35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
This story about Jesus calming the storm comes at the end of the fourth Chapter of Mark after a series of teachings and parables about the kingdom of God. The first thing that comes to mind is that this story's purpose was to legitimize the previous teachings. Jesus had no recognized right by the Jewish religious authorities to offer his own teaching, his own Mishnah, or interpretation of Scripture. Not having been certified by semicha, rabbinic ordination, Jesus did not have, s'mikhahto, "authority". The writer's claim to the legitimacy and authority of Jesus' teaching rests on him being a Chasidium, a Rabbi who can dispense the mercy of God. The more dramatic Jesus' ability to call on God's power, the more credible his teaching. As we've discussed before, establishing the credibility of the founder of their sect would have likely been important to the community of Mark living after the destruction of the Temple when a number of Jewish sects would have been vying to become the successor to Temple Judaism. It was also likely that the community of Mark were part of the Jewish diaspora, most likely Rome, Antioch, or southern Syria. As such, they would be under pressure from the rest of the Jewish expat community to conform to orthodoxy and would have to justify these unusual teachings.
This story also has allusions to the creation story where God brings order out of chaos with the story beginning with “Darkness ...over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God...hovering over the waters". This part of the creation story was a response to the Babylonian creation story where the storm god Marduk slays the god Tiamat and uses her corpse to form heaven and earth. In the Babylonian story chaos is divine and creation is achieved through violence while in the Hebrew story God calms and orders chaos through the power of God's word.
Storms and seas are ongoing symbols of disorder and forces that resist life in the Hebrew Bible. The Flood story of Genesis is described as a reversal of creation. Psalm 89:9 states, "You rule the raging sea when its waves rise, you still them". In Job, the Leviathan, a sea monster that embodies chaos itself, is created and defeated by God.
So, the story of Jesus calming the storm, right after a series of teachings and parables, serves to characterize Jesus' teachings as countering chaos and bringing order and life. This fits nicely with other Gospel writings where the 'way' of Jesus is characterized as the positive side of a series of dualisms, the straight path as opposed to the crooked, light rather than darkness, heath instead of sickness, sight in contrast to blindness.
The creative power of Jesus' teachings is also alluded to by the element of the story that the wind and waters are subject to his word. This references the Creation story where God creates all things by speaking. Thus Jesus' word, in the form of his teachings, is also being claimed to have a divine creative power.
In this story, Jesus, or Jesus' way, is like God in that it has power over and defeats the "gods" and "Leviathans" of chaos and the "floods" that threaten creation and life. It is part of God's Creation power, providing creation, order, life.
The other allusion that would have been top of mind to this community of mainly Jews would be to Moses and his parting of the Red Sea. In a great demonstration of God's favour, Moses parts the Red Sea to allow the Hebrews to escape the pursuing Egyptian army. Here Jesus is a new Moses, one who brings a new way from God and that rescues his people from both the chaos and death of the sea, and from the power and oppression of Empire which in this time would be Rome.
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