That one Saturday morning… There are no early children’s soccer games. No tee time to keep. No guests coming that require the house to be scrubbed and disinfected. No insurmountable to-do list to attack. There is nothing to keep you from sleeping in this one Saturday morning…

As predictable as the changing of the seasons, this is the Saturday the storm hits. Children are wide awake and jumping on your bed two hours before you would have to drag them from their beds during the week. A dog that hasn’t made mess in a year is vomiting in the corner. The children who were sent to pour themselves cereal for breakfast have somehow set off the smoke alarm. And that overly enthusiastic neighbor has decided his lawn needed to be mowed before the sun rises.

So much for sleeping in just this one time.

Is this the same feeling that Jesus experienced when his panicked disciples shook him awake in the stern of that boat in the midst of a storm?

It’s tempting to envision Jesus calming the storm and returning to his comfy cushion and quickly falling back asleep. That storm feels relatable. In that story Jesus is the hero of and vindication for every sleep deprived parent. And that’s fine, but there is something more going on here. This story isn’t just a story about that one time Jesus scolded the weather and it obeyed him like a petulant child. This story makes a claim about Jesus’ identity that is foundational to Mark’s version of the Jesus story, and it makes a claim about the nature of the Jesus movement in the world.