Today’s Passage: Mark 4:35–41
Evening comes after a long day of teaching, and Jesus says to His disciples, Let us cross to the other side. Out on the water a storm rises against them, and while it rages Jesus is asleep. The disciples are terrified. Then He speaks a word, and the sea goes perfectly phimoō, pronounced fee-MO-oh. Strong's G5392, to muzzle, silence, restrain by force. The word means to muzzle, like silencing a barking dog. It is a command, not a gentle request. Jesus does not ask the storm to calm down: He orders it. .
As you read, hold this: The One who sleeps in the boat still commands the wind.
Context Storms on the Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee sits low in the land, with hills all around it, so that cold air can rush down the slopes and stir up sudden, violent storms. The men in this boat were fishermen who knew this lake well, and even they were frightened, which tells you the danger was real. Jesus sleeping through it is not laziness. He is resting in His Father while the crew trusts only what their own eyes can see.
Mark 4:35–38 (BSB)
³⁵ When that evening came, He said to His disciples, “Let us cross to the other side.” ³⁶ After they had dismissed the crowd, they took Jesus with them, since He was already in the boat. And there were other boats with Him. ³⁷ Soon a violent windstorm came up, and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was being swamped. ³⁸ But Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on the cushion. So they woke Him and said, “Teacher, don’t You care that we are perishing?”
Notice that they are out in this storm precisely because they obeyed. Jesus said “cross over,” and they did exactly as He asked, and the storm found them there in the middle of their obedience.
Their cry to Him is honest, and there is no pretending in it: Don’t You care that we are perishing? If that is your own prayer on some days, you may pray it just as plainly as they did.
The storm did not mean that He had left them. He was in the boat with them the whole time. He was asleep, yes, but He was never gone.
Mark 4:39–41 (BSB)
³⁹ Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!” And the wind died down, and it was perfectly calm. ⁴⁰ “Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “Do you still have no faith?” ⁴¹ Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Jesus speaks to the storm the way a man would speak to a barking dog, and the wind and the sea obey Him at once.
Then He turns and asks the harder question. He does not ask why there was a storm at all. He asks why they forgot who was in the boat with them.
By the end the disciples are more amazed than they are afraid, and they ask one another the very question this whole Gospel is written to answer: Who is this?
The wind had already answered it for them. The One who was asleep in the stern is the same One who commands the storm.
Study notes Psalm 107 sings this story
Long before this night on the lake, Psalm 107 sang of the LORD who stills the storm with a word and hushes the waves of the sea. Now, in the boat, Jesus does the very thing the psalm says only God can do, and we can praise Him for it.
"Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress. He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed." Psalm 107:28–29 (BSB)
The One who sleeps in the boat still commands the wind.
Personal Application
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Where does it feel, right now, as though Jesus is asleep in the boat and does not care what happens to you?
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What storm have you been trying to handle on your own strength, instead of turning and bringing it to the One who is already in the boat with you?
Today’s decision: When fear rises today, name it to Jesus in a short, honest prayer, out loud if you can, instead of only turning it over and over in your own mind.
Pray to Close
The central truth: The One who sleeps in the boat still commands the wind.
Give thanks: thank God that Jesus stays in the boat when the waves rise.
Ask: ask Him for faith that cries out to the One who is already there.
Confess: tell Him the panic that forgot He was in the boat.
Worship for Today
Song: It Is Well with My Soul, by Horatio Spafford
Horatio Spafford wrote this hymn after losing people he loved, so it does not pretend that the storms of this life are not real. Instead it rests its whole weight on the One who rules them, and it teaches the heart to say that it is well even while the waves are still high. Sing it as praise to the Lord who is in the boat.
Listen: