Daily Reflections ...

All Jesus wanted was some peace and quiet away from the crowds that surrounded and prevailed upon him, but he ends up with the opposite.  How many of us have experienced that situation!

Notwithstanding the miracle of calming the gale, Mark paints a picture of a very common human reaction when confronted by the persistent demands of others.  Jesus is annoyed and exasperated: Why are you afraid?  Well, why are they afraid? Most of them are experienced professional fishers who would have encountered storms many times – surely they should have had trust in themselves and their abilities!  Yet here they are, begging an itinerant teacher and amateur carpenter who’s never sailed a boat in his life to help them survive? 

The trust Jesus has in his fisher friends to take him out on to the lake is contrasted dramatically with the lack of faith they show both in themselves and what they have seen and heard already from this person. 

The storm acts as a metaphor for the faith-less and irrational reaction of the disciples.  Jesus’ command – Peace, be still! – is as much an order to the elements as it is to the disciples to stop and look inwardly at themselves.  It is only when they are finally still that the realization of, and their subsequent belief in, what just happened fills them with awe and wonder.  

Indeed, as St Thomas Aquinas writes, the act of faith is to believe.

by Gerry Crooks