Context No. 107 of 4322 · Mark
Context · Reflection
Mark 4:33-41: in context
33With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. 34Without a parable he didn’t speak to them; but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. 35On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let’s go over to the other side.” 36Leaving the multitude, they took him with them, even as he was, in the boat. Other small boats were also with him. 37A big wind storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so much that the boat was already filled. 38He himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and asked him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are dying?” 39He awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was a great calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?” 41They were greatly afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark has spent the chapter on parables, and this passage is the hinge from teaching into action. Jesus explains everything privately to his disciples, then says, at evening, let us cross to the other side. They take him in the boat just as he was, and other boats go along.
The storm hits and the boat begins filling. Jesus is asleep in the stern on the cushion, the helmsman's seat cushion, the one comfortable spot on a fishing boat. The disciples wake him, and their question is not save us. It is: Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? The accusation comes out before the request.
He rebukes the wind and tells the sea to be silent, using the same word he uses to silence a demon earlier in Mark. Then he turns to them: why are you afraid, have you still no faith? And their reaction is not relief but a deeper fear, and the question that ends the chapter. Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? Several of them were professional fishermen who knew that lake, and the thing that frightened them most was not the storm. What answer am I actually afraid of getting, more than I am afraid of the trouble I am in?