Jesus Rescued Rowers

What Did Jesus Do?

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat,
and started across...and Jesus had not yet come to them.
John 6.16-17

If I had been one of the disciples I believe the violent tempest on the Sea of Galilee would not have frightened me nearly as much a the realization that it was a big mistake to launch out and leave Jesus behind. I wonder what they could have been thinking when they started to row towards Capernaum while the Lord was still off by himself on the mountain (John 6.15)?

In 6.4 John mentions that Passover was about to begin—were the apostles hurrying home for the holidays, so to speak? Even if they were, why should that lead them to take off without the Master? Perhaps, excited by witnessing the feeding of the five thousand, they were anxious to be the first to tell the story in Capernaum. There is, after all, a certain celebrity attached to being the bearer of big news. I really cannot come up with a valid reason why they had to take off and get ahead of the Lord.

What I do see, is a message to all of us: it's dangerous to run (or row) off by ourselves and get ahead of Jesus. We might not run into a gale, but there are all kinds of storms in life, and none of us is well equipped to weather them on our own. Confident, excited, full of ourselves, and all too often impatient, many of us act on our own. Frequently, such miscalculated initiative leads to our praying to the Lord to bless the mess we've made, or to get us out of a jam we've gotten ourselves into. Either way, we really have no one to blame but ourselves. Personally, I have to confess that I am guilty of impatience and of imposing my own timetable on the Lord, with the result that I disconnect myself from his sovereign will. Like launching out into the middle of a wind-blown sea, separating ourselves from the Father's will is not a good place to be.

Granted, there are times when we get ahead, not so much by intention, but by inattention. In these cases it isn't so much a matter of running ahead as it is of wandering off without realizing that we've strayed. This is more likely to happen in the midst of calm, rather than calamity. When the skies are blue, the breezes gentle, and everything seems to be going our way, most of us are liable , almost without thinking, to do just that—go our own way. Oops! We look around and cry out for Jesus—where could he have gone, he was just here? Of course, it is never that the Lord who will never leave or desert us goes anywhere. Rather, we, like sheep, are so good at going astray! Thankfully, Jesus rescues rowers, and runners, and strayers.

As many of us as there are who are prone to get ahead of the Lord, I believe there may be even more who are guilty of lagging behind. A great many Christians get to a place spiritually where they are so comfortable and secure that they simply want to stay put. The only problem with this is that the kingdom doesn't advance by sitting in a pew, so to speak; neither do we grow spiritually by merely holding on. The Lord is on the move, if not constantly, certainly most of the time. Jesus never spent a lot of time enjoying the view, basking in recent triumphs. He was most definitely a man on a mission. And we should be men and women on a mission too, for there are many still in need of rescue. Ponder for a moment: where would we be if Jesus hadn't rescued us when we've “rowed” away?

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4