At the end of the story about the great storm, the great question of this “parable” of discipleship is placed in our laps. The disciples ask “Who then is this?” (vs. 41) Their question is described as one of “great fear,” (literally, “they feared a great fear;” interestingly the same words that describe the shepherds response to the angel at Jesus’ birth in Luke 2:9), or as the NRSV has correctly sensed it, “great awe.”
When God comes among us, how will we respond? In the story, no answer is given to the disciples’ question.
The question of how we will respond to this Jesus, whom “even the wind and the sea obey” is left open. There is time for the answer to mature in the hearing of the rest of the story; just as there is time for that answer to take shape in our lives as we journey with this Jesus in the season of Pentecost. Perhaps in the shaping of that journey the power and presence of the good news of God’s kingdom will shape our lives in the crucial turn from fear to faith. This is the great “turning” which goes by the name of repentance, which is the call and promise of Jesus at the beginning of Mark’s gospel (Mark 1:14-15).