Reading about Jesus calming the waters I always imagine a little boat full of people and some high waves. I tend to think more of the metaphors that always are trotted out in homily after homily. I rarely think about what being in an actual storm in a small boat would be like. Again William Barclay adds some historic perspective that makes the scene come alive, both in imagination and in application to all those metaphors. This is not just about some high waves or tough times of life. It is about those times when you're not sure if the boat is upside down or right-side-up and you're hanging on for dear life.
Then the storm came down. The Sea of Galilee is famous for its sudden squalls. A traveler says, "The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to rush down towards the lake, and it continued all night long with increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore next morning the face of the lake was like a huge boiling cauldron." The reason is this. The Sea of Galilee is more than six hundred feet below sea level. It is surrounded by table lands beyond which the great mountains rise. The rivers have cut deep ravines through the table lands down into the sea. These ravines act like great funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains; and thus the storms arise. The same traveler tells how they tried to pitch their tents in such a gale. "We had to double-pin all the tent-ropes, and frequently were obliged to hang on with our whole weight upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried up bodily into the air."
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