In today's Gospel, Mark's account ends with the disciples' question, “Who then is this?”—a question of great importance in the overall context of the New Testament. The episode as a whole shows very clearly the distance between the disciples—ordinary people just like us—and Jesus. A violent storm arose on the lake, and the evangelist emphasizes that...
In today's Gospel, Mark's account ends with the disciples' question, “Who then is this?”—a question of great importance in the overall context of the New Testament. The episode as a whole shows very clearly the distance between the disciples—ordinary people just like us—and Jesus. A violent storm arose on the lake, and the evangelist emphasizes that the boat was already filling with water. This means that two or three more waves would simply send it to the bottom. At such a moment, everyone in a boat either tries to keep its bow toward the waves with the oars or bails out the water. But the Lord is asleep, because He has been preaching all day and is very tired.
The disciples must have been reluctant to wake Him, and it is astonishing that the rocking did not wake Him on its own. At such moments the tension rises sharply, and a person feels his smallness and weakness very clearly. Anyone in the boat then understands that if help does not come from the Almighty, nothing else will protect him: a grain of sand in the hands of the elements, he will go to the bottom. It is impossible to sleep at such a time. We do not know whether the disciples wanted Jesus to bail out water with everyone else or to pray, but in any case they did not expect what He Himself did.
When the danger comes too close, they wake Him and ask with some irritation: “Why are You sleeping? Do You really not care that all of us—including You—are perishing?” Against this background of the disciples' overwhelming sense of their own insignificance and helplessness, Jesus wakes, turns toward the sea, and simply tells it, “Be silent.” Not majestically or menacingly, as Siberian shamans might invoke the elements, but as a tired person says to a barking dog, “Oh, be quiet!”—such is the meaning of the Greek verbs. And the sea becomes silent.
In the stillness that follows, Jesus' questions to the disciples recall all too vividly the Almighty's questions to Job: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2) and “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out?” (38:9). They feel the presence of the Almighty Himself, and a holy awe seizes them, mingled with the joy of deliverance. They will feel something similar when He comes to them through locked doors on the day of His Resurrection. On the lips of people who know the Bible, the question “Who then is this?” is rhetorical: it is a form of confessing the divine nature of the Son of Man.
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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.