Who Is This

Observe. At evening Jesus proposes crossing the lake. A furious squall comes up, waves break into the boat, and it is nearly swamped. Jesus is asleep in the stern on a cushion. The disciples wake him and ask whether he does not care that they are drowning. He gets up, rebukes the wind, and tells the sea to be quiet and be still. The wind dies and it becomes completely calm. He asks why they are afraid and whether they still have no faith. Mark says they were terrified, and asked one another who this is, that even the wind and the waves obey him.

Interpret. Two details matter. Jesus rebukes the wind as though it were a hostile creature, the same word used for silencing demons earlier in Mark. And the disciples' fear after the calm is greater than their fear during the storm. They were afraid of the sea; now they are afraid of the one who commands it. In the Old Testament, only God stills the sea; Psalm 107:28-29 describes him calming the storm to a whisper. The closing question, who is this, is the question the whole Gospel is built to answer.

Apply. The passage asks us to consider what we fear, and what we have not yet understood about Jesus. When you have been in a storm, what did your prayers accuse him of? Have you ever been more unsettled by what God did than by what you were suffering? And how would you answer the disciples' question today, in your own words?