GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 4:40
Still No Faith?
ISome time ago, after a good night’s sleep, I awoke with a sharp, stabbing pain in my left back. Having experienced this before, I told Alice that I was having a kidney stone attack. The pains became worse. I spoke with a man recently who had his first experience with a kidney stone attack, and he said he thought he was dying. Anyone who has been through this ordeal can identify with this man, for that’s the way I felt in my first experience with this condition several decades ago. But now, having been through this several times, I knew what was happening and what to expect. Pray—oh, I did on the way to the ER.
St. Mark described an event in which Jesus and his disciples were sailing across the Sea of Galilee after a long day of teaching and ministry. A sudden, violent windstorm with waves splashing over the side of the boat, overtook them. Jesus was apparently confident enough in the skill of the boat’s crew that he went to the stern of the boat, lay down, and fell into a sound sleep. The sailors tried everything they knew to do to save the boat, but it looked like the storm was about to swamp it anyway. Fearing for their lives, they woke Jesus. Perhaps they were surprised that he could sleep through the rocking and tossing of the boat, or they wanted his help to bail out the water, or they were angry that he could be so calm as to be asleep in this dangerous situation. At any rate, they awoke him. Demonstrating his faith in the Father, he calmed the storm. Then he turned to the disciples, “And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Do you not yet have faith?’” (Mark 4:40)
At this point, it is likely that the disciples had accepted Jesus’ Messiahship, at least eleven of them. But they had not yet come to fully realize the meaning of that Messiahship. They saw the miracles, they accepted his teaching, they were loyal students, but that understanding had not yet permeated every cell of their being.
Sitting on the side of the bed with the stabbing pain in my back, I had a great deal of empathy for the disciples in the boat in the midst of a sudden violent storm. Oh, I knew Jesus as the Savior, as the great teacher, as the constant companion, but the stabbing pain was still there—the storm was there. The rest of the story: a trip to the ER, the urologist, the hospital for lithotripsy—and the stone was gone, the storm stilled. I was thankful for the provision the Father made for stilling this storm. The stone is gone; the faith is still there.
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