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SCRIPTURE
READINGS
|
Job |
38:1,
8-11 |
| Psalm |
106 |
| II
Corinthians |
5:14-17 |
| Mark |
4:35-41 |
“How
would you like to spend the last days of our life?”
This question was dropped idly into the conversation
in a Jesuit refectory a little while ago. How varied
the answers! My own was simple: looking at the sea.
Our
love affair with the sea – or with the mountains,
or with the countryside – is of relatively modern
date. For the ancients, the elements of nature were
a formidable power, forces to be contended with.
The Jews at the time of Christ were no exception.
They did not like the sea. Indeed along the whole
Mediterranean coast from Galilee through Samaria
down to Judea we find no great ports. The people
of Palestine had no navy. The Jews carried on a
thriving trade with other lands but they depended
on the ships of strangers. The Galileans clustered
around the Sea of Galilee and fished its waters,
never far from the sight of land. The waters of
the deep were a constant reminder of chaos. This
was an element inimical to man. Here were monsters
and terrible storms. Nothing so revealed the fragility
of human nature as the power of the waves and the
wind.
“Lord
do you not care that we are sinking!” The disciples
are caught in a storm. They are experienced fishermen,
but they are frightened. They have a distinguished
passenger on board. Amidst the roar of the tempest
and the violent motion of the swell he is sleeping
peacefully. He must be very tired indeed.
This
image of the sleeping Christ alarms us. What does
it mean that he leaves his disciples to their own
fate? Does he not care? On one level, it may mean
simply this: he expects the disciples to do their
job! They are fishermen. Their vocation is boats
and being on the sea in all its moods. The sea is
their workplace. God made the sea and blessed it
with an abundance of food. Why are they afraid?
Our
greatest fear arises when the world we know and
seem to control turns against us. The familiar environment
becomes a nightmare. We succumb to helplessness
and a paralyzing anxiety. For many people this has
been a real experience in the last year or so. Where
is the Lord when you need him most? He is asleep
and we must wake him up!
Well,
it's only fair. There will come a time in the life
of Christ when he too is in an agony of fear. He
needs help and support and it is his disciples who
are asleep. Three times he wakes them up. On the
boat, it is enough that they call upon him once.
Their fears awaken him and he comes to their rescue.
But with a rebuke: “Have you still no faith?”
Can
we have this faith? Can we believe that he is with
us always?
Fr
William Pearsall SJ
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