Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 39 · February 8
Peace, Be Still
“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”
He spoke to the weather the way he spoke to a demon.
Rebuked is the same verb Mark used three chapters earlier on an unclean spirit in the synagogue, and the command is the same command. Hold thy peace, and come out of him. Peace, be still. The storm gets the tone reserved for something that has no business being there.
And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Not a dying down over the next hour. A sea that had been throwing water into the boat, flat, at a word, in the time it takes to say four.
The strangest line comes afterwards. They feared exceedingly, once the danger had gone. They were less frightened in the storm than in the calm.
He is in the boat and he is not worried about the boat. That has been true the whole time, including while he was asleep on the pillow in the back of it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 39 is Guided Eye (Psalm 32:8).