Chaos is a real threat at any time and in Jesus time was seen often on the Sea. Today’s Gospel takes place on the Sea of Galilee crossing to the other side. Surrounded by hills and at a depth of 680 feet below sea level, the Sea of Galilee was a funnel for surprisingly sudden and dramatic storms. The sea itself was shaped like a wind tunnel at twelve and one-half miles long and anywhere from four to seven and one-half miles wide.
Mark Davis in this article provides a setting for the Gospel story. “And everybody lived with the risks of such dangers because the waters were the resources for work, food, portage, import, and export.” He provides the setting for that ship on the water.
But there is another meaning that he explores because the Gospel of Mark was written in a time of Chaos in the 60’s. In the Spring of 66 A.D., the Jews of Judea began a full scale rebellion against Rome. In 69 A.D., Vespasian was made emperor of Rome and gave his son Titus the honor of delivering the final death blows to the rebellious Jews and their capital city. The Romans brutally slaughtered an estimated 600,000 people in Jerusalem including many of the Passover visitors who had been trapped there for the 143 days during the Roman siege. The temple was burned in 70AD. By the year 73 A.D., all traces of a self-ruling Jewish nation had seemingly disappeared. Out of these ruins, Christianity reappeared in Antioch in Turkey, in Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean world. As Davis writes “Jesus’ word is more powerful than Rome’s storm.”