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.
The Bible TreasuryWhat 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.
C. H. MackintoshProfound 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.
J T MawsonThe 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.
VariousThis 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.
J. N. DarbyBut 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?
J T MawsonThey 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.
The Bible TreasuryMany 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.
J T MawsonWhen 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:
The Bible TreasuryHe 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:
James McBroomBoth 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:
J. G. BellettLook 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 Bible TreasuryThe 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 Christian's FriendThe 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:
The Bible TreasuryMany 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?
A J PollockWe 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:
L M GrantWhile 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.