<p>4:39 <i>And he awoke and rebuked the wind- </i>The Greek for &quot;rebuked&quot; can mean just this, but it is also translated 'to solemnly charge'. There are times in the Gospels where the sovereign authority of Jesus as Lord simply shines through. He did His work with a minimum of such displays of authority. Yet there are enough of them to make us appreciate how He could so easily have 'come down from the cross'; such incidents of sovereign authority in His ministry simply pave the way for us to appreciate the degree of self-control and wilful sacrifice and suffering which He achieved on the cross. The peoples of the first century, and their predecessors, believed that demons and the Satan monster were somehow associated with water &ndash; that was why, they figured, the water mysteriously kept moving, and at times blew up into storms. When we read of God &lsquo;rebuking&rsquo; the waters and making them calm or do what He wished (Ps. 18:16; 104:7; 106:9), we&rsquo;re effectively being told that Yahweh of Israel is so infinitely superior to those supposed demons and sea monsters that for God&rsquo;s people, they have no effective existence. The Lord Jesus taught the same lesson when He &lsquo;rebuked&rsquo; the sea and wind during the storm on the lake (Mt. 8:26). The same Greek word is used to described how He &lsquo;rebuked&rsquo; demons (Mt. 17:18 etc.). I have no doubt that the Lord Jesus didn&rsquo;t believe there was a Loch Ness&ndash;type monster lurking in Galilee which He had to rebuke in order to save the disciples from the storm; and likewise He spoke of &lsquo;rebuking&rsquo; demons as a similar way of teaching others that&nbsp;<i>whatever</i>&nbsp;ideas they had about demons, He was greater and was in a position to &lsquo;rebuke&rsquo; them. Likewise He assured His men that they had the power to tread on snakes, scorpions, and all their enemies (Lk. 10:17&ndash;20). The image of a victorious god trampling his foes and snakes underfoot was well established in the surrounding cultures, and had entered Judaism. The Lord is teaching those fearful men that OK, if that&rsquo;s your perception of things, well, in your terms, you have ultimate victory through working &lsquo;in My name&rsquo;.</p><p><i>And said to the sea: Peace Be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm</i>- His authoritative &quot;Peace, be still&quot; (Mk. 4:39) was probably primarily addressed to the Angels controlling the natural elements. The reference to Angels 'ministering' to Him after the temptations suggests their inferiority. Thus He could summon twelve legions of Angels at the time of His greatest passion- maybe He remembered this incident and it was a temptation to Him to use this power over Angels at the crucifixion.</p><p>All three of the Synoptics use the same phrase for &quot;a great calm&quot; (Mt. 8:26; Mk. 4:39; Lk. 8:24). It would've been a profound experience. The whole experience looks ahead to the calm of God's Kingdom being brought about by intense latter day prayer during a tribulation so intense that unless it were shortened, the faithful would die. When the Lord calmed the raging sea into a still calmness, He was consciously replicating what happened when Jonah was cast into the sea. He said plainly that He understood Jonah&rsquo;s willing submission to this as a type of His coming death. Therefore He saw the stilled sea as a symbol of the peace His sacrifice would achieve. And yet even during His ministry, He brought that calmness about; for in principle, His sacrifice was ongoing throughout His life. His blood is a symbol both of His cross and of the life He lived.</p>