Summary
The Setting on the Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee is a large body of fresh water nestled some 690 feet below sea level—the lowest freshwater lake in the world. Hills and cliffs ring its shores, and only thirty air miles away rises a mountain nearly 9,200 feet tall. That geography produces a peculiar danger: cold winds rush down from the heights and collide with the warm air over the lake, whipping up sudden, violent storms. As recently as 1992, one such storm produced ten-foot waves. This is the kind of cyclone Mark describes in Mark 4:35-41.
After a full day of preaching from a boat along the shore Mark 4:1, Jesus directed the disciples to cross to the eastern shore, a less populated place where He could rest. The vessel was likely the kind of first-century fishing boat archaeologists have recovered from the lakebed—about 27 feet long. Not tiny, but no match for a cyclone shooting down off the cliffs. The Greek word Mark uses for the windstorm is rare, and he qualifies it as a great one. The waves were already swamping the boat.
A Sleeping Lord and a Layered Fear
In the stern, on a cushion, Jesus slept. This is the only occasion in all of Scripture that records Jesus sleeping. The disciples woke Him with a question that betrayed both panic and accusation: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Fear was not new to these men—Scripture shows them afraid again and again, whether at Jesus' passion predictions, on the water with Peter, at the Transfiguration, or behind locked doors after the crucifixion. But the fear in this account has a twist.
Most of us know how one fear can swallow another. You can be afraid of several things at once, and then something larger arrives and pushes every other fear out of the room. That is precisely what happens here. Jesus rebukes the wind and says to the sea, "Peace! Be still." The wind ceases; there is a dead calm. And then the text says—literally in the Greek—that the disciples became very much afraid. The storm had terrified them; the stilling of the storm terrifies them more.
The Dawning Awareness That God Is in the Boat
Their question gives the reason: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" If they knew their Scriptures, they knew the answer. Psalm 65:7 says of God, "You silence the roaring of the seas." Psalm 89:9: "You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them." Psalm 107:29: "He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed." Only One commands wind and water, and He was in their boat.
This is the response Scripture records whenever sinful human beings find themselves in the unveiled presence of God. Abraham confesses he is dust and ashes Genesis 18:27. Manoah says, "We shall surely die, for we have seen God" Judges 13:22. Isaiah cries, "Woe is me! For I am lost" Isaiah 6:5. Peter falls at Jesus' knees: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" Luke 5:8. John, seeing the risen Christ, falls at His feet as though dead Revelation 1:17. In the presence of God's perfection and omnipotence, all the disciples had to display was their sinfulness—and they were terrified.
Splashed in the Promises of God
The water in a baptismal font looks deceptively calm, much like the lake before the storm. But when the Word of God is added to that water, things stir. The Word of the Gospel proclaims that Christ went to the cross and bore the sin of the world, that the tomb is empty, that God is not against us but for us. In Baptism we are splashed with these promises—drowned and raised to newness of life, washed clean, claimed as His own people in Christ.
That is the dawning awareness the disciples had on the lake, and it is the awareness Scripture means to give us as well: the One in the boat is the One who dies and rises for us, the One who claims us with a wave of His grace. Whatever sea you find yourself on, He is in your boat. He loves you, forgives you, and has called you His own. As Boat Trip 1-30-22 puts it: fear not. Fear not.
Video citations
- "Boat Trip" 1-30-22 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me, to the Gospel of Mark the 4th chapter. If you're using a few edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that in the New Testament on page 33, Mark…