“How can you believe that Jesus is God, he who has never called himself God and who also prayed to God? Jesus used to sleep, whereas God never sleeps. And psalm 121 states: “He, who watches over Israel, will neither slumber nor sleep”

Answer:

Please first read the introduction to topic 2: “The divinity of Jesus and the Incarnation”, also answers to questions 12 and 97.

The fundamental statement of the church regarding Jesus of Nazareth is: ‘Jesus is the son of God made man!’

“He is therefore truly human, our brother. He is born of a human mother, he grows and matures, learns a trade, experiences hunger and thirst, shows joy, compassion, anger and wrath. He is truly one of us, a human being with body and soul. He is very close to us.

The church has firmly adhered to this teaching. Many people found it easier to believe in a God who only ‘appeared’ on earth, who only pretended to live and to suffer. But then God would not have become truly part of humanity and we would only ‘appear to be’ saved. But God became human, for all of us, and everything human has been made holy by him. At the same time the reader of the bible recognises just as clearly: Jesus is “Lord”. And that is nothing other than the name of Yahweh. Jesus said: “I and the Father are one!” In him, God himself came to us. [...] It remains important to us that this son of God became one of us, with all the consequences this brings, except for sin. Jesus is therefore God and human being in one person. This is so easily said yet so difficult to understand. For centuries people have grappled with the deeper meaning of this sentence. Several heresies had to be rejected, which either emphasised Jesus’s divine nature or his human nature. [...] Deity and human being unite in the person of the Saviour. Nothing greater could have happened to humanity... If the church had compromised in answering the question “Who is Jesus?” it would not have proclaimed the true divinity and the true humanity of the Lord: We would have lost sight of what is the greatest thing: God came to us, indeed, he became one of us”. (W. Henze, Gott ist schön [God is beautiful]. Harsum 2001., p. 65f.)

The gospels express the truth of Jesus, the Messiah, who sleeps and who yet has divine power and authority in the story of the calming of the storm. See also Matthew 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25.