Read It

This passage is one of the more familiar passages from the gospel accounts. It is also one of the places where sermons and books have been least kind to the disciples, in my opinion. It's easy to dismiss their fear as something shameful as we sit comfortably at home reading the story of which we already know the end. However, in many ways, I find that this particular narrative encapsulates the experiences of the disciples following Jesus perfectly. Remember that, particulary for Mark, Jesus' identity was something of a secret and was most certainly a surprise. Read this as though you do not know the end of the story, and I think you'll find the disciples quite a sympathetic bunch indeed.

However, even in second reading, this story should be somewhat disturbing. The ill-fated boating trip? Jesus' idea. Jesus leads his friends into the teeth of a life-threatening storm and then goes to take a nap. When the disciples needed him the most, he gave all indications of being unavailable. The words of the disciples, "Is it nothing to you if we drown?" - those words should stick in our hearts, because most likely we have all uttered the same prayer at some point in our journey. Is it nothing to you, you who convinced us to get on the boat, you who set our course, you who went to sleep when you were most needed, is it nothing to you if we drown? It makes me question the seriousness of Jesus' response: "Why did you doubt?" Jesus, did you see the gale force winds and waves larger than the boat?

This is not a child's tale. This story is not for the faint of heart. Here, we are confronted with the not-at-all-tame lion, the unsafe God who lives wildly and recklessly. We are confronted with the fact that we, too, are in the boat with him, that he has set our course and even now is glancing at the stern with sleepy eyes. But trust is called for as well, forcing us often to live in the tension between fear and faith, responding most appropriately with the same words that the disciples used - "Who is this that I am following?"