Jesus' calming of the storm undoubtedly made an indelible impression on the disciples. None of Israel's great prophets could do such a thing: they, of course, also...
Jesus' calming of the storm undoubtedly made an indelible impression on the disciples. None of Israel's great prophets could do such a thing: they, of course, also sometimes worked miracles, or rather, God sometimes performed miracles through their prayer, but no one had ever managed to calm a raging lake with one word. Of course, God's power, acting through Jesus in all its fullness, could do anything at all: God is the complete and sovereign Master of His world. Here, however, it was not simply God's power at work; here the breath of the Kingdom was blowing, which was especially important and relevant.
Indeed, humanity has encountered manifestations of God's power from the very beginning of its existence, and the fall did not change anything here in principle: God is God, and after the fall He remains God; His action is still the same as it has always been. It is another matter that after the fall a person perceives the action of God's power differently, often not even understanding what kind of power it is or where it came from. God's power by itself does not always change a person, and even more, it does not always change him radically. For radical change, the conscious participation of the person himself is needed in the process, first of all the participation of his will, and such participation for a fallen person often proves to be, if solvable at all, a very difficult task. That is why miracles in every age have been relatively infrequent in the fallen world.
It would be more accurate to say that few people saw them: one can see a miracle only when the heart is open to God, when God's great world is a reality for a person and he lives precisely in that world, and not in the little fallen world of the human being separated from God's world. Before the coming of Christ this little fallen world, which sometimes appears large to us, was completely isolated from God's great world, which is called the Kingdom. In those times miracles existed only for those for whom God and His presence in the world were an unquestionable and absolute reality.
Now, with Christ's coming, the situation has changed. His coming broke the barrier, destroyed the separation of our fallen world from the Kingdom that had existed before. Now a miracle has become an objective reality, and everyone sees the calming of the storm, regardless of their condition and their attitude toward God and toward Christ. The Kingdom, its power, and its breath have become part of our world. Outwardly nothing special happened, but in reality everything changed.
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4:21 And he said, Is a candle - As if he had said, I explain these things to you, I give you this light, not to conceal, but to impart it to others. And if I conceal any thing from you now, it is only that it may be more effectually manifested hereafter. Mat 5:15; Luk 8:16; Luk 11:33.
4:22 Mat 10:26; Luk 8:17.
4:24 Take heed what ye hear - That is, attend to what you hear, that it may have its due influence upon you. With what measure you mete - That is, according to the improvement you make of what you have heard, still farther assistance shall be given.And to you that hear - That is, with improvement.
4:25 He that hath - That improves whatever he has received, to the good of others, as well as of his own soul. Mat 13:12; Luk 8:18.
4:26 So is the kingdom of God - The inward kingdom is like seed which a man casts into the ground - This a preacher of the Gospel casts into the heart. And he sleeps and rises night and day - That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime it springs and grows up he knows not how - Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. For as the earth by a curious kind of mechanism, which the greatest philosophers cannot comprehend, does as it were spontaneously bring forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: so the soul, in an inexplicable manner, brings forth, first weak graces, then stronger, then full holiness: and all this of itself, as a machine, whose spring of motion is within itself. Yet observe the amazing exactness of the comparison. The earth brings forth no corn (as the soul no holiness) without both the care and toil of man, and the benign influence of heaven.
4:29 He putteth in the sickle - God cutteth down and gathereth the corn into his garner.
4:30 Mat 13:31; Luk 13:18.
4:33 He spake the word as they were able to hear it - Adapting it to the capacity of his hearers; and speaking as plain as he could without offending them. A rule never to be forgotten by those who instruct others.
4:35 Mat 8:23; Luk 8:22.
4:36 They take him as he was in the vessel - They carried him immediately in the same vessel from which he had been preaching to the people.
4:38 On the pillow - So we translate it, for want of a proper English expression, for that particular part of the vessel near the rudder, on which he lay.
4:39 Peace - Cease thy tossing: Be still - Cease thy roaring; literally, Be thou gagged.