Glad To Take Him In (John 6:21)

 


Friday, July 18, 2025


Psalms 41; 44:1-9

2 Samuel 2:18-3:1

John 6:16-34


Glad To Take Him In (John 6:21)


Then [the disciples] were glad to take [Jesus] into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.


It feels like just recently we were reflecting on how the Bible treats the chaos of life poetically with the image of rough water. There was the Psalm describing the chaos of life as floodwaters; here in today’s second lesson we have the chaos of the storm on the Sea of Galilee.


While it feels like a little bit of a stretch to interpret this passage as a direct one-to-one lesson about Christ’s presence in the storms of our own life, it is still striking just how similar an experience it is. Chaos in life can happen when there is just so much to think about, so much that needs to be done, and it all needs to be worked out and sorted yesterday. All that headspace becomes filled up with the problems of life, and we forget that we have someone who wants to join us.


I keep a piece of paper on my work desk, and every afternoon before I go home I write out the things I would like to get done the next day. There might be sermon work, or home visits, or catechism lessons to prepare. You probably have some sort of to-do list as well. But I never think to write on it, “talk to Jesus”. I do keep to a daily discipline of regular prayer over the course of each day. But I wonder what would happen if my to-do list also had Jesus on it. Because whenever the list is really big and filled with really big jobs, I know I would be glad to take Jesus into the boat. Everything gets easier when I work with him.


When was the last time you felt overwhelmed with the demands of life? Did you have a moment where Jesus reminded you that he was there? What was that like? How might you create more opportunities for that to happen?


Christ our calming presence: make yourself known to us, however loudly we need you to be, so that we may remember that you are always with us, settling our hearts.

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