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The story of Jesus calms the storm
It was evening, and Jesus and his disciples were on a boat, sailing across the Sea of Galilee to the country of the Gadarenes. In the course of their voyage, there was a great windstorm that troubled the water violently and large waves emerged and were breaking into the boat such that the boat was becoming full and they were in danger of sinking. The disciples set to work, trying all they could to save the boat and their lives. But their effort did not pay off and the danger of their sinking was obvious to them.
However, Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Afterward, He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41; Matthew 8:23-27, Luke 8:22-25)
Facts about Jesus calms the storm
It was Jesus’ idea to cross the lake to the other side. And it was evening at the time they set sail. According to Matthew’s narration (Mt 8:23), Jesus entered into a ship and his disciples followed Him. According to Mark’s narration (Mr 4:35), Jesus told His disciples that they should cross the water to the other side. So it was Jesus’ idea, not the disciples’. The disciples only followed Jesus into the storm.
There were other ships on the water sailing with them, and those ships were described as little (Mr 4:36). So, the storm was a problem not only for Jesus and his disciples but also for an unspecified number of other ships. If Jesus’ relatively large ship was at risk of sinking in the storm, then certainly the other small ships were more at risk of sinking and or being damaged. Therefore, when Jesus calmed the storm, He brought deliverance not only to His disciples but to many other ships that would have perished in the storm.
The water body Jesus and His disciples were sailing over was the Sea of Galilee, which is also called the Sea of Chinnereth (Nu 34:11), Lake of Gennesaret (Lu 5:1), Sea of Tiberias (Joh 6:1), and Lake Tiberias. The Sea of Galilee is the largest freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth. It is also the second-lowest lake in the world after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake. Because of its low-lying position, surrounded by hills, the Sea of Galilee is prone to sudden violent storms as the wind comes down from the hills suddenly onto the sea.
Jesus said, “Peace, be still.” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. How easily this was done with a word spoken. Moses commanded the waters with a rod; Joshua, with the ark of the covenant; Elisha, with the prophet’s mantle; but Christ with a word. This shows His absolute dominion over all creation.
When Jesus said, “Peace, be still.” There was a great calm, all of a sudden. Normally, after a storm, there is such a fret of the waters, that it takes a while before they can settle. However, when Christ spoke the word, not only did the storm cease, but all the effects of it died away into great calm, leaving Jesus’ disciples to marvel.
Lessons we can learn from Jesus calms the storm
1. A storm could refer to any undesirable thing we face in our lives such as temptations, persecution, marital problems, disease, unemployment, infertility, poverty, and any other thing that you see as a problem in your life. ‘Jesus calms the storm’ should remind Christians that God has a solution for all the storms of life.
2. Jesus calms the storm’ reminds Bible readers of the saying, ‘With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).’ During the storm, some of the disciples, being fishermen, applied their years of experience and their strength in an attempt to save their boat and their lives, but the storm prevailed over them and their effort did not pay off. Then they called Jesus and Jesus, the Lord, spoke, “Peace be still.” Immediately, the powerful storm ceased and there was calm. Guess what, His disciples were seized with wonder because, for them, it was impossible to overcome such a storm and they were wondering how Jesus was able to command away a mighty storm of this caliber that has outdone their wisdom, experience, and strength. You might have spent a great deal of your life struggling with a difficult problem; it could be chronic diseases, infertility, poverty, etc. If you would humble yourself and earnestly and continually call upon God, He would surely answer, it might take days, hours, minutes, or instantly for your request to be granted.
3. Let’s consider this: at the time of the storm if Peter had $ 100,000,000 to his name, what good would that money have done to save him? What if John had the wisdom of Solomon, what would it have done to save him at that time? Sometimes, all the resources we have at our disposal cannot deal with certain storms in our lives. Certain problems we encounter cannot be solved with our experience, wisdom, money, the services we can buy, etc. For the unbeliever, when he gets to a point in life where every means to get a cure, a job, and or a better life fails, in despair, he is easily driven to commit suicide. But the Christians shall never run out of hope, because if everything fails, we have faith at our disposal. Faith enables us to tap God’s supernatural power to overcome any storm that will rear its ugly head in our lives. ‘Jesus calms the storm’ teaches us to apply faith in our lives, especially, against the problems we are powerless to overcome.
4. Problems are no respecter of persons. Long ago before Jesus, when the Israelites were on the exodus to the Promised Land, they faced a lot of problems, though the Lord was with them right from the beginning. In the same way, though Jesus was with His disciples on the ship, it did not prevent the storm from hitting hard at them, almost destroying them. We should never view Christianity as a means of escape from the troubles, problems, and difficulties of life. These things will certainly rear their ugly heads into our lives. However, we are better off than the unbeliever for amid the problems, we have our God and Savior who can suppress, disable, and remove any problem in our path. The story ‘Jesus calms the storm’ should always remind Christians that they are bound to encounter problems though Jesus is with them.
5. Jesus Christ taught His disciples that the all-knowing God knows all their needs even before they ask Him (Matt. 6:32), yet God requires them to pray, and until they have prayed, they will not get anything from God (James 4:2). Jesus knew very well that they had a terrible storm on their hands, yet He remained sleeping until they called upon Him for help, and then he responded. The event of Jesus sleeping during the storm is a picture of God’s attitude toward the storms in our lives. Though He knows and sees our situations, until we have called upon Him in prayer, He only looks on. God has always demanded that we call upon Him for Him to act; that is the law He operates with on this earth. God has long been telling His people to call upon Him:
- Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not. (Jeremiah 33:3)
- And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)
Why was Jesus sleeping during the storm?
The event of Jesus sleeping during the storm is like a father who took his child out into the orange grove and told the six-year-old boy to plug some oranges for himself. After struggling on end to no avail, the boy whimpered and complained to the father that he could not reach the oranges. The father plugged one for him and said, “You could have requested to use a ladder. That would have been much easier for you.”
People do ask why it happened that Jesus was sleeping while they had a storm – a terrible storm – on their hands. It appears clearly that it was intentional on Jesus’ part to sleep while His disciples toiled for naught, trying to save the boat and their lives in the storm. First of all, the storm was so strong that it tossed the boat back and forth such that it would be impossible for anyone to find the comfort to sleep, yet Jesus was sleeping during this trouble.
Jesus intended for it to happen for a reason, which is that He wanted to use the event of the storm to teach His disciples about faith. Finally, Jesus got up to rebuke the storm and there was calm. And then He questioned the faith of His disciples, saying, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?”
So His disciples learned that they lacked faith; more so, they saw firsthand the power of faith and what they can accomplish with faith. Such a lesson was important for them in that Jesus was going to be with them but for a short time, and when He is gone, it would take faith for them to:
- Lead their lives as Christians
- Carry on with the propagation of the Gospel.
- Withstand the wave of persecution that was yet to come.