Why are you afraid?

Maybe Jesus asked this question because He was genuinely curious.

When you have little faith, Jesus doesn’t condemn you—He just wonders, why?

When the disciples’ 27-foot fishing boat was swamped by a massive squall on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was taking a nap. When the desperate disciples awakened the sleeping Messiah, Jesus asked them a surprising question: “Why are you afraid?”

“Uh, duh, isn’t it obvious? We’re afraid because we’re at sea in the middle of a hurricane-like storm.”

Think of something you do easily that others struggle with. For example, I’m a pretty good speller—always have been. Not a champion speller, just a good solid speller. When I see a misspelled word, it pops out at me as if it were highlighted yellow. I was worried about our son when he was in elementary and middle school. He was such a smart student, but his spelling was, at time, comically sloppy. I remember a paper he wrote on the Civil War in which he spelled the word “civil” in about four different ways in the same paper.

What could be hard about spelling? It just seems easy to me.

On the other hand, there are things I can’t do that others do easily. My family likes to work jigsaw puzzles on vacation. I hate them. I can stare at the puzzle for 15 minutes and get nothing, while others casually insert dozens of pieces.

As God, Jesus knew everything. But as a human, Jesus learned and grew. I think He woke up from His nap in the boat and was genuinely surprised to find no faith in the disciples. “Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40). It sounds as if Jesus is saying, “Really? After all the miracles you’ve seen Me perform, you still don’t have much faith. Hmm. This is interesting.”

The scripture assures us that the Word became flesh and pitched His tent with us (John 1:14) and that we have a Great High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses because He was “in every respect tempted as we are…” (Hebrews 4:15). So, yes, Jesus understands us. But He seemed surprised and curious about the disciples’ fear because there was at least one thing Jesus never experienced—He never knew what it was like to have very little faith.

When you have very little faith, Jesus doesn’t condemn you for it—He just wonders, why? He’s the Creator. He’s the Savior. If He healed the sick, rebuked demons and raised the dead, He can easily silence the storms in your life. And that’s the Gospel!