Step back this morning and look at the whole scene in Matthew 8:23-27. Matthew tells it in a way that would remind every Jewish reader of another man asleep in a boat during a storm. The LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea; the sailors were terrified; Jonah was fast asleep below deck; the captain woke him; the sailors cried, “let us not perish” (Jonah 1:4-6, 14). Note how closely Matthew’s account echoes Jonah 1. The parallels are deliberate.
But the two sleepers could not be more different. Jonah slept because he was running from God. Jesus slept because he was resting in God. Jonah could not calm the storm; all he could do was confess, “I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you” (Jonah 1:12), and ask to be thrown overboard. Moses and Elijah worked wonders through prayer. Jesus does not pray for the sea to be still. He simply speaks, and it obeys. He did not have to go overboard to calm this storm.
And yet there was one storm Jesus did not calm: the storm of God’s righteous wrath against our sin. Jonah’s words, “it is because of me,” were true of Jonah. They were never true of Jesus. He never ran from God. He never sinned. The storm of judgment was not his fault; it was ours. Still, on the cross, he let himself be cast into the depths. Jonah’s prayer became his: “all your waves and your billows passed over me.” Every wave of judgment we deserved broke over Christ so that not one of them would ever break over those who trust him. Jonah went under so the sailors could live. Jesus went down into death so that we could live. And on the third day he rose; the very verb Matthew uses in verse 26 when Jesus “rose” to rebuke the wind may well foreshadow that morning.
Now gather up the week. Following Jesus can lead into storms. He knows our weariness, because he was truly man, and he rested perfectly in the Father where we fail to. He hears the desperate cry of “Lord, save.” He meets our little faith with patience before he meets our circumstances with power. He commands the wind as only God can. And he went under the waves of wrath on our behalf. Matthew told us in chapter one that his name would be Immanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23). The man asleep in the boat is God with us. For all who belong to Christ, this is the settled truth: you will face storms, but you will never face judgment, and you will never face a single wave alone. The King whom the storm obeys is in the boat with you, and he has already passed through the deepest storm for you.