Master, the Tempest Is Raging: Poetry That Meets Christ in the Storm
There are hymns that call us to worship.
There are hymns that make us wonder at the greatness of God.
There are hymns that give us words when sorrow becomes almost unbearable.
And then there are hymns that meet us in the middle of the storm.
For the past several Tuesdays, Poetry Tuesday has been exploring some of the great hymns of the Christian faith. We began with Reginald Heber's “Holy, Holy, Holy,” a hymn that lifts our eyes toward the holiness and majesty of God.
Then came “How Great Thou Art,” which takes us from the wonder of creation to the greatness of God's saving love.
Last week, “It Is Well with My Soul” showed us how faith can hold on to God even in the deepest sorrow.
Today we come to another kind of trouble.
Not grief after the storm.
Not sorrow remembered.
But the storm itself.
“Master, the Tempest Is Raging.”
And at the heart of this hymn is a question that has been asked by frightened Christians for generations:
“Master, carest Thou not that we perish?”
When the Storm Comes
The hymn was written by Mary A. Baker in 1874 and draws directly from the story recorded in Mark 4.
Jesus and His disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus is tired.
He is asleep in the back of the boat.
And then the storm comes.
Mark tells us that a great storm of wind arose and that the waves began filling the boat.
The disciples were experienced fishermen.
They knew the sea.
They knew storms.
But this storm frightened them.
And while the wind howled and the water crashed over the boat, Jesus slept.
That is the scene behind this hymn.
And perhaps that is why it has continued to speak to Christians.
Because sooner or later, most of us find ourselves in that boat.
The storm comes.
The waves rise.
The future becomes uncertain.
And God seems strangely silent.
“Master, Carest Thou Not?”
The opening question of the hymn is startling:
“Master, the tempest is raging!”
The disciples are not calmly discussing theology.
They are afraid.
Their lives are in danger.
And then comes the question:
“Carest Thou not that we perish?”
That question is painfully honest.
It is also a question many believers have asked, even if they have used different words.
Lord, where are You?
Why aren't You doing something?
Don't You see what is happening?
Don't You care?
The disciples knew Jesus.
They had watched Him heal people.
They had heard Him teach.
They had seen His authority.
But in the middle of the storm, what they knew about Jesus seemed to collide with what they were experiencing.
Jesus was there.
But Jesus was sleeping.
And sometimes that is exactly what faith feels like.
We know God is there.
But we cannot understand His silence.
Faith Does Not Mean There Is No Storm
One of the mistakes we can make as Christians is to imagine that faith should prevent storms.
But Jesus never promised that.
In fact, the disciples were in that boat because they were following Jesus.
The storm did not prove that they had missed God's will.
They were exactly where Jesus had told them to go.
And the storm still came.
That is worth remembering.
Sometimes trouble is not evidence that we have abandoned God.
Sometimes trouble comes while we are faithfully following Him.
The Christian life does not mean that the wind will always be calm.
It does not mean the waves will never rise.
It does not mean the boat will never feel as though it is sinking.
It means something better.
Jesus is in the boat.
“How Canst Thou Lie Asleep?”
The hymn continues with another question:
“How canst Thou lie asleep,/When each moment so madly is threatening/A grave in the angry deep?”
Again, the language is emotional.
The disciples cannot understand how Jesus can sleep while they are terrified.
And we can understand that.
When our world is falling apart, God's silence can feel almost unbearable.
We want Him to act.
We want Him to explain.
We want Him to wake up.
But notice something important about the Gospel story.
Jesus is not absent.
He is not outside the boat.
He has not abandoned His disciples.
He is right there with them.
He is sleeping in the midst of the storm.
The disciples interpret His silence as indifference.
But His silence is not the same thing as His absence.
That is an important lesson for us.
“Peace, Be Still”
Then comes one of the great moments in the Gospels.
Jesus rises.
He rebukes the wind.
He speaks to the sea.
And He says:
“Peace, be still.”
And the wind ceases.
The sea becomes calm.
The storm obeys Him.
The hymn captures that moment with its powerful refrain:
“The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,Peace, be still!”
There is something remarkable here.
Jesus does not negotiate with the storm.
He does not struggle against it.
He speaks.
And creation obeys.
The One sleeping in the boat is not merely another passenger.
He is Lord over the sea.
The disciples had been looking at the storm.
Jesus was Lord over the storm.
The Storm Outside—and the Storm Within
But the story does not end when the water becomes calm.
Jesus turns to His disciples and asks:
“Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”
That question takes us deeper.
The problem was not simply the storm outside the boat.
There was also a storm inside the disciples.
Fear.
Panic.
Confusion.
They had seen Jesus do great things.
But now they had to learn whether they trusted Him when they could not see what He was doing.
That is often where faith grows.
It is easy to trust God when the sea is calm.
It is harder when the waves are breaking over the side of the boat.
The storm reveals what is in us.
It reveals our fears.
It reveals our assumptions.
And sometimes it reveals that we have trusted God's gifts more than we have trusted God Himself.
“Master, With Anguish of Spirit”
The second stanza of Baker's hymn moves beyond the physical storm.
It speaks of anguish of spirit.
It speaks of grief.
And then it says:
“Torrents of sin and of anguish/Sweep o’er my sinking soul.”
Now the storm has become more than something happening around us.
It is something happening within us.
There are storms that cannot be seen on the outside.
A person may look perfectly calm while fighting fear, guilt, loneliness, temptation, grief, or despair.
The hymn recognizes that reality.
Sometimes the greatest storm is inside the heart.
And the prayer remains the same:
Jesus, take control.
We Still Need the Master
That may be one of the great strengths of this hymn.
It does not pretend that Christians never become afraid.
It does not tell us to manufacture courage.
It brings our fear directly to Jesus.
The hymn's prayer is not:
“I can handle this.”
It is:
“Master, save me.”
That is a very different kind of faith.
Christian faith does not begin by insisting that we are strong.
It begins by recognizing that we need Christ.
The disciples could not calm the sea.
But they could wake the Master.
And that was enough.
What If Jesus Does Not Calm the Storm?
There is an important question here.
What happens when we pray for Jesus to calm our storm—and He does not calm it immediately?
That is where the hymn connects beautifully with “It Is Well with My Soul.”
Last week we considered faith when sorrow remains.
This week we consider faith while the storm is still raging.
Sometimes Jesus calms the storm.
Sometimes He carries us through it.
Sometimes the circumstances change.
Sometimes they do not.
But the Christian's hope is not ultimately based upon having a calm sea.
It is based upon having Christ.
The disciples learned something that night that was more important than the weather.
They learned something about who Jesus was.
After the wind ceased and the sea became calm, they asked one another:
“What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
That is the real question.
Who is Jesus?
The One Who Is With Us
The hymn answers that question by repeatedly calling Him Master.
Master of the sea.
Master of the storm.
Master of our fear.
Master of our sin.
Master of our lives.
The storm may make us feel small.
But the storm does not make Jesus smaller.
Our circumstances may overwhelm us.
But they do not overwhelm Him.
Our understanding may fail.
His wisdom does not.
Our strength may disappear.
His does not.
That is why we can pray even when we are afraid.
Master, the tempest is raging.
Poetry That Meets Us in the Storm
A good hymn does more than tell us what happened.
It gives us words for what is happening to us.
That is why these old hymns continue to live.
“Holy, Holy, Holy” gives us words when we stand in awe of God's holiness.
“How Great Thou Art” gives us words when creation overwhelms us with the greatness of its Creator.
“It Is Well with My Soul” gives us words when sorrow threatens to overwhelm our faith.
And now:
“Master, the Tempest Is Raging” gives us words when fear threatens to overwhelm us.
It gives us permission to cry out.
It gives us permission to admit that we are afraid.
It gives us permission to ask, “Lord, do You care?”
But it also leads us toward the answer.
Yes.
He cares.
He is in the boat.
And the One who seems to be sleeping is still Lord over the storm.
Peace Is More Than Calm Circumstances
There is a deeper lesson here.
The greatest miracle in Mark 4 is certainly the calming of the sea.
But the disciples' deeper need was to learn who Jesus was.
We often ask God to change our circumstances.
Sometimes He does.
But sometimes, while we are asking Him to change the storm, He is teaching us to trust Him in it.
That does not mean we should enjoy suffering.
It does not mean we should pretend that fear is not real.
It means that we can discover a peace that is deeper than circumstances.
The same Jesus who spoke to the sea can speak to the human heart.
“Peace, be still.”
Sometimes He says it to the storm.
And sometimes He says it to us.
When Your Boat Is Taking on Water
Perhaps someone reading this today feels as though the boat is taking on water.
Perhaps the problem is financial.
Perhaps it is a relationship.
Perhaps it is grief.
Perhaps it is uncertainty about the future.
Perhaps it is a private struggle that no one else knows about.
Perhaps you have prayed and wondered why God seems silent.
If so, the story of the disciples has something to say.
You may feel as though you are going under.
But you are not alone in the boat.
Jesus is there.
And His presence matters even before the storm stops.
We may not know what He will do.
We may not know when He will act.
We may not understand why He allows the storm.
But we know who is with us.
And sometimes that is where faith begins.
From Fear to Faith
The disciples entered the storm afraid.
They came out of it asking a very different question:
Who is this Jesus?
That is the movement of the story.
From fear to faith.
From panic to wonder.
From looking at the waves to looking at Christ.
That is also the movement of the hymn.
The storm is real.
The danger is real.
The anguish is real.
But Christ is greater.
The wind is powerful.
The waves are powerful.
Fear is powerful.
But Jesus is Lord.
And so the hymn gives us its great refrain:
Peace, be still.
Not because storms are imaginary.
Not because Christians never suffer.
But because the Master is in the boat.
Master, the Tempest Is Raging
Mary A. Baker's hymn reminds us that faith does not require us to deny the storm.
Faith means bringing the storm to Jesus.
We can tell Him that we are afraid.
We can tell Him that we do not understand.
We can tell Him that we feel as though we are sinking.
And then we can remember:
He is still Master.
The winds still obey Him.
The waves still obey Him.
And our lives are still in His hands.
Last week, “It Is Well with My Soul” taught us to trust Christ through sorrow.
This week, “Master, the Tempest Is Raging” teaches us to trust Christ in the storm.
And perhaps that is exactly what some of us need to hear today.
The storm may be raging.
The waves may be high.
The sky may be dark.
But Jesus is still in the boat.
And when He speaks,
the storm must listen.
“Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” — Mark 4:40
Master, the tempest is raging.
But the Master is here.
And that changes everything.
Until Next Tuesday
The great hymns of the Christian faith continue to give us words for the journey.
They teach us how to worship.
They teach us how to grieve.
They teach us how to trust.
And sometimes, they teach us how to cry out to Jesus when the storm is raging.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” — John 14:27
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FEAR NOT TOMORROW
In this age of uncertainty,
Questions come to my mind;
What is waiting ahead for me
And the rest of mankind?
Fear not tomorrow,
God is already there.
He's charting the course you'll take;
He sees each hidden snare.
He's waiting to guide you
Through each burden and care.
Fear not tomorrow,
God is already there.
Are you troubled o'er things to come?
Is your future unsure?
Are you dreading the coming dawn,
The long day to endure?
Fear not tomorrow,
God is already there.
He's charting the course you'll take;
He sees each hidden snare.
He's waiting to guide you
Through each burden and care.
Fear not tomorrow,
God is already there.
Carolyn Adkins
Prov.27
1. [1] Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Luke.12
1. [28] If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?
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