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FOURTH  SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY.   Our Lord Jesus is on this Sunday commemorated as the Saviour of all from every danger, as well as the Saviour of the diseased and infirm from the bodily afflictions which happen to human nature.  It is not now a leper or a paralytic, but strong and hale men who are in need of His help.  And yet, though no horrible or painful disease afflicts them, they could not be in any more hopeless or helpless condition than when at sea in an open boat at the mercy of a tempest.  He was, doubtless, revealing to them the true source of their safety, - His presence, which makes an Ark of the Church.  He was asleep, and they had little faith, and the storm was violent; and the ship being "covered with the waves," we may well suppose that the danger was, from a human point of view, extreme.  Christ reveals to the Apostles that the human point of view takes in a very small part of the whole prospect by manifesting forth His authority over the winds and the waves, and showing them that His Presence could preserve them, because it is the Presence of God. 
 
The miracle of casting out the devils from the two possessed Gergesenes, carries on the parabolical teaching of the storm and its subjugation, by showing that the power of Christ extends not only over natural elements and forces, but over supernatural beings.  And hence the Lord of the Church is continually declaring to us, that though it may be tempest-tossed on the waves of the world, He can ensure its safety; and that though evil spirits oppose it with all the array of their power, yet "the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." 

The Epistle for this Sunday was altered in 1549, because it coincided with that for the first Sunday in Advent.  In the Mozarabic rite it is taken from Romans vii, which, seems once to have been coexistent with our Collect.