Don’t You Care?
“And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish?” Mark 4:38
Jesus had been teaching for the entire day the multitudes of people who came to hear Him. The crowd had become so large that Jesus entered into a ship that sailed out a little ways from the shore so that He could be heard by the people. Now some might question how the people could hear Him if He was at a distance from them. Well, there were no airplanes or helicopters flying overhead, no sounds of nearby construction or vehicles moving up and down the street, and besides, since He is God, anyone can hear Him no matter where they are if they are truly listening for His voice.
He taught by the use of parables, earthly stories with spiritual meanings, but later He would explain more fully the meanings of the parables to His disciples. Wow, can you imagine sitting among those men and hearing Jesus expound upon the truths of God’s word? I hope the disciples felt pretty special at that privilege. At the end of the day, Jesus desired to travel across the Sea of Galilee. The long day of teaching had caused Him to seek rest so He went down below deck to catch some shut eye. The human side of Jesus became tired just like we all do after a good day’s work.
While He was asleep, a storm came up. It was so tempestuous that the waves were crashing onto the deck. (Perhaps this is where the old saying “sleeping up a storm” originated!) The disciples were scared to death, and I would have been right there along with them since I can’t swim. They went to Jesus, woke Him up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that we are about to die?” (paraphrased). Think about this: they had previously seen Him do many miracles on others, so why wouldn’t He take care of this immense problem for them? Their faith was weak when it came to their own survival. A weak faith can cause us to fear. Jesus calmed the storm for them and then asked, “Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?” Since Jesus experienced all the human emotions that we experience, in my minds’ eye I can see Him hanging His head and shaking it back and forth in exasperation. He probably wouldn’t say this, but if He did, He would be justified to exclaim, “What is wrong with you people? Are you ever going to get it?”
It’s pretty easy to have faith when it’s someone else’s problem, but when it comes to our own troubling situations, we might tend to waver to and fro from doubt to hope, hitting every human emotion in between. I suppose if the disciples had displayed a strong faith, when the storm arose, they would have grabbed on to something secure and yelled out to their fellow disciples, “Hold on. Everything will be all right.” That’s what we have to do: hold on to the only One who is securely grounded and know that everything will be O.K.
Just a footnote to the above account: even after the storm was calm, they were still fearful and remarked to one another, “What manner of Man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” They still didn’t get it, but then neither do millions upon millions walking planet earth. I just wish that all of these folks could see that Jesus really does care about them enough to die for them.