Christ Sleeping During the Storm on Lake Tiberias
Artist: Georg Pencz
Calming the storm is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels, reported in Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25. This episode is distinct from Jesus' walk on water which also involves a boat on the lake and appears later in the narrative, in chapter 14 of Matthew.
According to the Gospels, one evening Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, sometimes called Lake Tiberias, in a boat, when a furious storm came up, with the waves breaking over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion, but the disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" The Gospel of Mark then states that:
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
