCER: I see your point. So, in the meantime, we Christians continue to confess that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, even though we cannot explain all the details of this new life or come up with a mental picture that we might find satisfying.
SCHURB: Indeed. The most important thing to recall is that we can trust God in this matter. If, as in 1 Corinthians 15, God gives life even to common seeds to germinate as He has determined. Then in His love and wisdom He will do the best thing for us Christians–including every detail of our resurrected bodies. The best thing about life everlasting is that I will have no sin to bother me and I will see my Lord face to face, see Him with my own eye, as Job said. However old you might figure that eye is, it won’t make much difference.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you. We’ve been talking with Pastor Ken Shurb from Zion Lutheran Church, Moberly, Missouri. The next Lutheran Hour broadcast is titled, “Just One Crumb.”