Jesus Kept

What Did Jesus Do?

He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion
Mark 4.38a

I doubt if any of have never had, for one reason or another, a sleepless night. Though our bodies, and minds, and souls as well (See Matthew 11.29), definitely need rest, there are times when rest is hard to come by. Anxious parents spend a night waiting for a son or daughter to come home from a date that has gone way past curfew. Students pull “all-nighters” cramming for exams. Doctors and nurses maintain bedside vigils with critically ill patients. Truckers run all night on coffee to get their loads delivered on time. Jesus had his sleepless nights too: consider his night of travailing in prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. But, like the rest of us, Jesus also slept, for His body, mind, and soul required refreshment and rest just as ours do. A Jesus who was not fully human would not have needed to sleep.

But God has no need to take naps, much less turn in for the night. Indeed, the LORD “neither slumbers nor sleeps” (Psalm 121.4), but is ever wakeful, ever watchful, keeping (guarding, protecting) the lives of those he loves 24/7. Baal might have been slumbering when his priests desperately sought to call down fire to consume the sacrifice (1Kings 18.27), but the LORD who kept Israel answered Elijah, as no false idol such as Baal ever could.

Now, when Jesus, quite fatigued from the work of His ministry to the crowds, fell sound asleep in the stern of the small fishing boat He and the disciples were using to cross Galilee, it was amply evident He was giving in to the necessities of mortal flesh. The disciples were incredulous; they could not understand how someone could lie asleep in the midst of a storm that threatened mortal peril. (Mark 4.38b) Jesus to them was still “Teacher”; the many works they had witnessed had still not convinced them that He was more than a man. But no mere mortal man could command wind and wave with a word, and calm a storm in an instant.

Again, they could only wonder, just who was this who a moment before had been soundly asleep, and now caused the tempest to obey Him? (Mark 4.41) Clearly, He was a man, as human as they; but, just a clearly, He had to be more than fully human. Could it be that He was also fully divine? Could it be that he who slept in the stern of the boat, was He who kept Israel? This was more than the poor disciples could yet grasp with their minds, their faith had not caught up with all that they had seen and heard.

Many still question, “Who is Jesus?” Was He a man? Was He God? Could He have been both man and God? The brief passage in Mark 4 supplies the evidence that, as orthodox Christianity has affirmed against all challenges and heresies for two millennia, Jesus is fully human and fully divine. No one less than fully human could have atoned for humanity’s sins. No one less than fully divine could have risen from the grave.

Jesus, sleeping or waking, kept His disciples; just as the LORD kept Israel night and day. Waking or sleeping, we abide still in the care of the Son, who, just as the Father does, keeps us now and forevermore. That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4