The Journey: To the Cross 3-18-2020
By Dean Foster
March 18, 2020
The Journey: to the cross
16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
God calls us to believe all that He has promised so that He may guide us, help us, and heal us. It is for times such as these that God seeks us and has made it part of us to seek Him.
Welcome to the Journey.
"The story is told about a man years ago who stretched a tight rope over the Niagara River Falls and proceeded to push a wheelbarrow back and forth across it. Over a thousand people gathered to watch and cheer him on. He put a two-hundred-pound sack of dirt in the wheelbarrow and pushed it across, and rolled it back. Then he turned to the crowd and asked, "How many of you believe I can roll a man across?"
Everybody shouted! One man in the front was very excited about his professed belief. The man pointed to this excited professor and said, "Then you're next!"
You couldn't see the man for the dust! … He said he believed it, he thought he believed it—but he wasn't willing to get in the wheelbarrow. Just so with Christ. There are many who say they believe in Him, who say they will follow Him. But they never have gotten into the wheelbarrow…
There are many people who ask, "Well how much faith does it take?" Jesus said only the faith as a "grain of mustard seed."
Others ask, "What kind of faith?" There is only one kind, really. It is the object of the faith that counts. What is the object of your faith? The object of your faith must be Christ. Not faith in ritual, not faith in sacrifices, not faith in morals, not faith in yourself—not faith in anything but Christ." (From Peace with God by Billy Graham)
Faith overcomes fear in the blink of an eye; this is what Jesus tried to teach us in various ways. One of the well-known stories in the Gospels is that of Jesus' calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Matthew tells the story in chapter eight among other short narratives that depict Jesus' authority over various human dilemmas—sickness, demons, death, and sin. Hence, it helps portray the King's power not only over the people of Israel but over all of nature as well.
The narrative in Mark's gospel (4:35-40) demonstrates Jesus' authority over the elements of nature at the same time it reveals the weak faith of the disciples. Their faith is weak because they go to Him in fear of the storm rather than with confidence that He will rebuke it for them. They were correct to go to him to save them—their request shows they had faith that he could do so. They were afraid and went to him in a panic; this displays the weakness of their faith. As if they were somehow not sure of him?
They had been with Jesus for over a year by then, heard his teaching and seen countless miracles performed by just his touch or a word from his lips. Their faith should have been stronger by far than it was. Jesus asked, "Why are you so afraid?” perhaps out of frustration. And yet He stilled the storm to relieve their fear.
Indeed, verse 39 has always struck me:
39Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm.
I picture it the way the disciples must have experienced it. One minute their world was a tempest of churning water and furious wind. The Lord speaks and at once the wind stopped and the water was as smooth as glass. Imagine that and how do you not know you are absolutely in the presence of the Son of God. And yet Mark reports that they still ask one another, "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!"
The message of this story found in each of the synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, is direct: Jesus is King and has the authority and power to do all the things he said he came to do and more. The power of Jesus is most often demonstrated in his mighty works and miracles which reveal his nature as the Son of God. Truly, for God all these things are possible.
The more we see the power of God through Jesus in the Bible, the greater our confidence and our faith grows. Our own experience and the experience of other believers, builds our faith, helping us become bold overcomers. This is a process though, the process that builds our faith in Christ. A process that goes on as we look to the Lord, call out to Him, and climb in the wheelbarrow.
This is the Journey.
