And there comes a violent gust of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it already filled.
Jesus told His disciples to cross the lake, and then a squall dropped on them while He slept. Where did such a storm come from, and what does it mean that the Lord of the sea slept through it?
Several of the men on board earned their living on this water.
The distance to the other side, as the crow flies, was only a few miles. In ordinary circumstances the journey might have been finished quickly. But a great hurricane suddenly arose. It whipped the water of the lake into furious and mighty waves. They dashed over and beat into the little boat, so that it was filling fast. Some of the disciples, such as Simon and Andrew and James and John, were local fishermen used to sailing the lake. They had no doubt met many a stormy night in their trade. But this storm was so severe that their strength and skill were both defeated.
They had not drifted into this. They were crossing because He had said to cross.
The disciples were doing what He had told them to do. He had said, "Let us go over to the other side." Why then did the storm arise to block them? It is when we are in the pathway of God's will that Satan's forces are stirred up against us. Satan is happy to leave us in calm waters when we are going our own way. But when we are in the line of God's interests, we feel the force of the adversary.
One writer looks past the weather to the enemy behind it.
More than the disciples were involved in that storm. Satan was permitted to raise it against the precious Burden of that little ship. All the enmity of Satan against the Church is against Christ and His glory. That is our comfort; for if he could destroy that, then we might sink, but not otherwise.
Commentators differ here, since the account does not name a cause. Another writer puts it only as a possibility:
Though it is not stated, Satan may have brought about the storm on the lake. He was the one who would bruise the heel of the woman's Seed, and this may have been one of his futile attempts to destroy the Son of man.
The same verse that shows the sea at its wildest shows Jesus asleep in it.
Profound mystery! The One who made the sea, and could hold the winds in His almighty grasp, lay sleeping in the back of the ship. He let the sea and the wind treat Him with as little respect as if He were an ordinary man. Such was the reality of the human nature of our blessed Lord. He was weary — He slept, tossed on the surface of that sea which His hands had made.
One writer asks what made such rest possible:
The Lord slept in the storm. That sleep was the evidence that He was truly a man, who knew weariness through work and the rest that sleep gives. It is remarkable that the only time we read of Him sleeping was in the storm. What was the secret of that wonderful rest? On what pillow did He lay His head? The secret was His perfect confidence in God, and His pillow was His Father's unchanging love. We know that He was more than man; He guided and controlled the boat even while He slept. But He was man, and never used His divine power for His own advantage or comfort.
This scene comes at the end of a chapter of parables.
The storm on the lake gives a picture that completes the teaching of the chapter. Now we learn that, in such a world, the Lord's true people will meet with trials. But the Lord Jesus, though absent to sight, is present to faith. He is supreme over all the storms His people have to meet.
Not every storm ends with a word that stills the wind.
Many a wind has blown over the same water since the day of Mark 4. The heart of many an alarmed disciple has cried out again, but there has been no answer. Many a trying and terrible storm of affliction still sweeps across the path of the people of God. He who still has the right and the power gives it no command. But this we may learn: though there is "need of patience," and Jesus seems still to sleep, He is as truly with us now as He was for the disciples facing the danger then.
- Commanded — the crossing was His order, so the storm struck them inside God's will, not outside it.
- Contested — obedience draws opposition. The enemy aimed at the Christ on board, and His people could only sink if He fell.
- Filling — the danger was real. Fishermen who knew this lake were beaten, and the boat was going under.
- Asleep — He was truly weary and truly man, resting on His Father's love while the sea He made broke over Him.
- With us — the wind is not always rebuked today, but the Presence in the boat is unchanged.
And *he* was in the stern sleeping on the cushion. And they awake him up and say to him, Teacher, dost thou not care that we are perishing?
A long day of teaching had ended. Evening came, a sudden storm swamped the boat, and the Lord was asleep. One verse holds two things at once: a Man too tired to wake in a gale, and a cry from His own followers asking whether He cares.
Mark alone records where He slept and what His head rested on. Older translations call the cushion a pillow. The One who never slumbers had become a man who could grow tired.
What a day it had been of untiring devotion to His Father's will and of love to man! Do we wonder, then, that in the little boat, where His disciples were with Him, He should be asleep on a pillow? It was a hard lump of wood — such a contrast to a cushion on a sofa! Truly He was the LORD of Psalm 121:4, and Scripture says of Him, "He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." But He had chosen to become man, and to be the perfectly dependent and obedient One. As such He could grow tired, as He did at the well in Sychar.
He made that sea. Now it tossed Him like any other passenger.
Profound mystery! The One who made the sea, and could hold the winds in His almighty grasp, lay sleeping in the back of the boat. He allowed the sea and the wind to treat Him as roughly as though He were an ordinary man. Such was the reality of the human nature of our blessed Lord.
Weariness explains why He could sleep. It does not explain how He slept through a storm. The answer lies in whom He trusted.
The Lord slept in the storm. That sleep was the evidence that He was indeed a man, who knew weariness through work and the rest that sleep gives. It is remarkable that the only time we read of Him sleeping was in the storm. What was the secret of that wonderful repose? On what pillow did He lay His head? The secret was His perfect confidence in God, and His pillow was His Father's changeless love. We know that He was more than man — His command of the elements proved that, and He guided and controlled the boat even while He slept. But He was man, and He never used His divine power for His own advantage or comfort.
The disciples' question is not a prayer; it is an accusation. One writer draws attention to the pronoun they chose.
This is the only Gospel that mentions the pillow. Mark is the Gospel of the Servant. Did He push that pillow away? No. He was no man of harsh self-denial. He accepts the Father's provision, and goes to sleep in the storm. "Do you not care that we are perishing?" they say. Oh, that miserable "we." His "us" took them in; their "we" left Him out. Perish with Christ on board! It only needs to be thought about for a minute.
Fear turned their thoughts back on themselves. Jesus, meanwhile, was at rest.
But Jesus was at perfect peace. He was asleep. His power was hidden: He seemed cut off from all that was going on, and unaware of it. He seemed weak. His power and glory could be seen only by faith. Their word is: "Do you not care that we are perishing?" For unbelief is always selfish, and so it will be found.
If their question was wrong, what would faith have done instead?
They might have stretched themselves out beside Him and known the wonder of unbroken peace in the storm. They might have made that night memorable by their confidence in Him. They might have shared His peace with Him… And when that great calm spread over the waters, they were not one bit safer than they had been while the great waves thundered against them.
Some storms today end with no calming word. Commentators do not smooth that over.
Many a wind has blown over the same water since the day of Mark 4. The heart of many an alarmed disciple has cried out again — but there has been no answer… Yet this we may learn. Though there is "need of patience," and Jesus appears still to sleep, He is as truly with us now as He was for the disciples facing the danger then.
Peter was in that boat. Years later he wrote a line that reads like a man correcting his own question.
When Peter wrote, "Casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you," did he remember the storm on the sea? Did he remember how he and his brothers, in a panic of fear, woke their sleeping Lord with the faithless cry, "Do you not care that we are perishing?" Surely never again after that experience would he doubt the care of his Lord.
- Weary — only Mark records the cushion in the stern. It marks real, tired manhood in the One who never slumbers.
- Restful — His pillow was His Father's changeless love. He never used divine power for His own advantage or comfort.
- Selfish — their "we are perishing" left Him out of the danger; unbelief always shrinks the world down to itself.
- Missed — faith would have lain down beside Him, since the boat was no safer in the calm than it was in the storm.
- Answered — Peter's later words, "He cares for you," are the reply to the question he once shouted.