King of the 4th
By Grant Gaines
One of my favorite football seasons in recent memory was the 2011 season. No, my Dallas Cowboys did not win the Super Bowl, but a young man by the name of Tim Tebow created some pretty awesome viewing experiences. Seemingly every week, Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos would find themselves in a 7, 14, or even 21 point deficit late in the fourth quarter only to mount an incredible, you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it type comeback as the clock expired.
And while I loved the unreal twists and turns of each game’s dramatic finish, my favorite part of the Tebow saga was watching ESPN on Monday morning. Every week there would be a different football “expert” on Sports Center recapping the previous day’s action. When they would start to talk about the Broncos’ game, like clockwork, the experts would regretfully admit that they turned off the game late in the fourth quarter believing the game’s fate was sealed as the Broncos’ were down by two or three scores.
No matter how many weeks in a row Tebow did the impossible and “pulled the rabbit out of his hat” by mounting an unbelievable comeback late in the fourth quarter, experts would inevitably write off the Broncos right before Tebow did his work.
How many Christians today are living with the same attitude of these ESPN experts? How many of us are turning off our hope right before God does His work? Like Tebow (and to an inexpressibly larger degree), we have seen God’s faithful track record of miracle after miracle as we read through the pages of the Bible. But so often, we, like the experts, believe there is no chance of a miraculous change of fortunes when it comes to our own lives. That must have been how the disciples were feeling as they were in the middle of a storm in Matthew 14.
They had just gotten done with a long mission trip and feeding the 5,000 which must have left them absolutely exhausted. Knowing this, Jesus graciously sent His disciples ahead of Him in a boat as He took care of dismissing the 5,000 people He just fed (Matthew 14:22). But the dinner they had just enjoyed was now a distant memory as they were straining at the oars while being, “…buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it” (Matthew 14:24, NIV).
As you likely know from hearing this story before, Matthew 14:25 (ESV) says, “And in the fourth watch of the night [Jesus] came to them, walking on the sea.” Jesus would eventually call Peter out of the boat and calm the storm, but I want to focus on an important detail that Matthew mentions in the verse above-“the fourth watch of the night.”
What’s interesting about this story is that in Matthew 14:23-24 (NIV) we learn that, “After [Jesus] had dismissed [the crowd], He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. When the evening came, He was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.”
The word “evening” in its original language represents the point of time that the sun sets, likely between 6-9pm. This means that Jesus saw the disciples struggling in the storm from anywhere between 6-9pm. And as we’ve already pointed out, Matthew 14:25 specifically notes that Jesus came out to the disciples during the “fourth watch of the night.”
To give you an idea of the timing of this story, the first watch of the night was from 6-9pm, the second watch was from 9pm-12am, the third watch was from 12-3am, and the fourth watch was from 3-6am.
In other words, it’s possible that Jesus saw the disciples struggling in the boat as early as 6pm and finally came out to help them as late as 6am. Regardless of how long it actually was, the bottom line is that Jesus waited a LONG time before performing the miracle of calming the raging sea.
And this isn’t the only time we see Jesus waiting until the “fourth watch of the night” to do His work. There was a man who was paralyzed for 38 in John 5 before Jesus healed him. There was an adult man in John 9 who had been blind his entire life before Jesus healed him. There was a woman in Mark 5 who had been subject to internal bleeding for 12 years before Jesus healed her. And Lazarus was in the grave for 4 whole days before Jesus raised him (John 11).
Like Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos in 2011, Jesus seems to be the King of the Fourth. He seems to wait until all hope is gone and we can’t take any glory for ourselves like we could for the first, second, or event third watch of the night. And it is in that moment when we are running low on strength and even lower on faith that we must not lose our hope because, “…as surely as the sun rises, [God] will appear…” (Hosea 6:3, NIV).
Don’t be like one of the ESPN experts who missed an incredible comeback because they gave up hope too early. Hang in there; keep on fighting-the King of the Fourth is on His way!
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
