The Fisherman (10 page)

He might as well have spoken to her in a foreign language. Indeed, his words must have sounded like utter nonsense to her. We would find out later her husband was dead. Now her only son was dead. Unending grief was all that remained. Out of respect for the prophet standing before her, she became silent, but it was a silence without peace, without hope.

Jesus then turned to the men carrying the coffin and instructed them to lower it to the ground. He walked around the still form until he was able to look directly down into the young man's face. Then he spoke again. “Young man, I say to you, arise!”

And immediately the boy sat up.

For several seconds no one spoke, no one moved. I don't think anyone even breathed. Then suddenly the boy broke into a huge grin, looked over at his mother, and blurted out, “Hey, Mom! I'm hungry! Hey! What am I doing in this thing?”

He jumped out of the coffin and gave his mother a big hug, and the crowd went crazy. They were clapping and cheering and yelling and screaming. Everyone talked at once, telling everyone else what Jesus just did.

The two processions became one as Jesus, the mother, and her son led the way back into the city. It would have been impossible for Jesus to design a more dramatic introduction of himself to the community. The city embraced him with a spirit of celebration beyond anything we had ever seen. By the time he departed from the community several days later, reports of his visit were spreading rapidly throughout the entire region.

I should have been thrilled, of course. My identification with the Master gave me a position of prominence unlike anything I had ever known before. Some of his glory spilled over onto me and the other disciples simply because we happened to be standing next to him. Outwardly I shared in the celebration, but secretly I found myself troubled by what I had just seen. Once again Jesus was forcing me to expand my concept of himself. To heal, to preserve life, to give health to the living was one thing. But to give life to the dead . . . that was something altogether different.

What did it mean? Could he, then, restore anyone to life? If so, why didn't he? If not, why couldn't he? Could he prevent his own death? Could he prevent mine? Was he immortal? And, most of all, what manner of man was this who could speak to the dead and summon them back to the land of the living?

Then came the night of that storm.

It was weeks later, long enough for me to have successfully forced my troublesome questions about this man into the back of my mind. We were traveling a good deal during that time. As he had promised, his teaching was increasingly focused not on the masses but rather on us, his disciples.

It had been an intense day of teaching, a day in which we'd all been stretched to new limits in our thinking. It was the first day in which he taught exclusively in parables. The crowds loved listening to his fascinating little stories: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man sowing seed. . . .” “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. . . .” “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven. . . .” “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure. . . .” “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant. . . .” “The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet. . . .”

They didn't understand what he was talking about, and at first neither did we. Still, they loved to listen to him.

Throughout the day he kept pulling away from the multitudes so that he could talk with us about the hidden meanings in each of his stories. He wanted us to understand. He wanted us to learn. With each new story we gained a new principle, a new insight into his kingdom. It was wonderful knowledge, but it was hard work too. When evening came, we were all exhausted, but the crowds kept pushing closer, demanding more.

Jesus was once again using our fishing boat as his teaching platform. He sat at the stern facing the shore with the Twelve of us at his back in the front of the boat. Late that afternoon he finally stopped teaching and turned away from the masses, talking privately with us about the parables. But it was obvious the people onshore had no intention of leaving him alone.
He
might have been finished for the day, but
they
certainly were not. With no other way of escape, Jesus told us to push off and set sail for the other side of the Sea of Galilee. We could not have been more than a few hundred feet from shore before Jesus stretched out at the back of the boat and fell into a deep sleep.

I have seen countless storms descend upon the Sea of Galilee in my lifetime but none like the one we encountered that night. We were perhaps halfway across the lake when the fury hit. Though it was still early evening, the sky came over as black as I have ever seen it. Then came the wind. Within a matter of minutes the gentle breeze we were trusting to power us to our destination turned first into vicious gusts and then into a ceaseless raging blast unlike anything any of us had ever known before. We dropped our sail as soon as the gusting began, but within minutes our bare mast was no protection against the savage caldron in which we found ourselves. Massive mountains of water stood high above our little boat on either side, then suddenly plummeted down, thrusting us skyward. We rose and fell on the mammoth swells, blasted by the wind each time we reached another peak.

The gale intensified still more as the swells turned into immense foaming breakers crashing down on top of us. The crushing waves and howling wind made communication almost impossible. I kept screaming instructions to the others in the boat, but we all knew that no amount of skillful maneuvering would protect us from the tumult surrounding us.

For what seemed like hours we fought the storm. Our only hope was reduced to a frantic effort to bail out the water that kept crashing over the sides of our little craft.

It was not until I dropped to my knees, bucket in hand, scooping and dumping as fast as I was able, that I saw him there at the back of the boat, sound asleep. He was soaked from the spray and the waves sloshing around him, yet he slept. For just a moment I stopped, frozen in disbelief. How could he just lie there, unaware that in a matter of minutes our boat would break apart and we would all be dead?

The sight of him sleeping made me furious. I flung my bucket across the boat and worked my way to him. Then I grabbed his shoulders, shook him with all my might, and screamed, “Master! Don't you care that we are perishing?”

Jesus opened his eyes, looked at me and then at the world in chaos around him. By then the others were all grouped at my back, clinging to the boat, staring at Jesus.

Then he spoke, first to us, then to the wind and waves. To us he said, “Why are you so afraid, you of little faith?”

To the wind and waves he said, “Peace! Be still.”

I know there is no way I can explain to you what it was like. In your mind, perhaps you picture the wind gradually subsiding, the fury of the waves slowly diminishing until eventually there was only a gentle lapping against the side of the boat.

If you see it that way in your mind, then you are wrong. The moment Jesus finished uttering the word “still,” everything was. And I do mean everything. The sea immediately flattened out into a dead calm, the wind instantly ceased. There was no gentle lapping of waves against the boat. There was no gentle breeze blowing on our faces. There was nothing. Jesus spoke. The winds and the waves obeyed—not gradually, not partially, but totally, instantly, absolutely. And the silence that suddenly surrounded us was even more terrifying than the storm.

No one in that boat even remotely thought that perhaps I just happened to wake Jesus at the moment the storm began to subside. The storm did not begin to subside. The storm simply ceased at his command.

For a moment we all stood there in silence, him looking at us, us looking at him. Then he spoke again. “Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith?”

We had no answer, of course. And we knew none was expected. But it was not my lack of faith that troubled me that night. It was the unanswered question we kept asking one another but never dared to ask him. What manner of man commands the wind and the sea and they obey him? What manner of man takes upon himself the authority to forgive sins? What manner of man tells the dead to rise and they obey?

You may wonder why Jesus did not simply tell us in words who he was and what he was doing. Well, in the days and weeks just prior to his death, he did. Even then, though, we could not hear it. We could not hear what he was saying because we did not want to hear it. Acceptance or rejection of Jesus as God in human form has never been a matter of the evidence. Even at this point in our relationship with him, we had more than enough evidence. No mere man has absolute and instant authority over nature, commands the winds to cease, tells the sea to be still, and calls thousands of fish to cram themselves into a net. No man has the authority to forgive another human being's sins against God. No man has authority over all sickness, all disease. No man can, by his own act of will, bring the dead back to life. And, of course, it wasn't just what he did, it was the way in which he did it. He did not pray that God would heal. He did not pray that God would forgive. He did not pray that God would still the storm. He simply did it himself.

I think that's what scared me so much that night on the Sea of Galilee. If Jesus had stood up, raised his hands to God, and prayed, “Oh, great heavenly Father, deliver us from this storm!” and his prayer had been followed by that remarkable instant calm, I could have understood that. I could have accepted a prophet whose every prayer is instantly answered. But Jesus called upon no one. He didn't ask for help—he
was
the help. He sought no authority outside himself because he needed no authority but himself.

Nothing has changed, you know. In the end our ability to see Jesus correctly is never a matter of gaining sufficient evidence. The evidence is overwhelming. He has told us who he is with every action, with every miracle, with every word he spoke. But the only voice that has the power to confirm that identity must come ultimately from within ourselves. And that voice will speak only if we are willing to hear it, only when we are ready to listen. There are implications, you see, implications that can strike terror in our hearts, implications that will cause us to stop our ears, to blind our eyes, to put rigid limitations on what we will and will not accept.

At that point in our pilgrimage Jesus did not tell us who he was because he knew we were not yet ready to hear it, and saying too much would only drive us further away from him in confusion and fear. For now he would let his actions do the speaking.

We were not the only ones confused about what we were seeing. Even the Prophet John had questions. When he sent his disciples to Jesus, asking, “Are you the expected one, or do we look for someone else?” Jesus' answer emphasized not his words but his actions. “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the gospel preached to them. Blessed is he who does not take offense at me.”

It was a terrible time for me. Though I could never have admitted it then, I wanted my Jesus to remain small. I wanted him to be just a prophet. I wanted him to stay within the boundaries I understood. I didn't know what to do with a Jesus who kept growing, a Jesus who kept expanding before my eyes. And my confusion would get far worse before it got better.

It's no wonder I was having trouble finding the right answers. For nearly two years I'd been asking all the wrong questions. How can I get this man to stop interfering with my brother and my career? How can I impress this man? How can I use his powers for my own profit? How can I get away from him? How can I continue to cling to my career goals and still follow him? How can I invest my talents and abilities into making him a success?

As we gently bobbed in the stillness of the silent sea, I finally asked myself the one question that really mattered. Who is this man, anyway? He's not just a prophet. He's far more than just a great teacher. He's certainly not a political leader. But then who is he? The first answer to that question came in a matter of hours from a most unlikely source.

We spent the rest of the night in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. We were all exhausted, still several miles from shore, with no wind to propel us. I curled up in a corner of the deck and slept. When a gentle breeze returned with the sunrise, we set our sail and completed our journey to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Following the Master's instructions, we put to shore a short distance from the Gentile fishing village of Gergesa. I think everyone on board wondered what we were doing in this Gentile region, but no one dared ask. It was a rugged, mountainous stretch of coastline, known to me only from the deck of our fishing boat.

We were still in the process of securing our boat on the beach when we heard the most hideous screaming coming from a cemetery on the hillside behind us. I turned around in time to see a man running among the graves. His long beard and hair were caked with filth and matted from neglect. He was completely naked. As soon as he saw us, he squatted down, scooped up a jagged chunk of rock, and sprang into a crazed run in our direction.

The sight and sound of that man screaming down the hillside catapulted me back into the fishing boat to find something with which to protect myself. I grabbed an oar and whirled around, ready for the attack.

But the attack never came.

Jesus stood silent on the beach, watching the creature racing toward him. He didn't turn away; he didn't run. He simply waited and watched. Then, when the attacker was close enough to hear the Master's words, Jesus spoke: “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

The naked figure dropped to his knees and screamed out, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God, do not torment me!”

He spat out the words as a man would spit out a mouthful of filth. I'd never heard such terror, such rage in a human voice before. Following his short blast, he remained on his knees before the Master, looking more as if he had been forced into the position against his will than as if he had chosen it because of genuine submission.

I glanced around and discovered I was not the only one who felt more comfortable greeting our guest from the deck of the boat. Eleven other men, several of them also clutching makeshift weapons, huddled around me as we watched the scene in the sand below us.

Though no one moved for several seconds, there was clearly some sort of intense warfare taking place between Jesus and the figure kneeling in the sand at his feet. The next words Jesus spoke were certainly not what I was expecting.

He reached down, lifted the man's face, and said, “What is your name?”

The man responded, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” His lips curled in a twisted smile as he spoke, and his tone communicated an arrogant defiance that sent a chill through my whole body.

Then their eyes met, and the naked creature once again dropped his face to the sand.

“Please! Please! We beg of you, don't send us into the abyss. You know it is not yet our time. Don't send us away from this land. Over there! That herd of swine. Send us into them. We beg you! You know our time has not yet come.”

When he mentioned the swine, we all looked where he pointed and saw on the hillside several hundred pigs grazing in the morning sun.

For several seconds following the creature's pathetic pleading, no one moved, no one spoke.

Then Jesus broke the silence. “Go! Leave this man forever. You have my permission to enter the swine.”

The man let out one last terrified scream, opened his mouth wide, and dug his long nails deep into his naked chest. Then he collapsed into a wretched heap. At the same instant we heard the sound of hundreds of pigs squealing as if they were being slaughtered. Then we watched as the entire herd thundered down the steep hillside, still squealing in terror, and straight into the water not fifty feet away from us. When the last squeal was silenced, we all just stood there frozen. The herdsmen silhouetted on the hillside looked down on the scene in terror, then headed into town as fast as they could run.

That moment of my life is forever etched into my memory—twelve men armed for battle, standing frozen on the deck of a beached fishing boat, a sea of lifeless swine behind them, with one man standing on the beach, and another huddled in a naked heap before him.

Slowly the crouching figure raised his head and said, “My Lord, please forgive my nakedness.”

Jesus turned and said, “Andrew! See if we can find soap and some clothing for our friend. And perhaps we can provide him with a brush and razor as well.” The man was big, nearly my size, so I told Andrew to bring the extra change of clothes I always kept on board.

We spent the next hour assisting him in his transformation. He spent more than half an hour in the water, laughing, talking, scrubbing, and thanking Jesus over and over again. Once he was dressed, we cut his hair and trimmed his beard. Then we invited him to join us for our noonday meal.

Our celebration feast was cut short, however, by the sudden appearance of a large delegation of local residents marching toward us along the beach. As soon as our guest saw them coming, he sprang to his feet, waving excitedly. He greeted a number of the newcomers by name and kept saying, “Look at me! Look at me! Look at what this man did!”

They looked all right, but they didn't look at him. They looked first at the now empty hillside, then at their motionless herd littering the shoreline, and finally at the Master. The apparent leader of the group spoke. “Please, sir, go away. Leave us alone. We don't know how or why you destroyed our herd. We only know you did. Now please just go away before you do any more damage.”

Jesus offered them no explanation, no excuse. He certainly was not afraid of them, but neither would he force himself upon them. We gathered our things together in silence and were preparing to push off when our new friend grabbed Jesus and pleaded with him for permission to join us.

Jesus smiled at him, shook his head, and said, “No, my friend, I need you here. I want you to go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how he had mercy on you.”

As we set sail for home, the man stood on the beach waving and watching us until we were finally out of sight.

It all happened so fast, I had no time to think about the events of that morning until we were once again on the open sea. Then those words spoken by the demons came back to me. “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God, do not torment me!”

Jesus, Son of the Most High God! What did it mean? The demons inside that poor man seemed to know all about Jesus. They knew him, and they feared him. They hated him, argued with him, bargained with him, yet they knew they could not act without his permission. The terror with which they pleaded with Jesus not to send them into the abyss caused me to cringe once again as I recalled it. Twelve hours earlier I had seen Jesus exercise absolute authority over the physical world. Now I saw him accepting without dispute the title “Son of the Most High God,” positioning himself as supreme ruler over the spirit world. He conversed with demons. He held their fate in his hands. He had the power to torment them, to act as their judge and executioner. And his jurisdiction was not limited to the nation of Israel. Even in the Gentile world, he reached out with the same healing, redemptive compassion he showed for the sons of Abraham.

There I was, in the center of a great drama being played out before my eyes. It was a drama with a cast of one and a script written from the foundation of the world. For reasons I have never fully understood, the Director of All Things honored me with the privilege of watching this drama unfold from center stage. I saw what was happening. I heard the words. I even held some of the props. But everything was backwards. The drama was the true reality, and I was the one playing a part. I was such a child, pretending the lines he spoke made sense to me, pretending I understood the flow and purpose of the plot as it unfolded. Of course Jesus was the Son of the Most High God. Of course he had authority over the Gentile world. Of course he had the right to send demons to the abyss. I even pretended I had a part in the drama. But he and I both knew differently.

The time would come when I would have a part. The time would come when I would understand. But not now. Now my only obligation was to watch, and to listen, and to seek to understand what manner of man this was.