Scripture: Mark 4:40 to 41 BSB
40 “Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “Do you still have no faith?” 41 Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Fear can build an entire theology from one bad afternoon.
The disciples begin with a storm. By verse 38, they have decided Jesus does not care. Then Jesus stands up, tells the wind and sea to be quiet, and the thing they have been terrified of obeys Him.
And they become even more afraid.
Mark says they were “overwhelmed with fear.” The Greek wording is even stronger. They “feared a great fear.” The storm is calm now. The boat is safe. Their attention has shifted away from the waves and toward the man standing in the boat with them.
Their question changes too. Earlier they were essentially asking, “Jesus, why aren’t You doing anything?” Now they are asking, “Who is this?”
That question is very near the center of what faith is. We can spend a ton of energy trying to understand the storm that we never stop to reconsider the One who is with us in it. If Jesus really is who Christians claim He is, then the greatest reality in that boat was never the weather. The disciples simply could not see that yet.
We do something similar when the threat in front of us becomes the largest reality in our imagination. We know what could happen. We know what we could lose. We know what somebody else could do. We know what the economy, election, diagnosis, relationship, or future might bring. We can describe the storm in remarkable detail. But, do we know? And are we asking the right question?
Faith keeps bringing us back to the right question: Who is Jesus?
Today, my challenge is to take the fear that has been occupying the most space in your head and ask that question before predetermining what is going to happen. Who is Jesus in this? What do I know about His character? What does His authority change about how I face what I do not understand?