Get started
Use Post-it notes to compile a collection of memorable times you been taught about this story or heard it preached about, or different ideas you already have been given in the past about what it ‘means’. Pray, asking God to clear away the rubbish, and keep you focused on what is right for you to know, learn or re-learn about him at this point in your lives.
Get God’s Word
Read
Mark 4:35–41 together.
Get stuck in
1) How do you imagine the disciples feel in this passage? When have you felt like this in your own life?
2) I have recently heard two very different personal interpretations of what Jesus is feeling or doing in this passage. One sees him as the source of peace, of ‘calm’, throughout (emphasising his undisturbed sleep and the ‘calm’ of the waves); the other sees him as frustrated, irritated, even angry (emphasising his ‘rebuke’ of the wind and his question to the disciples). Are these views compatible? What do they imply for our understanding of Jesus as God?
3) What is there here that speaks to you of other Bible passages, particularly from the Old Testament?
4) The image of Jesus calming the storm has sometimes in the past been used to talk about how God might be able to intervene in our lives to end or ease suffering; many find this problematic. How do you feel about this?
5) An unanswerable question, but what do you think happened to the other boats (v
36)?
Get real
Gather a collection of pebbles, and take two sheets of paper – one black, one white. Lay the paper on the floor and tell the group that the white sheet stands for what we know about our life with Jesus, and the black one for what we don’t know.
Invite group members to take turns to lay pebbles on either sheet, saying out loud (if they feel able) simple prayers stating what it is they know or don’t know. For example, ‘Lord, I know I can trust you’; ‘Jesus, I don’t know what you’re doing in Vince’s life’.