“The rest of the story”
Meditation – Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Luke 8: 16-25 (Forward, p. 23) CEV p. 1068
One of my recurrent frustrations stems from news reporting. So often we hear the breaking news, the initial news broadcast or report, but are told nothing of happened thereafter. Maybe this is why Paul Harvey’s radio program, “The Rest of the Story”, was so popular.
Today’s reading picks up on this notion in some rather peculiar ways. It’s initial verses, verses 16-18, dwell on the idea of knowing, knowing the secrets of the kingdom. Here Jesus tells us that one day everything will be publicly known, and that for now those who do know will be given even more while those that do not will lose even what little they have. Only a few will have ‘the rest of the story’; the rest is hidden.
Our second little portion or pericope speaks of the nature of relationships and family in the kingdom, telling us that these will be redefined and refigured, that what we thought we knew and enjoyed will change. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” It isn’t who we thought. These new relationships will be defined by our willingness to hear and obey God’s message. That’s the rest of the story.
This notion of being surprised in terms of what ‘we thought we knew’ is vividly brought out in our last section, the story of Jesus and the storm at sea. The disciples thought that they knew Jesus, and knew what He was about, but after He stills the storm, the wind and the waves, with just a word of command, they have to wonder. “Who is this” they ask, “that even the wind and the waves obey Him?”. They too needed ‘the rest of the story.’
So, what about us? Are things sometimes hidden for us? Are we sometimes ‘in the dark’? Do we too need ‘the rest of the story’? I think we do, at least at times. And I think that the clue is in two things that Jesus
said: in verse 18 He says, ‘pay attention to how you listen’, and in verse 21, He says that his mother and brothers are ‘those people who hear and obey God’s message.’
So, I think that the answer is in how we listen, in whether truly hear what has been said and put it into practice. And we can tap into this by making sure that we spend time in prayer and in God’s word, that way getting ‘the rest of the story.’
Forward notes: “One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’” (verse 22a).
“In setting a course for the other side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus invites his disciples to leave the safety of their familiar land to go and serve people who do not share the same culture or customs—people who may well be hostile to them.
“The Christian life is full of invitations from Jesus to follow him in new ways. It is full of invitations to ‘go across to the other side.’ If we accept these invitations, we will find ourselves changed. We will meet God as revealed in Jesus Christ in new and often humbling ways. These encounters with the Risen Christ refine and redefine what we think we know about God. They shock us into remembering that our will and God’s will are not identical.
“Jesus’s call to ‘go across to the other side’ is a call to encounter him again and again and again so that we might know him more fully. So that we can be transformed.
“The boat is at the dock.
“Jesus is beckoning.”
Moving Forward: “Where is Jesus calling you?”