The storm at sea, Mark 4:35-41

³⁵ That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” ³⁶ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. ³⁷ A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. ³⁸ Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” ³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. ⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” ⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

In this passage Jesus sails from Jewish territory into a Gentile area. In fact, the Sea (or Lake) of Galilee (or Tiberias) was considered as a symbolic barrier between Jews and Gentiles. This begins a section that contains a large number of miracle stories and significantly they occur in Gentile territory and parallel earlier ones among the Jews. The point seems to be that Jesus brings God’s compassion and his power to ease suffering to everyone.

Here, Jesus and his closest disciples are on a fishing boat. In the 1980s, the hull of such a boat from the time of Jesus was discovered near the Sea of Galilee. It measured over 8 meters long by 2.35 meters wide with a depth of about 1.25 meters. This means that about ten or twelve men could fit inside but they would not have much room. The boat Mark describes was probably like this and it would not have been pleasant in a tempest.

In this case, the storm appears to have been bad enough to scare experienced fishermen, although Jesus sleeps through it. Mark has no qualms about presenting us with the human side of Jesus and here he seems absolutely exhausted. In their panic, the disciples decide to wake Jesus in the hope that he can save them somehow. But they do so in a rather abrupt fashion and it sounds like a rebuke to Jesus for daring to sleep through such a strong storm.

Jesus immediately responds, telling the wind and waves to shut up and the tempest immediately ends. Then he rebukes the disciples, although more gently: “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Jesus asks them if they have really learned nothing from all they have seen so far.

The disciples have committed themselves to following Jesus and have seen him do extraordinary things but they have only had veiled indications about who he really is. They have watched him cure people but now they see him control nature itself. There are a number of places in the Old Testament where it is stated that only God can control the elements and here they see Jesus doing exactly that. They have before them important evidence about the true identity of Jesus but, perhaps not surprisingly, they have trouble grasping this. Their difficulties in understanding Jesus will continue and give hope to us, with our own struggles. If these thick disciples, who have Jesus in front of them but still find it so hard to understand, can later become the greatest of saints, then surely there is hope for all of us.