The Stilling of the Tempest.
I. "Behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea." A sudden and violent squall, such as these small inland seas, surrounded with mountain gorges, are notoriously exposed to, descended on the bosom of the lake; and the ship which bore the Saviour of the world appeared to be in imminent peril. But though the danger was so real, and was ever growing more urgent, "until the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full," their Master, weary and worn out with the toils of the day, continued sleeping still. The disciples may have hesitated long before they ventured to arouse Him; yet, at last, the extremity of the peril overcame their hesitation, and they did so, not without exclamations of haste and terror, as is evidenced by the double "Master, Master," of St. Luke.
II. "He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea." Cæsar's confidence that the barque which contained him and his fortunes could not sink forms an earthly counterpart to the heavenly calmness and confidence of the Lord. In the hour of her wildest uproar Nature knew the voice of Him who was her rightful Lord, and gladly returned to her allegiance to Him, and in this to her place of proper service to that race of which He had become the Head, and whose lost prerogatives He was reclaiming and reasserting once more. The chief ethical purpose of our Lord was to lead His disciples into thoughts ever higher and more awful of that Lord whom they served, more and more to teach them that in nearness to Him was safety and deliverance from every danger. The danger which exercised should likewise strengthen their faith, and they indeed had need of a mighty faith, since God, in St. Chrysostom's words, had chosen them to be the athletes of the world.
III. The sea is evermore in Scripture the symbol of the restless and sinful world. As Noah and his family, the kernel of the whole humanity, were once contained in the ark tossed on the waters of the deluge, so the kernel of the new humanity, of the new creation, Christ and His apostles, in this little ship. And the Church of Christ has evermore resembled this tempested barque, the waves of the world raging horribly around it, yet never prevailing to overwhelm it, and this because Christ is in it.
R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles,p. 152.
References: Matthew 8:23. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 392.Matthew 8:23-27. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. ii., p. 39; S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook,p. 314.Matthew 8:23-34. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 25; W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles,vol. i., p. 207. Matthew 8:24. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 91.Matthew 8:25. J. Keble, Sermons from Advent to Christmas Eve,p. 272.