Mark 4:35-41
Dear Friends, The first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are, “This is time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” (Mk 1:15)Jesus then proceeds to teach, to call the disciples and to heal. All of these actions are expressions of the kingdom. They all lead to the question of who is this person, Jesus.
In our own lives we all approach Jesus in the beginning as one who will help us, one who will solve our problems and one who will, indeed, heal us.
In today’s story from Mark, Jesus is drawing the disciples into a deeper experience and challenge. He is with them in the storm. The storm is a symbol of the vulnerability of life. It gathers all that is fragile and frightening about our daily experience. It exposes the profound and pervasive truth that as creatures, the security of life is ultimately out of our control.
The disciples are not really asking Jesus to stop the storm. They simply want him to share their fear and anxiety and maybe help remove some water from the boat.
Jesus has a different agenda. “Quiet. Be still’. Then the wind ceased and there was great calm.” (Mk 4:39)
This is the first of four stories in Mark where Jesus shows his power over the demonic powers. Water out of control is often used as an image of chaos in the writings of the Bible. The language of command and rebuke is similar to the words when Jesus had cast out the devil in the man in Capernaum. (Mk 1:25) This suggests that ultimately behind the destructive power of the storm are the demonic powers.
Jesus is expressing the most important part of his mission: the victory of good over evil. The final expression of this victory will be the conquest of life over death on Calvary and the empty tomb. At this point, Jesus continues to unveil God’s plan, the kingdom. The disciples are invited to recognize this divine power. They are called to faith. They are invited to realize that the inevitable storms of chaos will always threaten but our loving God has the final word
The storms of life are no less present in our daily experience as is so dominantly clear in Covid-19. Personal tragedy and sickness, an economy that continually is sucking the survival resources from the poor, a nation unable to respond the basic humanity of our immigrants, and so many other expressions of evil winning over good, prejudice over truth, injustice over justice are never far away. The storms continue. Jesus calls us to faith just as he did the disciples in the boat. He is still with us in his victory over evil. We need to believe and trust as we embrace the life rooted in gospel values.
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