He Was Asleep

In the storm on the lake, the disciples do not ask Jesus for help. They accuse him of not caring. Mark keeps every awkward detail of that scene.

Mark tells the story of the storm on the lake in seven verses, and he keeps every detail a tidier writer would have removed.

The boat is filling. The disciples, several of whom fished this lake for a living and would know the difference between a bad night and a dangerous one, are certain they are going to drown. And Jesus is in the stern, asleep on a cushion.

Mark could have left out the cushion. He does not. It is the kind of specific, faintly embarrassing detail that a person includes because it is what happened.

Then comes the line that is easy to read too quickly. Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

That is not a request for help. It is an accusation. They do not say wake up, or do something, or save us. They question whether he cares at all. Fear has moved past asking and into indictment, which is a thing fear reliably does.

He gets up, speaks to the wind and the sea, and it stops. Then he turns to them: Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?

It is possible to hear that as a scolding, and many readings do. But notice the order. He stills the storm first. The question comes to people who are already safe, standing in sudden quiet. It is not a condition of rescue. It is asked afterward, which makes it a different kind of question.

And then Mark records something genuinely odd. They were filled with great fear. More afraid after the storm stopped than during it. The wind had been frightening in an ordinary way. The person who speaks to wind and is obeyed is frightening in a way they had no category for.

We usually want this story to be about calm arriving. It is really about a question getting answered in a way nobody found comfortable.

Do you not care that we are perishing. He does not answer it with an explanation. He answers it with an action, and the action turns out to be more unsettling than the silence was.

One thing to take from this. The disciples prayed badly. They accused him, in the middle of it, with no composure at all. And that prayer is the one recorded, and it is the one that worked. If you have been waiting until you can ask well, Mark has already made that unnecessary.