Lectionary readings
First reading: Ezekiel 17:22-24
Responsorial psalm: Ps 91(92):2-3, 13-16
Second reading: 2 Corinthians 5:6-10
Gospel: Mark 4:26-34
Link to readings
Today’s dramatic First Reading comes from that part of the Book of Job (38:1, 8-11) where God, refusing to answer Job’s questions, withdraws more and more deeply into mystery. God puts to Job a series of questions that serve simply to drive home more and more the distance between Creator and human creature.
The questions bear on God’s mighty acts in creation, the chief of them being victory over the primeval watery chaos, a victory that allowed dry land and vegetative life to appear (Gen 1:9-10). In biblical thought and imagery water out of control is the prime symbol of chaos and destruction. To control such forces, as poetically described in the present text, was considered a prerogative of God alone.
The same idea appears in the Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 106): because of their exposure to the dangers of the deep ‘those who go down to the sea in ships’ (sailors) are uniquely placed to experience the creative power of God.
CALMS THE STORM
Both of these texts offer an appropriate background to the Gospel (Mark 4:35-41), where Christ calms the storm that threatens to engulf the boat on which he and his disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee. Mark’s account of the episode features a wonderful combination of the human and the divine. At first the disciples are in control. When Jesus makes the suggestion, ‘Let us cross over to the other side’, they take him ‘just as he was, in the boat’. On land he may be in control but the sea is their sphere of competence: they are after all, most of them, fishermen. Completely in their hands, it seems, Jesus takes the opportunity to have a little nap, commandeering, we are told in a delightfully human touch, the helmsman’s cushion for the purpose.
The sudden onset of a storm (something for which the Sea of Galilee is notorious) changes everything. The disciples become desperate, wake him and rather rudely ask if he cares at all that they are about to sink! In Mark’s account they are not necessarily at this stage asking him for a miracle: simply for him to render what assistance he can – by bailing out water or the like.
Swiftly, the One who moments before had been so humanly asleep like a child, rises and majestically commands the wind and the sea in the way that, as we have seen, belongs to God alone. The fury of the storm gives way to a divinely-created calm. Jesus then turns to the disciples and questions them about their fear and lack of faith. Did they not understand that with him present, even if asleep, there was no chance that the forces of chaos and destruction could overwhelm them? Did they not realise who precisely was among them in the Master they had come to follow?
THE RIGHT QUESTION
It seems that their faith still had a long way to go before being adequate to the mystery of Jesus. But at least they ask the right question, ‘Who is this, who even the winds and the sea obey?’ From their biblical understanding they know that they have witnessed an exercise of divine power. Hence they are ‘filled with awe’ – the true human response in the presence of the divine. In the brief compass of this one short scene we have moved so swiftly from a very human view of Jesus to one where he is exercising divine power in a most dramatic way.
The original readers of Mark’s Gospel would have found this episode rich in symbolism. In all four gospels the boat is a symbol of the Church; the sea – especially the sea out of control – is a symbol of all the forces that are hostile to the Church and seek to destroy it. Yet, to fulfil its mission and win people (‘fish’) for the Kingdom, the Church must go out upon the sea. There are times in the history of the Church when its Lord seems to be absent or asleep – times when faith in the divine presence and power is put to the test. In such situations the story told in this Gospel gives great hope and encouragement. At the same time, it takes us more deeply into the mystery of Christ as, along with the disciples, we too ask, ‘Who is this …?’
HEART OF THE PASCHAL MYSTERY
Amid all this imagery focused upon the sea, the Second Reading (2 Cor 5:14-17) stands rather apart. But it contains some of Paul’s most stirring reflections upon the implications of really coming to appreciate the heart of the Paschal mystery. The thought of the love involved in Christ’s dying for all is simply ‘overwhelming’: it can completely transform one’s attitude to others and communicate a readiness to place one’s life entirely at the service of his self-sacrificing mission to ‘catch’ people for the Kingdom.
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for almost forty years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media