It is easy for me to poke fun at liberal biblical scholars, because I am one of them. Over the years, we have tended to come at scripture with the notion that, above all else, scripture ought to make sense. So, in order to make the Bible make sense, we have tried to rationalize everything in the Bible that sounds irrational. Now I suppose the idea of a man standing in boat and rebuking waves of that magnitude borders on the irrational. Which is why we are fond of saying: "Ah! Jesus was not talking to the waves at all. When Jesus said, 'Peace, be still,' Jesus was talking to the disciples. He was calming his men. And once calmed, they could face the storm without the need of any supernatural intervention."

Now that's nifty. Except for one small fact. The story doesn't read that way. In Mark's version, Jesus speaks to the waves. He does not speak to his men. What's more, this is one of those stories where the familiar translation utterly fails us. The familiar translation is both deceptive and wrong. When Jesus calms the storm, he is not overly gentle about it. He doesn't say: "Peace, be still." It would be nice if he did. But it would be far too mild. A better translation would have Jesus saying to the waves: "Hush! Be silent." Better still might be: "Shut up! Cease and desist. Down boys."

The entire purpose of the story, you see, is not to show Jesus as some heroic figure who gives us an example of how to be courageous when waves start to swamp our boat. ("Now remember children, if you are ever caught in a storm, try to be a little more like Jesus.") The purpose of this story is altogether different. The purpose is to identify Jesus as one who can master the demonic and unruly forces of life and hold them at bay. Mark says he'll be there. He will be right in the boat with you. But you may not know it until the storm comes. You may not know it until it looks, for all the world, as if your boat is going under. And if you don't know Jesus ... I mean if you really don't know Jesus ... maybe it is because you have never really been caught in a storm.