12. The Storm-King

(Mark 4: 35-41)

Just at sunset one beautiful evening, a little fishing-boat was sailing across a large lake. At the end of the boat Jesus, the great Teacher, was sitting watching the gold and red and purple of the sky reflected in the rippling waves. Soon the moon came up and its soft, silvery beams shone on the waves all around the boat. Then, as Jesus was very, very tired with his hard day’s work, he lay down on the seat and one of his fisher-friends brought him a leathern cushion for a pillow that he might rest easier. No sooner was Jesus fast asleep than the lake, which had looked so lovely before with its rippling waves, changed quickly and became rough and choppy, and the wind began to blow very hard. The moon went under a cloud. The wind blew fiercer and fiercer. The waves rose higher and higher. Several of the friends of Jesus had been fishermen and sailors on that lake all their lives, but they never knew such a terrible storm. The wind blew a hurricane, the waves dashed up so high that they came over the boat, and it began to fill with water. Hurrying to Jesus, who was sleeping soundly through all the wind and storm and darkness, they awoke him, crying, “Master! Master! awake, we are drowning! Save us!” Jesus awoke and heard the wild roaring of the wind and the torrents of rain and the dashing of the sea. Then he arose and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” and the wild wind heard his voice, and ceased as a dog stops barking when he hears his master’s command, “Be still,” or as a crying child stops his sobs when his mother speaks. So the noisy sea trembled; the waves sank to rest; the moon came out again; and the lake lay still and silent. There was a great calm. Then his friends knew that Jesus was the Storm-King, and they said, “What a King is this—for he commandeth even the winds and the sea and they obey him.”