Storm on the Lake—Why does Christ chastise his fearful apostles?
Storm on the Lake—Why does Christ chastise his fearful apostles?
Why does Christ allow a storm so terrible that it alarms even the seasoned boatsmen among his Apostles—and then chastise them for waking him? And what is this event supposed to teach us today?
Sung at the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany and in one of the “spare” Sundays before Advent.
In this chapter, Fr Coleridge tells us…
That there were other ships with that of Our Lord and the Apostles, as mentioned by St Mark—what did these other boatsmen think of it all?
Why Our Lord rebuked his Apostles—what did he expect them to do instead of waking him up?
Why Our Lord allowed this storm, and how he meant it to train, instruct and console his Apostles and the Church
Most of all, Fr Coleridge shows us—writing in the nineteenth century—what this incident shows us about our own contemporary crisis in the Church.
Why do you think the Church uses this event for this part of the liturgical year? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The Storm on the Lake
From
The Training of the Apostles Vol. III
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1884, Ch. XIX, pp 279-295
St. Matt. viii. 28–34; St. Mark v. 1–21; St. Luke viii. 26–40
Story of the Gospels, § 64
Miracles on the Lake—threefold meaning
We now come to the history of one of those miracles of our Lord which are more than miracles, because they have evidently a purpose in His Sacred Heart beyond that of the simple exhibition of supernatural power for the relief of human distress or need, thereby to accredit the Divine mission which He was discharging on earth.
It has already been said that many of these parabolic miracles, so to call them, were connected with the Lake, which had been to His disciples a kind of second home, in the days when they were but poor fishermen, supporting themselves and their families by the sometimes dangerous and always venturesome occupation from which He called them to become fishers of men.
These miracles of the Lake have also a kind of prophetic import, as they represent, as we cannot but think, certain features in the coming history of the Church, which was to be founded on the Apostles. Thus there is a threefold meaning about the incidents of this class in the Life of our Lord, and if they are taken together and arranged in a series of Divine manifestations, it is easy to see how wonderfully they have been ordained, and how mercifully they have been recorded for all generations in the Church.
This threefold meaning of miracles of this class enables us very easily to divide our considerations concerning them into heads corresponding to these meanings, dealing with them first as belonging to the chain of miracles, then as having a parabolic import, and lastly in their prophetical relation to the history of the Church, which resembles in so many ways the fortunes of a ship tossed about on a raging sea, which our Lord is able to calm by a word.
These miracles of the Lake have also a kind of prophetic import, as they represent, as we cannot but think, certain features in the coming history of the Church, which was to be founded on the Apostles.
Crossing the Lake
‘And sending away the multitudes, they take Him as He was in the ship.’
This is the account of the accurate St. Mark. The two other Evangelists speak more generally, beginning the account of the incident at an earlier moment in the day, before they had sent away the crowds who had been gathered round the shore to listen to our Lord.
‘And when He entered into the boat, His disciples followed Him.’
‘And it came to pass on a certain day, that He went up into a boat with His disciples, and He said to them, Let us go over to the other side of the Lake.’
The fact seems to have been that, on ordinary occasions when our Lord taught from the poop of the boat, the Apostles were not always with Him on board, but some of them, perhaps, with the multitudes on the shore, where they may have been useful in arranging the crowd, and in other ways.
On this occasion they either accompanied our Lord, in the first instance, into the boat, so as to be ready, when the instruction was over, for the sail across the Lake, or they joined Him in the boat when the instruction came to an end, and when the crowds were dismissed.
Our Lord’s motive in thus crossing the Lake without returning to the town, when the day’s work was at an end, may perhaps have been, in part, one of precaution, on account of the very watchful and insidious manner in which His steps at this time were haunted by His enemies.
The reason for this
There were two great reasons for the precautions which He habitually took at this period.
One of these was the simple securing of His personal safety, for His time was not yet come, and He was, in a manner, bound not to neglect the ordinary care requisite under such circumstances.
The other reason was one of charity, and we see it very powerful in its operation on His conduct at this time, and perhaps it had even more influence in the direction of His movements than the other. This reason was founded on His great reluctance to provoke His enemies, who had now reached the stage of desperate hostility to Him, which made them hesitate at no sin when it was required by their opposition to His influence.
We can see from the manner in which the Evangelists mention the repeated blasphemies against the Holy Ghost, of which these men ran the risk whenever there was no other way open to them of denying the argument from His miracles, that our Lord hated so much this detestable sin of theirs as deliberately to avoid, as far as possible, anything that might occasion it.
He could not now be in the midst of populations like that of Galilee, where His miraculous power was so well known, and where He had so often exerted it for the benefit of sufferers of every kind, without being constantly exposed to the demands made on His charity by ever fresh appeals to Him for relief of this kind. But as soon as He wrought any conspicuous miracle, the Scribes and Pharisees were there, ready with their calumny that He cast out devils by means of the Prince of the devils. Thus He had this further reason for continually withdrawing Himself from the public gaze at this time.
The storm
‘And there were other ships with Him. And they launched forth. And when they were sailing, He slept.
‘And there came down a storm of wind upon the Lake, a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, and the waves beat into the ship, so that the ship was filled, and they were in danger. And He was in the hinder part of the ship, sleeping upon a pillow.’
The words of the several Evangelists describe what was not uncommon on the Lake of Galilee. The Lake is deeply sunken in the land, and, on one side at least, it has ranges of mountains broken by several valleys running down to the shore.
The consequence of this is that its waters are liable to frequent and sudden gusts of violent winds, rushing down the valleys and causing furious storms, of which there is often no warning. Boats are often caught unawares and lost in such tempests. It seems that the storm of which the Evangelists speak was of this kind, though it may have been raised by some special action of diabolical hatred to our Lord and His disciples, or permitted by Him for the sake of the miracle which He intended to work, and of the lesson which it was to convey.
‘And they came and awakened Him, and say to Him, Master, we perish, doth it not concern Thee that we perish? Lord save us, we perish!
‘And Jesus saith to them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? And rising up He rebuked the wind and the rage of the water, and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm.
‘And He said to them, Why are you fearful, have ye not faith yet? Where is your faith?
‘And they feared exceedingly, and the men wondered, and they said one to another, Who is this, think you, what manner of Man is this, that He commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey Him?’
The sleep of our Lord
The order of the incidents is tolerably clear, from a comparison of the narratives of the several Evangelists. It seems that our Lord rebuked the disciples, both before He spoke to the winds and waters, and also after He had done so. His first rebuke was in answer to their appeal to Him, after they had awakened Him, and then He repeated His rebuke after the waves and winds had ceased their violence.
In order to understand how far the disciples deserved the reproach of want of faith, we must remind ourselves of certain truths as to the Sacred Humanity of our Lord. We read in the Gospels of His being hungry, and wearied, and thirsty, and the like, as we read here of His sleeping. It must be remembered that these natural sufferings and weaknesses were not with Him as with us.
With us both are the necessities of nature, from which no one can be exempt except by some special favour or dispensation. In the case of our Lord, it was not as with us. The rights of His Body, had He used them, might have exempted Him from all weaknesses, from the necessity of food, sleep, rest, and the like.
But when He took on Him a passible Body, it does not seem that He absolutely exempted it from all natural needs of every kind, although the sufferings possibly consequent on all such needs were not with Him, as with us, necessary and independent of His will in each case. When He is said to have hungered or been thirsty or weary, and the rest, He is said so because He then took on Him, for that time or occasion, and for some Divine purpose, the particular pain or effect of which mention is made.
Further, we cannot think that with Him the time of sleep was that same time of inaction or relaxation of the intellectual consciousness and self-mastery of the soul which it is in us. The Spouse says in the Canticles, Ego dormio, cor autem meum vigilat, and we are told of some of the saints of God that, even in their sleep, they have been able to continue their attention to Him and their prayer. It is only natural to think that this was ordinary with our Lord.1
Not like our sleep
It is not meant by this that our Lord did not usually sleep or take food, and the like. For if this had not been so, there might have been a doubt raised as to the reality of His Human Nature, and thus it must be thought that He was constantly giving evidence in this way that He was a man like other men. But the knowledge of this truth is of importance to us, and it is even required for the full intelligence of what passed on this occasion.
For a lively and full faith on this point would have been enough of itself to prevent the Apostles from awakening our Lord, as if He was less able to hear them and to help them, less powerful over the elements, while asleep than while awake. We may remember how the Prophet Elias ridiculed the false God of the priests of Achab and Jezebel, on the occasion of the sacrifice on Mount Carmel, when no answer came to their prayer—‘Cry with a louder voice, for he is a God, and perhaps he is talking, or is in an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awaked.’2
Where there was a true and perfect faith in the Divinity of our Lord, there would certainly have been a reverent reluctance to arouse Him from the sleep which He had chosen to allow Himself, as if He and those with Him could be lost while He was with them, whether sleeping or waking. In the case of the Ark of God, in the times of David, Oza was struck dead for putting out his hand to save, as he thought, the Ark from falling from the carriage in which it was conveyed.3 And there might have been something of the same want of reverence in rousing up our Lord prematurely, but that the faith of the Apostles, or of the men with them in the boat, was so infirm, and that the sudden danger might be their excuse for their want of perfect consideration.
And we cannot doubt that our Lord’s words to the Apostles convey a kind of complaint as to their backwardness in this perfect faith, to which He had been so long leading them on by means of their constant intercourse with Himself and the revelations concerning Him of which the Providential dealings of His Father were so full. It can hardly be that He meant to reproach the other mariners in the ship with incredulity, for ordinary persons could not be expected to have that knowledge of Him which the Apostles might by this time have gained.
‘Faith’ in the New Testament
It is also observable that the word ‘faith’ in the New Testament means sometimes not so much faith in the abstract, as confidence in God and in our Lord, founded on faith. And it seems as if this were the proper meaning in this place, as when later on, on this same Lake, when St. Peter had asked to be enabled to come to our Lord walking on the waters, and began to fear and so to sink, our Lord addressed him as one ‘of little faith.’
It was not so much faith that was wanting to the Apostle, as the confidence with which he ought to have trusted to our Lord’s word, bidding him come. So here, if the Apostles had been calmly asked to state their belief about our Lord, it is not probable that their confession would have stopped far short of that afterwards made by St. Peter.
But if this were so, then they might have known that where He was, whether asleep or awake, they were safe with Him, and that no power, on earth nor in Heaven, or the whole multitude of the fiends of Hell, could harm them unless He permitted them so to do.
The perfection, therefore, of faith was wanting to them, manifesting itself in absolute confidence, which would have prompted them indeed to pray to Him, or to have recourse to Him in any other way, but which was inconsistent with the flurry and alarm which made them disturb His sleep, and almost reproach Him for having allowed the danger to go as far as it had gone.
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