Reflecting on Mark's Gospel - Mark 4:35-41

I once was at sea in a fairly small boat when a storm blew up. There was so much spray that I am not sure whether it was raining or not. There was certainly a significant wind and the boat was literally tossed out of the waves. I was too busy trying to keep slightly dry to think about being scared, but I was very glad to get back to dry land.

This must have been a BIG storm. Four of the disciples were fishermen and they were used to all that the water could throw at them. How interesting that Jesus manages to sleep through the great gale and the boat’s being swamped. He must have been really at peace, or absolutely shattered, or both. I simply cannot imagine sleeping through such an experience.

However, it is also touching that the disciples let him sleep. It suggests that they were already realising just how much stress was being placed on him, and so they did not want to disturb his rest; and, of course, we are told that this journey happened in order to escape the crowds. Jesus and the disciples were in search of a bit of peace and quiet, and did not bargain on running into a major storm. I wonder how we react when the unexpected crosses our path.

Eventually it becomes too much for the disciples. In any case, they do not want him to drown without even having been aware of the danger. So Jesus is shaken awake, and asked to help bail out the boat. He does help, but not in the way that the disciples expected. He tells the storm to calm down, and then asks them why they are afraid.

Some have suggested that the demand to ‘be still’ was addressed to the disciples, not the wind, but that is not how the story is reported and, as Vincent Taylor (The Gospel according to St. Mark) points out – “the attitude of Jesus to nature as the vehicle of divine power made it as natural for him, as it is difficult for us, to address the wind and the sea.” I wonder how we respond when Jesus asks us if we are afraid. I wonder if we are ready to find peace in the middle of the storm, whatever the ‘storm’ may be. I wonder how we react to the miraculous, indeed how we define the miraculous. I think we need to be ready to accept that God can do some amazing things. Jesus demonstrates that this may be. This incident may help us to see that, in Taylor’s words – “we ought not to close our minds to the possibility that, just as in his sayings there are uprushes of divine illumination, so in his works there may have been outflowings of divine power transcending the normal tenor of his conscious life.”