“Jesus Calms the Storm” (Mark 4:35-41) frequently is used by Christian authors to illustrate our response to adverse situations. Timothy Keller (King’s Cross) explains that the language Mark uses in his Gospel account is parallel and almost identical to the language used in the Biblical account of Jonah. Pastor Keller notes that:
1. Both Jesus and Jonah were asleep in boats overtaken by storms.
2. Jesus and Jonah were awakened by sailors who said they (the sailors) were going to die.
3. The sea was calmed through miraculous divine intervention.
4. Jonah was thrown overboard because he told the sailors that if he died they would live. Jesus (“One greater than Jonah is here”- Matthew 12:41) willingly was thrown into the ultimate storm, the Cross, to save us from our sins.
The author concludes:
“If the sight of Jesus bowing his head into that ultimate storm is burned into the core of your being, you will never say, ‘God, don’t you care?’ And if you know that he did not abandon you in that ultimate storm, what makes you think he would abandon you in the much smaller storms you’re experiencing right now?”
