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Sunday of Ordinary Time – June 20, 2021
During these Sundays we are reading from Mark’s gospel. In
his gospel Mark brings us through
a process by which the real identity of Jesus
is gradually revealed.
In next Sunday’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to cross
over in a boat to the opposite
shore of the Lake of Galilee. It was evening, a
bad time to sail across a lake which was
well-known for unexpected, dangerous
storms. Added to that, the “other side” was unknown
to them. The disciples
didn’t travel to the “other side” because it was different (cultura-
lly and
religiously). But they get into the boat and, we are told, there were some
other
boats accompanying them, but Mark says nothing else about these other
boats! The Gospel
also says they left the crowd behind them. The crowds
frequently gather around Jesus, but
they are not really numbered among his
followers. They listen to him, they marvel at his
miracles, but they are only
potential followers. They are never really with him, often
interested only in
what they can get from Jesus, not what they can give to Jesus.
As Jesus and the disciples made their way across the lake, a
storm suddenly blew up. Large
waves were breaking over the boat and filling it
with water. Naturally, the disciples
were very afraid and thought their boat
was going to sink. But, through it all, Jesus was
fast asleep at the back of
the boat, apparently either oblivious or totally uncaring about
their
situation. In a panic, they wake him up: “Master, do you not care? We are
going down!”
Jesus wakes, rebukes the wind and speaks to the sea:
“Quiet now! Be calm!” The wind dropped
and all was perfectly calm again.
Then it was the disciples turn to be rebuked. “Why are
you so frightened? How
is it that you have no faith?” And now they were even more afraid as
they
stared at him in awe and wonder: “Who can this be? Even the wind and sea
obey him.”
They know that it is only God who can control the wind and the
sea. That is the theme of
the First Reading, taken from the Book of Job.
I marked the bounds it [the sea] was
not to cross
and made it fast with a bolted gate.
Come thus far, I said, and no farther;
here your proud waves shall break.
Those of faith had no difficulty seeing the power of God in
the power of wind and wave.
The disciples begin to put two and two together.
Only God has power over the seas. But
wait! Now, it is Jesus who is doing all
this! There can only be one possible explanation.
Jesus has the power of God;
Jesus has the nature of God. No wonder they are filled with
awe and fear of the
man in front of them. The mystery of Jesus’ true identity is gradually
being
unveiled before their eyes.
Jesus also wanted them to have something of his own trust in
God in the midst of the storm.
We are asked to enter into Jesus’ trusting
relationship with God, even when the ground
seems to be opening up under us,
whether as individuals or as a community of faith.
The disciples came to
realize that the storm was not only in the sea but in their own
fears and
anxieties. Jesus was in the boat with the disciples; he is with us, too, as
individuals and as a church. His communion with us, his nearness to us, helps
us to
receive something of his conviction that God will bring us to the other
side, the far
shore, in spite of storms along the way.
Very often we have no control over the political and social
developments of our society;
we have little or no control over what other
people are doing. But no matter what we are
experiencing, we can – with the
grace of Jesus – find peace. It is the peace which only
Jesus can give. And it
is a peace which no person and no storm can take away from us.
Fr. Don, cp