Jesus Asleep in the Storm

It was evening when Jesus said, let us go over to the other side. The disciples took him in the boat just as he was, Mark says, which probably means without any preparation, straight from a day of teaching. A furious squall came up. Waves broke over the boat and it was nearly swamped. And Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.

The detail of the cushion is one of those small touches that mark an eyewitness. Jesus was not merely dozing. He was properly asleep, exhausted, in the one part of the boat where a man could lie down. The disciples woke him with a question that was really an accusation. Teacher, do you not care if we drown?

He got up, rebuked the wind, and said to the waves, quiet, be still. Then the wind died and it was completely calm. And he asked them two questions of his own. Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?

The lesson is not that Christians will never be in storms. Jesus led them into this one. The lesson is in the contrast between his sleep and their panic. He could rest because he knew whose boat it was and where it was going; he had said they would reach the other side. The disciples had the same information and did not yet believe it. Mark records that afterward they were terrified, more afraid of the calm than of the storm, and asked one another who this was. That is the right question, and a person who answers it correctly can, in time, learn to sleep through weather.