That evening Jesus told his disciples to go across to the other side of the lake. Leaving the crowd behind, they took him in the boat as he was. Other boats went with them.
Jesus had spent the day teaching the gathered people. When evening came, he named the opposite shore as their destination. The disciples did not take him onto land and prepare another vessel; they set out with him in the boat he was already using. The crowd remained behind, though other boats also followed onto the lake.
The journey began in response to Jesus’ direction. As darkness approached, the boat carrying Jesus and the disciples moved away from shore toward the other side with the other boats nearby.
A violent windstorm arose. Waves broke into the boat until it was nearly full of water. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
The wind did more than make the crossing uncomfortable. Waves repeatedly broke over the sides, and water accumulated inside the boat. The danger had reached the point where the vessel was filling faster than the disciples could ignore.
Jesus was not watching from the bow. He lay in the stern with his head on a cushion and remained asleep during the storm. The disciples went to that part of the boat and woke him.
The disciples woke him and asked whether he cared that they were about to die. Jesus got up, rebuked the wind, and told the sea to be still.
They did not first ask for a sailing instruction or a direction back to shore. Their words expressed the certainty that they were perishing and the fear that Jesus did not care. Jesus answered the danger by addressing the forces around the boat.
His command was directed separately to the wind and the sea. He rebuked the wind and ordered the water to be silent and still. The storm did not merely diminish while they waited; the wind stopped, the waves ceased, and the lake entered a great calm.
The wind stopped and the water became completely calm. Jesus asked the disciples why they were afraid and whether they still had no faith.
Once the danger had passed, Jesus questioned the fear that had controlled them. They had awakened him because they believed he could respond, yet they had not understood what his presence in the boat meant. He asked why faith had still not replaced their terror.
The disciples’ fear did not simply disappear with the wind. It changed its object. They were no longer looking only at the water filling the boat but at the person whose words the wind and water had obeyed. They continued asking one another who he was.
They were filled with fear and asked one another who he was, since even the wind and the sea obeyed him.