Mark 4:35-41
“Don’t you care?” is a question we ask when someone could do something but doesn’t. The question implies that they noticed an obvious problem - and perhaps they even observed others’ futile efforts to solve it - but they opted out of helping. When that happens, it shifts the focus off of the initial issue and raises doubts about the heart of the one doing nothing. We conclude that if they cared, they would step in; therefore, they must not care.
The first time Jesus’ followers asked this question of Him, was during a storm. After a long day of teaching in parables, Jesus got into a boat with his disciples to cross to the other side of the sea. He fell asleep on the way. When the wind and waves threatened to sink the boat, the disciples frantically woke the Son of God, who had succumbed to sheer exhaustion. I imagine them soaked and screaming, don’t you care that we are perishing?
Threats on our well-being, natural disasters, uncontrollable forces, freak accidents - God, are you sleeping? How can you do nothing about this? At least grab a bucket and tie down the sail! Don’t you care that we are perishing?
Wasn’t Jesus’ care the very reason he was lying there in their creaking, weathered boat in the first place? Because they were perishing. So He came that whoever would believe in Him, would not perish.
When I question the heart of God with, Don’t you care?, I'm assuming that He must be fickle like His prophet, Jonah - uncaring and asleep on the job in the middle of a storm. God had sent Jonah because God pitied a perishing city; God sent Jesus because He so loved the perishing world. Jonah didn’t care to bring God’s message of mercy to an enemy that might receive it; Jesus had just spent the day preaching it to a people who would reject it. Jonah fled from God’s presence; Jesus was God, present. The storm was punishment for Jonah’s disobedience; the storm would be proof of Jesus’ identity. The storm calmed when Jonah was swallowed by it; the storm calmed when Jesus spoke to it.
Someone who cares more than Jonah has come.
“...casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7
