Peace! Be Still!

One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. [And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22–25).[1]

While Jesus had been ministering throughout Judea, he decided to take a trip to the land of the Gerasenes by direct route, across the Lake of Gennesaret, also known as the Sea of Galilee. Traveling with a select group of disciples by boat, Jesus boarded and went to bed. Perhaps telling of his fatigue, Jesus slept through what likely began with the serene sway of a rocking boat into a stormy squall, as the cooler air from the surrounding mountains collided with the warmer air of the sea. So fierce was the storm’s surge that the boat began to fill with water. If there were a time for panic, this was it—even for a crew of salty fishermen. Meanwhile, Jesus slept soundly in the stern.

We do not know how long they sailed through the storm or Jesus slept. But finally, they woke him, perhaps fearing he would drown if the boat capsized, with the grim news: “we are perishing.” It was a statement telling of more than their peril. Disciples who had walked with Jesus, prayed with Jesus, heard his gospel, witnessed miracle after miracle, forgot it all in the storm.

We are no different. While we may not literally go through a life-threating storm at sea, it is likely we will go through boat-swamping storms in life. And it is in these storms that our faith is tested. Sadly, the roaring wind and raging waves of life can in the moment cause us to forget what we believe. J.C. Ryle says, “It is only too true that sight, and sense, and feeling, make men very poor theologians.”[2] How easy it is to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding while sailing across tranquil waters. How much harder it is when your life, or the life of one you love, seems threatened by an unrelenting storm.

Writing to the persecuted and suffering church, the apostle Peter says, don’t be surprised “as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). Faith in Christ and faithfulness in the local church do not exempt us from adversity. Of course, we don’t all go through the same kinds or severity of storms, but if you live long enough, storms will come. So, don’t be surprised, but do be prepared. Jesus’ disciples were not. So, let us learn from their lack of faith that we may live with it.

Call upon your Savior

When Jesus asked, “Where is your faith?” (8:25a) he wasn’t cranky because his nap got cut short or frustrated because they woke him. He was able and willing to help. His question was directed at their response to the storm. One commentator says, “The boat was not the only thing getting swamped that day.”[3] Their fear began to drown their faith, leading them to focus on their survival rather than their Savior. Why did they wait so long to call upon him? And when they did, why did they presume the worst?

Jesus was present in the stern of the boat on that stormy day, just as he is present with us in our storms, and on the calmest days too! Indeed, he promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). He is willing and able to calm our storms and give us peace amidst them, but we must not presume he is asleep or treat him as the last resort. The Lord says in the fiftieth psalm, “call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Ps. 50:15). He expects us to do this, immediately and frequently, because prayer reveals dependence and builds faith.

For this reason, the apostle Paul commands, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6). Note the words “anything” and “everything.” It’s not hyperbole. He’s making an explicit directive that everything that would lead us to fear, anything that would cause us to worry is to be taken to the Lord in prayer, anything and everything. The result, Paul says, is “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7). While the storms of life may rage, God answers our prayers by guarding us with his perfect peace.

And not just our prayers individually but the church’s as well. Nowhere in our New Testament is the Christian life contemplated as being lived in isolation but in community – living, breathing, sinners-saved-by-grace alone, assembling-every-Lord’s-Day community. Not in podcasts, or websites, or internet church, but in the local church, where brothers and sisters know one another by name, learning personally from one another what and how to pray. The apostle James counsels us to “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another,” which can only rightly be done in the context of the local church, living out our faith with one another, calling upon the Lord together.

Trust Him in the Storm

Have you ever noticed how easily we dismiss fear and worry? Someone may say, “I’m a chronic worrier,” or “I’m fearful by nature,” and we dismiss the sin as disposition. But what if someone said, “I’m a chronic sex slave trader,” or “I’m an axe murderer by nature.” It doesn’t sound as innocent, does it? No matter how we may justify it, fear and worry are sin, and both reveal a lack of trust in the One who rebuked the wind and the waves. It is true, as the sage says, “you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1b), but we do know him who made it and rules it. While we are not sovereign over life’s storms, he is completely sovereign. While our wisdom is limited, he is infinite in wisdom. While our love is often lacking, he is perfect in love. Or, as one writer expressed these truths: “God in His love always wills what is best for us. In his wisdom He always knows what is best, and in His sovereignty He has the power to bring it about.”[4] The Lord is trustworthy not only in his acts but in his being. To trust him then is what we were made and redeemed to do.

In Mark’s Gospel, he includes the words Jesus spoke when rebuking the wind and the waves: “Peace! Be still!” (Mark 4:29). And creation obeyed his command. Of his sovereign control and divine command over creation, I am reminded of the apostle Peter’s instruction to “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:6-7). Just as Jesus commanded, “Peace! Be still!” to the wind and the waves, so he commands the same to our troubled hearts. God is not glorified when we carry our concerns but when we cast our cares upon him. It is our pride that tells us to carry the load, but it is the Lord who knows us best and loves us most, who tells us to hand our worries over to him.

One of the best ways to encourage this in our lives is through meditating upon Scripture. For example, the psalmist sings, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid” (Ps. 56:3-4a). The psalm reminds us that trusting God is a choice: “I put my trust...” When we are tempted to worry or fear, we may make a conscious decision to trust God, to fight against a victim mentality, and to go to God’s Word and say to ourselves, “I shall not be afraid.”

I am reminded of the story Jerry Bridges tells of his first wife when a tumor was discovered in her abdomen. While she awaited the results of her CT scan, Jerry says, “she found herself apprehensive and anxious over the news she would hear.”[5] And so, she confronted her worry and fear with God’s Word, consistently meditating on Psalm 42:11, which says,

            Why are you cast down, O my soul,

                        and why are you in turmoil within me?

            Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

                        my salvation and my God (Ps. 42:11).

After absorbing the truth of that psalm, she could confidently pray, “Lord, I choose not to be downcast, I choose not to be disturbed, I choose to put my hope in You.” Jerry says, “She told me later, as she recounted this to me, that her feelings did not change immediately, but after a while they did. Her heart was calmed as she deliberately chose to trust God.”[6] While our feelings are fickle, they will (eventually) follow our trust in the Lord.

Worship Him for who He is

Note the disciples’ response to what they witnessed in Jesus: they feared, they marveled, and they questioned. They no longer feared the storm; they no longer feared for their lives. But in their presence stood One who rebuked the wind and the waves, One who calmed the storm by the word of his power. There is fear that is sinful that comes from a lack of trusting God, and there is a fear that is a reverential and transcendent awe, reserved for God alone. The disciples rightly feared the Lord Jesus, and so must we.

They also marveled. Jesus was certainly a remarkable man, but his disciples did not marvel at his humanity. They marveled at the revelation of his authority over creation. J.C. Ryle says, “As a man he had slept. As God he stilled the storm.”[7] When Jesus said, “Peace! Be still!” there was no argument from the storm, no debate with the man Jesus. He who spoke creation into existence, ceased the life-threating storm by his word. Hebrews tells us, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), and so the second Jesus said it, creation obeyed.

When Luke describes Jesus’ words, he says, he “rebuked” the wind and the waves. We don’t typically think of Jesus rebuking the weather. We think more of the word the disciples used, the verb “command.” While Luke uses “rebuke” synonymously with “command,” his use of the word is likely a veiled reference to the psalms. For example, in Psalm 106 the psalmist says, “[The LORD] rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry” (106:9a). And as the Lord rebuked the Red Sea in Israel’s exodus, so he rebuked the wind and the waves on the Sea of Galilee.  

What Luke is telling us is the answer to the disciples’ question: “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (8:25). It’s not a fact-finding question. They knew who he is. They knew they were following the Messiah. They knew he was preaching the gospel and working miracles. They knew that what he was doing was in keeping with the Old Testament prophets before him and the prophecies about him. But nothing they knew prepared them for this.

Who then is this? I think Psalm 107 answers the question well: 

Some went down to the sea in ships,

doing business on the great waters;

they saw the deeds of the LORD,

his wondrous works in the deep.

For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,

which lifted up the waves of the sea.

They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;

their courage melted away in their evil plight;

they reeled and staggered like drunken men

and were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

He made the storm be still,

and the waves of the sea were hushed.

Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,

and he brought them to their desired haven (Ps. 107:23-30).

The testimony of Scripture is the eternal Son of God commanded the storm that day by the word of his power, and so he commands the storms of our lives, saying, “Peace! Be still!” Let us then call upon our Savior, trust him in the storm, and worship him for who he is.

[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 201.

[3] Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, Vol. 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2009), 384.

[4] Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2008), 17.

[5] Ibid., 207.

[6] Ibid., 208.

[7] J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 201.