The reading
1. What the Gospel says
Mark, Matthew, and Luke tell it. A squall comes down on the lake. Jesus is asleep on a cushion. They wake him: do you not care that we are perishing? He speaks to the wind and the sea. The calm is sudden. Then he asks about their fear and their faith.
2. What the Church takes from it
This is not a private revelation and not a local shrine’s legend. It is Scripture. The Church reads it as an act of the incarnate Son, who has authority over the creation he made. It is also a picture of the Church in any century: a boat, a storm, and a Lord who can be asleep without having abandoned the hull. Faith here is not a technique for stopping weather. It is trust in the one who was in the boat.
Reading
How to read The calming of the storm
The question the disciples ask is the question of the Gospel: who is this? Every later sign in this archive is a footnote if that question has an answer, and a curiosity if it does not.
Church status
How this sign has been received
Sacred Scripture
Holy Scripture. Mark 4, Matthew 8, Luke 8.
Sources
- Mark 4:35–41
- Matthew 8:23–27
- Luke 8:22–25
For the classroom
The calming of the storm (The Gospel, The Sea of Galilee). Grade in this encyclopedia: Sacred Scripture. The boat is filling. The disciples wake Jesus. He rebukes the wind, and there is a dead calm. They ask who this is, that wind and water obey him.
