Tarrying and Teaching by the Seaside

151:5.1The mul­ti­tude con­tin­ued to in­crease through­out the week. On Sab­bath Je­sus has­tened away to the hills, but when Sun­day morn­ing came, the crowds re­turned. Je­sus spoke to them in the early af­ter­noon af­ter the preach­ing of Pe­ter, and when he had fin­ished, he said to his apos­tles: “I am weary of the throngs; let us cross over to the other side that we may rest for a day.”

151:5.2On the way across the lake they en­coun­tered one of those vi­o­lent and sud­den wind­storms which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Sea of Gal­i­lee, es­pe­cially at this sea­son of the year. This body of wa­ter is al­most seven hun­dred feet be­low the level of the sea and is sur­rounded by high banks, es­pe­cially on the west. There are steep gorges lead­ing up from the lake into the hills, and as the heated air rises in a pocket over the lake dur­ing the day, there is a ten­dency af­ter sun­set for the cool­ing air of the gorges to rush down upon the lake. These gales come on quickly and some­times go away just as sud­denly.

151:5.3It was just such an evening gale that caught the boat car­ry­ing Je­sus over to the other side on this Sun­day evening. Three other boats con­tain­ing some of the younger evan­ge­lists were trail­ing af­ter. This tem­pest was se­vere, not­with­stand­ing that it was con­fined to this re­gion of the lake, there be­ing no ev­i­dence of a storm on the west­ern shore. The wind was so strong that the waves be­gan to wash over the boat. The high wind had torn the sail away be­fore the apos­tles could furl it, and they were now en­tirely de­pen­dent on their oars as they la­bo­ri­ously pulled for the shore, a lit­tle more than a mile and a half dis­tant.

151:5.4Mean­while Je­sus lay asleep in the stern of the boat un­der a small over­head shel­ter. The Mas­ter was weary when they left Beth­saida, and it was to se­cure rest that he had di­rected them to sail him across to the other side. These ex-fish­er­men were strong and ex­pe­ri­enced oars­men, but this was one of the worst gales they had ever en­coun­tered. Al­though the wind and the waves tossed their boat about as though it were a toy ship, Je­sus slum­bered on undis­turbed. Pe­ter was at the right-hand oar near the stern. When the boat be­gan to fill with wa­ter, he dropped his oar and, rush­ing over to Je­sus, shook him vig­or­ously in or­der to awaken him, and when he was aroused, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, don’t you know we are in a vi­o­lent storm? If you do not save us, we will all per­ish.”

151:5.5As Je­sus came out in the rain, he looked first at Pe­ter, and then peer­ing into the dark­ness at the strug­gling oars­men, he turned his glance back upon Si­mon Pe­ter, who, in his ag­i­ta­tion, had not yet re­turned to his oar, and said: “Why are all of you so filled with fear? Where is your faith? Peace, be quiet.” Je­sus had hardly ut­tered this re­buke to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, he had hardly bid­den Pe­ter seek peace where­with to quiet his trou­bled soul, when the dis­turbed at­mo­sphere, hav­ing es­tab­lished its equi­lib­rium, set­tled down into a great calm. The an­gry waves al­most im­me­di­ately sub­sided, while the dark clouds, hav­ing spent them­selves in a short shower, van­ished, and the stars of heaven shone over­head. All this was purely co­in­ci­den­tal as far as we can judge; but the apos­tles, par­tic­u­larly Si­mon Pe­ter, never ceased to re­gard the episode as a na­ture mir­a­cle. It was es­pe­cially easy for the men of that day to be­lieve in na­ture mir­a­cles inas­much as they firmly be­lieved that all na­ture was a phe­nom­e­non di­rectly un­der the con­trol of spirit forces and super­nat­u­ral be­ings.

151:5.6Je­sus plainly ex­plained to the twelve that he had spo­ken to their trou­bled spir­its and had ad­dressed him­self to their fear-tossed minds, that he had not com­manded the el­e­ments to obey his word, but it was of no avail. The Mas­ter’s fol­low­ers al­ways per­sisted in plac­ing their own in­ter­pre­ta­tion on all such co­in­ci­den­tal oc­cur­rences. From this day on they in­sisted on re­gard­ing the Mas­ter as hav­ing ab­so­lute power over the nat­u­ral el­e­ments. Pe­ter never grew weary of recit­ing how “even the winds and the waves obey him.”

151:5.7It was late in the evening when Je­sus and his as­so­ciates reached the shore, and since it was a calm and beau­ti­ful night, they all rested in the boats, not go­ing ashore un­til shortly af­ter sun­rise the next morn­ing. When they were gath­ered to­gether, about forty in all, Je­sus said: “Let us go up into yon­der hills and tarry for a few days while we pon­der over the prob­lems of the Fa­ther’s king­dom.”