The long sea journey to Rome found in today’s Lent Reading of Luke 27 hits close to home because for many years of my childhood I grew up on boats.
We were hit by hurricanes and dangerous storms.
We sometimes miscalculated and ran aground.
Once I was aboard a vessel where we hit a rock, the boat began filling water, and we had to be rescued by the U.S. coastguard. That’s a story for another day.
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Luke uses the popular ancient storytelling device of a sea voyage to bring us toward the end of the Gospel. The story reminds us of Jonah or the Psalmists who cried out amidst water imagery (Psalm 66:12 and 69:2-3).
A great storm takes center stage in the early part of the story (Acts 27:13-38). Then we transition to a shipwreck. Paul takes an unusual route to survival (Acts 27:39-44).
Life threatening situations fill the scenes until we wonder how Paul will survive.
Yet deliverance is provided through each one.
This speaks of God’s sovereign protection in the midst of the storm. The irony, of course, is that though Paul is delivered from this shipwreck and storm, he knows his ultimate fate… that even in death God rescues (2 Timothy 4:18).
What do I most need to read but least want to hear?
I can’t help but notice that those who listen and follow Paul’s instructions, experience deliverance. This is practical, but alludes to the spiritual.
Paul preaches and teaches Christ and as those who are around him listen, they too, experience a physical type of saving.
This is a surprisingly appropriate reading for Good Friday.
Paul’s seafaring journey symbolizes what the message of salvation brings: a saving from the chaos and sea monsters and fear and uncertainty that open waters represent.
In the midst of the darkness, in the midst of the pain, in the mist of the loss, in the midst of the grief, in the midst of the impossible, Christ meets us there, because He has been there.
As you set sail on uncharted waters in various areas of life…
Are you listening to the life-instructing guidance of God through Scripture and community?
Are you willing to do what may seem upside down or backward in order to obey?
Are you ready to trust, in the darkness and the unrelenting storm, that God is faithful?
