Psalm 120:4
how to be a sound sleeper
Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel. (Psalm 120:4 DR)
In the Gospels is the well-known story of Jesus sleeping in the boat while His disciples are battling a storm. St. Mark tells us:
And he was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow… (Mark 4:38 DR)
There are many fascinating aspects of this account, the most conspicuous perhaps being that—in the midst of a storm that the disciples fear will be their end—Jesus seems to be sleeping soundly. Mark gives the detail that He is sleeping on a pillow, which indicates He intended to sleep rather than falling asleep from fatigue. All of the Gospel writers also indicate that the boat was taking on water, which implies that Jesus was able to sleep through getting drenched with water.
[A]nd they awake him, and say to him: Master, doth it not concern thee that we perish? (ibid.)
The other accounts have the disciples pleading with him to save them, but Mark frames it in the form of a question—does Jesus actually care about them? It is interesting that they don’t seem to concern themselves with His safety; this could be either:
That they don’t believe the storm can harm Him (which would seem to be out of character with Him rebuking them later for their weak faith)
They are terrified and concerned mostly with themselves
I think there’s a fairly good chance that #2 is correct. For embedded in this question is a deeper lack of faith. It’s not simply that they don’t yet believe He has power over the wind and the waves or that they don’t yet know Who he is. It goes further down in that they don’t yet understand the depths of his love for them. They think that He either is powerless to help or simply uninterested in their well-being and good.
It is interesting that they ask Him to help and save them, indicating that they have some inkling of faith in Him and His power. But that faith has not yet reached down into their souls where they can have confidence that all which befalls them lies within God’s providence and ordering for their good. They see a dangerous situation and shrink back in fear, thinking it to be their end, when in reality it will become a moment in which our Lord will reveal His being and power to them and increase their faith. What they see as an unmitigated evil God will transform into an even greater good that will form the background of their faith and enable them to believe in Jesus for Who He is, rather than in what He can do for them.
In a very real sense, our Lord slept so that they could awake.
The Psalmist prophetically anticipates this episode, finding his confidence in the Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps. For the reality is that even though Jesus was sleeping in the boat, He was not unaware of the trials and tribulations which His disciples experienced. Similarly the pilgrim on his way to the holy city ascends the heights with expectation that God will uphold his steps. His faith reaches beyond material prosperity or safety but is rather grounded on something far firmer.
All the confidence that we place in the things of this world or our own efforts seem tangible and substantive, but as we find they ultimately unable to bring about the greatest good that our hearts desire. Even on the natural level we are so often disappointed and failed by all the worldly confidences we hold.
Faith in its non-tangible nature can seem wispy and ethereal and liable to vanish like the mists as the sun rises. But this is only because we have a normalization bias towards the world, the flesh and the devil. We sometimes get the things we want, and even though they will always fade or dissolve in the end, there’s something about touching or tasting or holding that makes things seem more secure or more real.
The disciples in the boat struggled with all their human might and ingenuity to fight the storm. They were experienced seamen who had faced their share of inclement weather, but even all the combined years of experience and working together when pressed by great danger was unable to save them.
Faith is an intentional gaze beyond the things of this world not out of desperation or naivete, but rather in a very rational acknowledgement that all temporal things pass away and thus are not worthy of placing one’s hopes and life upon. St. Paul frames it this way:
Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. (Hebrews 11:1 DR)
Like the Psalmist we are always faced with this choice of what to place our trust in. The Psalmist looks to He who never sleeps nor slumbers, whose gaze is always upon those who call upon Him:
Do you wish to have a keeper who neither slumbers nor sleeps? Behold, “He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep:” for Christ keeps Israel. Be thou then Israel. What means Israel? It is interpreted, Seeing God. And how is God seen? First by faith: afterwards by sight. If you can not as yet see Him by sight, see Him by faith...Who is there, who will neither slumber nor sleep? When you seek among men, you are deceived; you will never find one. Trust not then in any man: every man slumbers, and will sleep. When does he slumber? When he bears the flesh of weakness. When will he sleep? When he is dead. Trust not then in man. A mortal may slumber, he sleeps in death. Seek not a keeper among men. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 120, 3.)
I didn’t exactly intend this animation to be turbulent to go with what I have written above, but in classic internet fashion I will retcon this to say that of course I intended this in some grand design.
In truth my original intent was capture the nebulous aspect of dreams to go along with the notion of sleeping, but the tie-in with the story of the storm from the Gospels works out nicely.
This animation primarily uses the plugin I Ate Mushrooms which utilizes machine learning to blend between a series of images. Generally these images are of the same genre, but the plugin lets you interpolate different inputs of other series of images to come up with some pretty stuff, of pretty bizarre stuff, depending on how crazy you get with it.
Enjoy.
Behold he shall neither slumber nor sleep, that keepeth Israel.
(Psalm 120:4 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: