Why Are You So Afraid

Mark 4:40. The wind has died and the sea is flat. The disciples, who moments earlier were sure they would drown, stand dripping in a boat that has stopped pitching. Jesus turns to them and asks, in the NIV's words, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

It is a question rather than a rebuke, and questions from Jesus are invitations to think. Why were they afraid? Because the waves were real and the boat was filling. That is a reasonable fear. But he was in the boat. That was the fact they had lost hold of.

Thursday is a day when the week's storms have had time to gather. Something at work, something at home, something in the body. Fear is not a failure of intelligence; it is a failure of memory. The question Jesus asks is not whether the waves are real but whether you remember who is with you in the boat. He is not asleep to your need. He is nearer than the water.