Today’s lesson from Mark 4 is a classic example of some people trying to get other people hysterically agitated about the same thing they are agitated about. The lesson is about taking responsibility for who you are and what you do rather than projecting your fears and your responsibility for yourself onto others.

Last week’s gospel lesson ended with the line that the disciples needed special instruction. They were no better off than everyone else who could not and did not understand. The fact that the disciples need special instruction (4:34) shows that they cannot grasp the revelation in the parables. Their inability to understand becomes clearer in today’s miracle story which leaves them puzzling “Who then is this, because even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Today we need to look at the lesson of the stilling of the storm with our 2018 eyes and minds to recover its meaning. Today’s lesson is often easily dismissed because we know that demons do not cause bad weather on lakes. But something causes otherwise normal people to act crazy as the disciples did in today’s lesson.

When we experience a storm in our lives do we give up our minds and retreat to emotional excess? Or do we keep our perspective? In Jesus healing miracles Jesus cast demons which are forces or ideas that do not belong in people. He gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf but more importantly he gave the ability to understand that the locus of sin is in our bad human thinking.

Despite the special relationship of the disciples with Jesus and his private lessons to them they, were not able to understand who he was because they did not yet have the experience of his resurrection that has the power to bring each of us true seeing and clarity. Normally we read the line where the disciples say, “who is this that even the wind and waves obey him?” as a statement of faith but instead it should be read as an expression of true confusion over who Jesus was.

It is important to notice the very curious situation where Jesus lies in the back of the boat sleeping during this alleged crisis. The disciples do not wake him to ask for a miracle. They wake him up to tell him that they are all going to die. Literally this translates: “Teacher is it not a care to you that we are dying?” But the real question is this; “Jesus, why aren’t you as anxious about dying as we are?” Jesus constantly lived in physical danger and yet his death mattered to him not at all.

Having the mind of Christ changes the way you look at things. Trusting in God and his gifts to us means that we can have understanding and perspective that enables us to be panic free. Panic leads to bad thinking, which leads to bad behavior and then to blaming someone else because we can’t accept responsibility for our own problems.

So what difference does Jesus make to your life? What does Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat indicate? Couldn’t Jesus sleep be a sign of his being at one with his Father? Jesus responds at last to the disciples. Why are you fearful and timid? The disciple’s reaction to the stilling of the storm was to be terribly afraid of Jesus. Saying who is this that the wind and sea obey? Jesus response to the disciples was to rebuke them for their foolish behavior.

When Jesus questions the disciples he uses the word for inner fear. Fear caused by lack of courage or timidity. Jesus by choosing a word that indicates inner fear implies that there is something defective about the disciples. When the disciples referred to their fear they use the word for outer fear, a word that points toward external circumstances, the storm as the cause of their fear. The disciples are centered on externals, the storm, the sea, the wind and then of Jesus. How often we blame externals and others when instead we need to look within ourselves and our inability to live trusting in God and accepting personal responsibility.

The disciples and Jesus were in the same storm, they just saw it differently. Jesus was sleeping calmly in the back of the boat because he was able to see the difference between real danger and trumped up danger.

As with many stories in Mark’s gospel this lesson about the stilling of the storm is a pair with another story, Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The feature that has me seeing it as a pair with the Gethsemane story is who it is that is sleeping. In the boat Jesus is asleep because there is no danger, just a minor passing storm, nothing to fear, and with the weather there is nothing to do about it anyway. In Gethsemane it is the disciples who are asleep, when they should be watching and making sure that they are seeing the real danger, from the corrupt religion and Roman government clearly and correctly. Because they were not looking and watching when they awoke from their sleep they panicked, they scattered, and they abandoned and then denied Jesus.

We have every advantage that the disciples did not. We have experienced the risen Christ who has enabled our vision and we have the courage of the Holy Spirit to keep us awake, looking and watching with our Lord. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” He is Jesus the Christ the son of God who has come to save us from ourselves.

1. Why did the disciples try to get Jesus as excited about the danger they perceived as they were?

2. In our lesson today Jesus reacts to the same situation differently than everyone else. I see him doing this consistently, what does that teach us?

3. Does knowing Jesus look at our lives differently or are we condemned to see it like those who surround us who do not know Jesus?