Fear can come at night, when the house is quiet and everything feels too big. We all know that feeling. Jesus's closest friends knew it too, in the middle of a lake, in the dark.
The storm
It was evening. Jesus had been teaching crowds all day, and he was tired. He told his friends they should cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, a big lake in the north of their country. Several of them were fishermen, and they knew that water well.
They got in the boat, and Jesus lay down at the back and fell asleep on a cushion.
Then a strong wind came down on the lake. The waves crashed over the side, and the boat started to fill with water. These men had fished there all their lives, and they were scared they were going to drown.
They woke Jesus up. "Master, carest thou not that we perish?"
What he did
Jesus stood up. He told the wind to stop and the water to be still. And the wind stopped, and the lake went calm.
Then he turned to his friends.
And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?
Mark 4:40 · King James VersionThe original Greek
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Τί δειλοί ἐστε; οὔπω ἔχετε πίστιν;
Found in Codex Vaticanus (about AD 325), Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 350).
In the oldest copies the second question is softer: "Do you still not have faith?" The Greek word means "not yet."
That might sound hard. But in the oldest copies of Mark, the words are softer. He asks, "Do you still not have faith?" The word means "not yet." He was not giving up on them. He was still in the boat with them.
What it means for you
Jesus did not tell his friends that storms were not real. The water was real. Their fear made sense. He just showed them that they were not alone in it.
If you are afraid right now, of an illness, a bill, a phone call, or something you cannot name, you are in good company. His own friends were scared too. You can wake him up, the way they did, and tell him. He is in the boat with you.