Jesus calms the storm
A night crossing, a storm that fills the boat, and Jesus asleep on a cushion. Mark's shortest miracle story ends with a question the disciples can't answer.
The story
It had been a long day of teaching by the lake. When evening came Jesus said, let's cross to the other side. They took him 'even as he was', Mark says, which reads like a man too tired to get out of the boat. Other boats went with them.
The Sea of Galilee sits low in a bowl of hills, and wind comes off the slopes fast. This storm was big. Waves came over the side and the boat was filling up. Several of these men were fishermen. If they were scared, it was bad.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. That detail is only in Mark, and it's so specific it reads like someone's memory. They shook him awake, and what they said wasn't a request. It was an accusation. Teacher, don't you care that we're dying?
He got up and spoke to the wind and the sea the way you'd speak to a dog that won't stop barking. Mark uses the word 'rebuked'. Peace. Be still. And the wind dropped, and there was, in Mark's words, a great calm.
Then he turned to them. Why are you so afraid? Still no faith? Notice the order. He didn't lecture them in the storm. He dealt with the storm first.
And here's the part people miss. The disciples were 'greatly afraid' after the calm, not before. The storm scared them. The man who stopped it scared them more. Their question closes the scene, and Mark doesn't answer it: who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
The verse to keep
He awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was a great calm.
He woke up, told the wind off, and said to the sea, 'Quiet. Settle down.' The wind stopped, and everything went completely still.
Three words in the WEB text. He doesn't pray for the storm to stop. He tells it to.
What it actually means
For a first-century Jewish reader the answer to that question was loud. In the psalms, the one who stills the sea is God. Psalm 107 has sailors crying out in a storm, and the Lord makes it calm. Mark has put that scene in a fishing boat and put Jesus in God's role, without saying so out loud. 'Who is this' is the question his whole gospel is built around.
The disciples' line, 'don't you care', is a fair one, and Jesus doesn't punish them for it. You're allowed to wake him up with that. The story also says something about where Jesus is when things go wrong. He's in the boat. Not on the shore watching.
What it doesn't mean: that every storm gets stilled on command. Plenty of people since have prayed in a boat that went down, and the gospels never pretend otherwise. This story is about who is in the boat, not a guarantee about the weather. If you're in something right now that isn't calming down, the honest reading is that the question 'who is this' still stands, and so does the cushion in the stern.
Worth arguing about
- 1'Don't you care that we are dying?' is not a polite prayer. Have you ever said something like that to God? What happened next?
- 2The disciples were more afraid after the calm than during the storm. Why?
- 3Jesus was asleep through it. Does that comfort you or bother you?
Read it yourself: Mark 4:35–41
World English Bible. 7 verses.
Whole book: Mark