This week’s reading from the Gospel of Mark (4:35-41) ends with two different perspectives on faith. One is that of the disciples. The other, which is quite different, is that of Jesus. Both are responses to the same set of circumstances that make the disciples understandable but Jesus more hopeful.

Jesus and the disciples have set out from one side of the Sea of Galilee for the other in a modest boat. If it was like the first-century fishing boat recovered from the mud of the Sea of Galilee a short distance from the beach during a drought in 1986 (27 feet x 7.5 feet with walls 4/3 feet high), it was not a very substantial vessel. A significant storm struck while the boat was crossing the sea. “A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that the boat was already being swamped” (v.37). Things looked bleak.

Jesus was not alarmed. He was, in fact, asleep in the stern. The disciples, however, were terrified, and their panicked reaction was to wake Jesus to do something about the storm. Jesus rebuked the wind. It ceased. The sea calmed. All was well.

This is where we get to the two different perspectives on faith at the end of the story. The disciples asked about Jesus’ power and where it came from. The question of faith for them was about knowing something—who he was. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (v. 41). That’s one way to understand what faith is, a kind of knowledge, often without proof.

Jesus, though, sees what has happened a bit differently. He sees the episode as being about courage. “He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’” (v. 40). For Jesus, the essence of faith has to do with courage to face what is difficult and challenging. For the disciples, it has to do with knowing something and avoiding what is difficult and challenging. Life, I think, is a lot more about having courage than knowing much of anything.

Agape,

+Stacy

Bishop Stacy Sauls

Founder and President