Other Boats! Bible Reading: Mark 4:35-41

I’m sure there are occasions when we are reading a well-known Bible story that we suddenly see something – a sentence or a phrase, which has been there all the time, but which we’ve never noticed before, or may have simply skipped over due to its seeming ‘unimportance’.
 
One recent example I stumbled across is in Mark’s account of Jesus stilling the storm.
As you will know well, the essence of the story is that Jesus is exhausted after a day’s ministry and suggests to his disciples that they take a boat over to the quieter side of the lake and they are all too eager to oblige. However, some way into the journey, a fierce storm rises up nearly swamping the boat, and as the disciples are frantically trying to bail out the water, they catch sight of Jesus sleeping at the back of the boat.  It was not a good visual and they rush to wake Jesus with the cry “Don’t you care if we drown?”  Jesus simply stands up and stills the wind and waves with a quiet rebuke, before challenging the disciples about their lack of faith.
 
And that’s the story which we all know and recognise so well.  However, I recently came across another sentence in that narrative which I confess I’d never specifically noted before and it says simply “There were also other boats with him”, (verse 36).
It’s something that only Mark records – the phrase doesn’t appear in the accounts of this incident by Matthew or Luke, and I find myself wondering why Mark felt compelled to include that piece of apparently insignificant information.  There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer. We don’t know if the other boats had deliberately followed Jesus and his disciples onto the lake or if they simply happened to be there.  Could it be that Mark wanted to make us aware that there were other witnesses to this miracle in addition to the disciples?  Perhaps!
 
Whatever the circumstances, the people in the “other boats” would have benefitted from the miracle of the stilling of the storm because their boats were in the same predicament as the one in which Jesus was travelling. Maybe that’s what was in Mark’s mind when he included that sentence, but in all honesty, we don’t know.
At the very least this incident would have raised questions in the minds of those travelling in other boats such as, how this man Jesus could instantly calm a rising storm, or if they knew who Jesus was, perhaps they questioned the lack of faith shown by his disciples as they rushed back & forth bailing out the boat and shouting at Jesus in fear of being drowned.
 
As we read that story again from our 21st Century perspective, there is perhaps a single message that we can take from the inclusion of the “other boats” in this story.
And it’s simply that as we go about our daily lives – in our homes, schools, or places of work, or in our wider community, there will always be “other people with us”, just as there were other boats on that lake with Jesus and his disciples. 
 
Among those people will be family and friends, colleagues and acquaintances, or perhaps complete strangers who we encounter for a brief momentary interaction.  Some may be people of faith or of no faith at all. They are our “other boats”, other travellers facing the same storms and challenges as us in their lives and looking for something that brings peace or encouragement to them along life’s way.  So let us not be the ones who flap and panic like the disciples on their boat.
 
Instead let us always remember the unique power of the One who is with us “in our boat” and remain committed to share the miraculous power and the peace of Christ through the simplicity of a reassuring smile, a word of welcome, a hug of comfort, or an act of kindness; not so that they think favourably of us, but that they may be moved to follow the One with the power to calm the roughest storm, rebuild broken lives and even conquer death.