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.
And awaking up he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Silence; be mute. And the wind fell, and there was a great calm.
A tired man wakes, speaks one short sentence, and the sea goes quiet. What word can do that, and what does it promise to people whose storms do not stop?
He used no staff and no borrowed authority. The order came straight from Him:
He spoke in His own right, as Lord of the sea and the land. He addressed both the winds and the waves, for "the sea is His, for He made it," and He "rides on the wings of the wind." He stretched out no rod of delegated authority towards the troubled elements, as Moses did at the Red Sea. There was no striking of the waters with the prophet's mantle, as with Elijah at the Jordan. In the majesty of almighty power He gave His short, firm order — to the roaring hurricane, "Silence!" and to the surging waves, "Cease, be at rest!"
One writer works from a more literal rendering — "Silence, be quiet" — and shows how far that authority reaches:
Both Matthew and Luke record what the Lord did in the storm, but Mark tells us what He said. He awoke, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Silence, be quiet." The word means to muzzle. And blessed be His name — He has not only silenced the storm on the sea, He has muzzled all the forces of evil. The world is judged, the devil defeated, death undone, and all the forces of hell laid low.
He sleeps through the gale, then commands it. Both belong to one Person:
Look at Him again in the boat on the lake during the storm. He was there as a tired working man whose sleep was sweet. That was the form in which He appeared. But underneath lay "the form of God." He rose as the Lord who gathers the wind in His fists and binds the waters in a garment, and He rebuked the sea into a calm.
There is a pattern in the order of what He does:
The gracious Master does not begin by rebuking His disciples, as we most likely would have done in a similar case. He first rebukes the winds, then His disciples. First He removes the cause of their unbelief, then He reproves their unbelief: first grace, then truth. He lived among them full of grace and truth. So it ought to be with us.
Matthew places the question about their faith before the stilling; Mark places it after. Commentators do not treat this as a mistake but as design:
The question is not "Which is correct?" but "What is the special significance intended by the change?" In Matthew's gospel, faith — or the lack of it — is more prominent than in the other gospels. The reason is that Matthew presents Christ as the Messiah, offered to the Jews for acceptance. So it suits that gospel to bring the disciples' unbelief into prominence. Mark, on the other hand, presents our blessed Lord as the servant prophet. There His tenderness in calming the fears of His terrified disciples comes before He stills the raging storm and the sea.
Storms still come, and often no command silences them. One writer says so plainly:
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 hard and terrible storm of affliction still sweeps across the path of God's people. He who still has the right and the power gives it no command. But we may learn this. Though there is "need of patience," and Jesus seems still to sleep, He is with us now as truly as He was with the disciples in the face of danger then.
So what does His help look like when the storm stays?
We may not find our outward circumstances much altered. For instance, no one can avoid old age. But God can and will make a way of escape, so that we are able to bear the trial. A way of escape — not out of the trial, but in the trial — so that in our spirits we may rise above it and glorify God in it.
One day He will speak to the nations, and not in the same tone:
While on earth, He did not need to speak like thunder to subdue the raging sea. He said with calm simplicity, "Peace! Be still!" and there was a great calm. But the nations of earth will need a voice of thunder before they are ready to listen to the Lord Jesus.
- The Word. "Be still" is a muzzling command, not a plea. The same authority that silenced the wind has muzzled every force of evil.
- The Speaker. A tired man asleep in the boat gives an order only the Maker of the sea could give. What people saw was a man; underneath was "the form of God."
- The Order. He calms the storm before He questions their faith — grace clears the danger, then truth deals with the heart.
- The Design. Matthew puts the rebuke of unbelief first. Mark puts the tenderness first. The difference is deliberate, not a mistake.
- The Reach. He may not remove your storm, but He is with you as truly as He was then — and one day that same voice will speak to the nations like thunder.
And he said to them, Why are ye [thus] fearful? how [is it] ye have not faith?
The storm has already dropped, the water is flat, and the boat is safe — and only then does Jesus turn to the men who woke Him. His two questions are not about the weather. They are about the men in the boat, and about what was missing in them.
Mark puts the rebuke of the disciples after the rebuke of the wind. One writer draws out what that order shows:
The gracious Master does not start by rebuking His disciples, as most of us would have done in the same situation. He first rebukes the winds, then His disciples. First He removes the cause of their unbelief, then He reproves their unbelief: first grace, then truth. He lived among them full of grace and truth. So it ought to be with us.
Matthew records the same words before Jesus stills the sea. Commentators call the difference deliberate, not a mistake:
Matthew puts the chiding of the disciples for their unbelief before the rebuking of the winds and the sea. Mark gives the opposite order. The question is not "Which is correct?" but "What is the special significance intended by the change?" In Matthew's gospel, faith — or the lack of it, unbelief — stands out more than in the other gospels... In Mark, our blessed Lord appears more as the servant prophet. So He first shows His tenderness in calming the fears of His terrified disciples, and then He stills the raging storm and the sea.
The trouble was not the size of the waves but the size of their thoughts about the One asleep in the boat:
They forgot His glory in their own anxiety and selfishness. They measured Jesus by their own weakness. A great storm and a sinking ship are serious troubles for a man... Little faith leaves us afraid for ourselves, and poor witnesses of the glory of the One whom even the wildest elements obey.
Their cry itself was not the offence. What was wrong was the state of mind behind it:
He did not blame them for appealing to Him for help. But He wanted them to know that they were wrong in two ways: they were full of fear, and they had little faith.
Faith had one fact to hold, and it was enough to make the panic unreasonable:
By all appearances, the Lord seems detached from the danger His own people are in. He sleeps, and the disciples think the water will swallow them up. They had a certain faith in Him if He were awake: at least then He could deal with the danger. But even so, what a lack of faith it was to think that God's purposes and the Lord Himself would be swallowed up together by a storm — or, as the world would say, by an accident! They were in the same ship with the Lord, the object of all God's purposes. No accident can happen there, or anywhere else... He puts faith to the test and seems indifferent to the difficulties. He is not worried, and His grace and power wake at just the right moment.
They did call on Him. So one writer takes His question as measuring their faith, not denying it:
He recognised that they were not completely without faith, since they appealed to the Master for help. But it was only a very little faith. They thought they were perishing, even though Jesus was with them. Faith must be weak if it cannot trust until the cause of the worry and alarm is gone.
The next verse says they were filled with great fear. That is not the same fear His question rebuked:
This was a wise fear. They now saw what unworthy thoughts had taken hold of them, right in the presence of Infinite Power and Goodness. This was the fear of reverence, and it had driven the cowardice of unbelief out of the disciples' hearts.
The question did not stop with the men in that boat:
How often since then have disciples found that following Christ does not shield them from storms and troubles!... He rebuked the sea, but He also rebuked the disciples, saying, "Where is your faith?" And He has surely not had to ask that question of them alone.
- Same ship. Their whole safety rested on one fact: the Lord was on board with them, so sinking was never a real possibility.
- Small thoughts. They measured Jesus by their own weakness. That is what "no faith" looks like: big fears and dim views of Him.
- Grace first. He stilled the sea before He questioned the men. He removes the cause of unbelief first, then He reproves the unbelief.
- Weak, not absent. They did cry to Him, so the fault was faith too feeble to rest until the danger was already gone.
- Fear replaced. A better fear drove out the old one — reverence before the Power and Goodness sitting in the boat with them.
And they feared [with] great fear, and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
The storm stopped as fast as it came. Now something more unsettling than the wind sits in the boat with them — the Person they woke. Their question is not a complaint but a confession that they do not yet know who He is.
The disciples asked a Man for help and watched God answer. One writer holds both facts together.
On one hand we see the weariness of the Servant of Jehovah after the work of the day. On the other we see His instant readiness to serve yet more as soon as help was called for. And there is a further wonder: not only was the Servant of Jehovah in the boat, but Jehovah Himself was there. For He who spoke with such authority to the winds and the waves was certainly God. And the One who spoke this way was the same One who slept and woke at the cry of distress. It was a great revelation.
The word "obey" is exact. The calm came at a command, not by chance.
His words spoken to the raging elements, "Peace! Be still!" — words we know only because Mark records them — show the perfect command He had over the elements. He spoke and it was done. It was the voice of the Creator, and there was instant obedience. The wind ceased, and there was a great calm. It was not a gradual dying down, but clearly an immediate calm.
Their words are a question. But a sea that obeys leaves only one answer.
More than a man! What man could command the wind and the sea? How powerless man is when the elements are let loose in all their fury. The tornado moves on with unstoppable force. Nothing can withstand it. The sea rages. No human power can curb its terrifying strength. How small man is made to feel before these forces! No — the disciples found themselves in the presence of the eternal Son of God, "God manifested in the flesh."
They were afraid in the storm, and afraid again after it. Commentators differ on how to read this second fear. One sees it as the right kind of fear:
To fear God is good, and Scripture commands it throughout. Afterwards we read that the disciples "were filled with great fear" when they saw what the word of Christ did to the stormy sea. This was a wise fear. They were now aware of the unworthy thoughts that had filled them in the immediate presence of Infinite Power and Goodness. It was the fear of reverence, not the cowardice of unbelief, which it had replaced in their hearts.
Another sees something still missing in it, and turns the point back on the reader:
They do not show the calm worship of people whose faith has its answer. They show the amazement of people whose fears He has just rebuked. Surely they should have known Him better. Yes — and so should we.
The chapter ends with the question still open.
Faith is spiritual sight, and as yet their eyes were hardly opened to see who He was. Had they grasped a little of His true glory they would not have been so afraid. And having watched this display of His power they were still afraid, and still asking what kind of man He was. A Man who can command wind and sea, and they do His will, is obviously no ordinary Man. But who is He? — that is the question.
Knowing the answer would have changed the whole night.
Had they known who that divine Person was with them in the boat, they might have slept as peacefully as He did. How could they perish when they had the Son of God with them in the boat? If He could perish, they might too, but not otherwise; for as He taught them later, "Because I live, you also will live." He also showed them that fear and unbelief were the cause of all their panic and terror. And even the weakest soul will see this: as soon as we have learned that Christ has won power over death and Satan through His work on the cross, our fears will cease.
- Sleeping Man. The One they woke was worn out after a day's work — real weariness, real humanity, asleep in the boat while the storm raged.
- Commanding God. The Servant in the boat was also the Lord of the boat; the voice that answered their cry was the voice that made the sea.
- Obeying creature. The calm was instant, not gradual — evidence of a command carried out, not weather that happened to ease.
- Fearing disciples. Their new fear was reverence before infinite power. But it still fell short of the worship that faith would have given.
- Answered question. Once a soul knows who He is, the storm loses its terror. No one perishes in a boat that holds the Son of God.