Mark 4: 35 – 41
36 Leaving the crowd, they took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him.
37 And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.
38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.
40 And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Don’t you just love this story? It is so out of our realm of experience. The storm they encountered out on the sea was obviously a big storm because waves were crashing over the boat and filling it with water. There were gale force winds. That is not the time most of us want to be out on the ocean. First of all, Jesus was just sleeping through it. That is amazing enough but then when his disciples awoke him, he actually rebuked them for their lack of faith. He was disappointed that they were afraid. Now how many of us would also have been afraid if we were in that kind of storm while on the sea? And yet Jesus tells us that we should not be afraid nor should his disciples have been. We are supposed to counter frightening circumstances with faith instead of fear. Isn’t that remarkable? Jesus did not even seem to think that the storm required a lot of faith to overcome. He accused his disciples of having no faith. You would think that hanging out with Jesus would cause his disciples to have great faith but they were even more afraid of him than they were the storm. They began to learn what he could do but they were not learning yet that it was his faith in the father that was the source of it all. Jesus expected the disciples to take care of that storm using the same faith that was available to him. What does that say for us?
