Night reading · Mark 4:38
Asleep in the back of the boat
The storm on the lake · Mark 4
And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow.
Mark 4:38 · King James Version
Evening, on the water.
He has taught all day. Crowds since the morning, pressing in, reaching, asking. When the sun starts to go he says, Let us pass over unto the other side, and they push the boat out, and the shore lights get small behind them.
And Jesus goes to the back of the boat and lies down on a cushion and falls asleep.
Let that sit for a second, because we skip past it every time. The Son of God is so tired that He sleeps in a fishing boat on a wooden deck with a cushion under His head. Fully human. Properly worn out. The kind of tired where the motion of the water is enough.
Then the wind comes down off the hills.
It happens fast on that lake — the valleys funnel the air and the water turns over in minutes. The waves start coming in over the side. Men who have fished this water their entire lives are bailing with their hands and losing.
And He is still asleep.
They wake Him — and listen to what they say, because it is not a prayer, it is an accusation: Master, carest thou not that we perish?
Do you not care.
That is the question underneath most of our praying, if we are honest at two in the morning. Not are You able. Do You care.
He stands up in a boat that is filling with water, and He says four words to the weather.
Peace, be still.
And the wind stopped. Not eased. Stopped. And there was a great calm.
Here is what I want you to carry into sleep. The storm was real. The danger was real. The boat was genuinely going down and their fear was not a failure of nerve.
And He was asleep in it.
He was not asleep because nothing was happening. He was asleep because He was not afraid of what was happening. There is an enormous difference, and the difference is the whole of the Christian life.
The storm you are lying awake in tonight — He is not panicking about it. He is not pacing heaven. He is not surprised by the wind, and He was not surprised by it this afternoon when you were, and He will not be surprised by it tomorrow.
You are in the boat with someone who sleeps through this kind of weather.
You do not have to calm the sea. You have never once been asked to calm the sea. You have been asked to be in the boat.
So lie down in the back of it. Let the water do what it does. Let the wind make its noise on the other side of the wood.
He is here, and He is not worried.
Peace, be still.
And there was a great calm.