Stormy Lake or Still, Small Voice?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"Let us go over to the other side." Mark 4:35

What a vivid scene--Jesus sound asleep in a tiny boat tossing in a storm, and the disciples yelling, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" Jesus sat up, rebuked the wind and waves, and asked, "Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" Mark 4:41 NIV

1. The Parables Jesus asked, "Are you "still" afraid?" because he had spent the entire day teaching a crowd so large that he had to preach from a boat. Mark said that Jesus taught "as much as the crowd could understand", but he only used parables. By speaking indirectly, he left it open to his listeners to accept or reject as much as they were ready for--but even his own disciples did not understand the parables.

2. The Theory. Mark 4:34 says, "But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything." Imagine listening to Jesus for an entire day, and then having him explain further, one-on-one. And he finished the day with the powerful analogy of a mustard seed (in another passage, he said that faith even as small as a mustard seed could move mountains). I'm sure the disciples sat enthralled, and said the obligatory "Yeah, Lord!", "Amen," etc. But obviously it was just in their heads, not their hearts, because after a long, tiring day of teaching, Jesus said, "Let us go over to the other side."

3. Crossing the Lake. I can just imagine Jesus smiling to himself as the disciples set sail across the lake. Jesus went to sleep, the storm hit--and you know the rest. If Jesus had power over wind and waves, certainly he also knew, as did the simplest fisherman, that evening squalls were common on the Sea of Galilee?. But Jesus did not wait until morning because he knew that an entire day of teaching, followed by one-on-one explanations, had still not got his message across to his hard-headed disciples. They had dry head knowledge but no practical heart belief, so Jesus let them put the theory into practice (which, unfortunately, is often the only way we can learn).

4. Storm or Silence. The disciples could have been spared the terrifying lake crossing had they really listened to and believed Jesus' message. We, too, choose daily how we will learn. We can learn from that still, small voice within us, or we can ignore Him, and force our Father to plop us down in a small boat in a stormy lake to get our attention.

5. The Other Side. After Jesus quieted the wind and waves, the disciples exclaimed, " "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" Mark 4:41 NIV. But while wind and waves obey, we often do not. We can choose to learn at his feet, or we can cross the stormy lake. Fortunately, if He does tell us to cross a stormy lake, we know that He will also take us to the other side.

And if we foolishly decide to cross a stormy lake on our own initiative, for our own purposes, well, that's another Noodle...
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