Throughout the gospel of Mark, one always comes up with these incidents where Jesus acts in a certain way, and yet the disciples remain somewhat disbelieving and want not yet sure of who this person is. And certainly this is one of the incidents where we see that, but Mark has that as one of the elements that he builds throughout his gospel in the sense of saying that faith is a very challenging part of our lives.

Faith is not something easy, but faith is a challenge because it remains beyond us to come to grips with what we see here in this little story that Jesus is truly God in our midst, that Jesus is the greatest expression of the father’s love for us by his willingness to send His Son into our midst, not merely to be, in a sense, God in our midst, but to show that God’s love for us is so great that God takes the reality of our lives and draws it into God’s life.

And that’s the reality of Jesus, that Jesus draws the fullness of our humanity into the reality of God. And so Mark wants to make that point over and over again throughout his gospel. But this particular episode has even more to it, because in a sense, you see that there’s turmoil there, frightened, they think that the boat is going to sink and they’re anxious and they’re expressing that fear and anxiety and and they go and they literally shake Jesus wake up.

Aren’t you concerned for us? And he casually gets up and says to the wind, be still and to the ocean. Be calm.

And they’re amazed. In one sense, they were hoping that he would do something like that. But at the same time. They were not capable of believing that he had the ability to do that, for only God has that power. As you saw in the first reading, as Jobe, who is in that dialog with God and God. Basically, he’s explaining to Jobe how he brought about creation in the sense of saying to Jobe, recognize who I am, and I will not abandon you.

I will not forget you. Yes, you’re going through very, very difficult times.

But I will rescue you from those times. I will bring you to the fullness of life. And when he know the story of Jobe, despite all of the pain and suffering that Jobe endures, in the end, Jobe enjoys God’s blessings beyond Jove’s imagination. Yeah, that is how marvelous God’s response to him is. Well, that’s picked up and picked up here as they are frightened and as they are terrified, Jesus again shows how God intervenes and brings about the calm that we need to go on with our lives.

Paul is referring to that in the second reading, when he talks about how we have come to life in Christ, we are new creations. We are literally emerged in the life of God, and that is what should be the source of our strength. In all the situations that we face, most especially in the most difficult of situations, you’re going to be anxious.

There’s no doubt about that. We live in a very anxious world. We live in a world that is very much frightened. and as a result of that, we see more and more people turning in to themself, because of the fear. But if we are people of faith, if we know that we are alive in Christ, that we are part of God’s new creation, then we know that we need not be anxious and fearful, but we can put our trust in God, and God will bring us through even the most difficult moments of our life.

That’s where our strength is. That’s where our courage is. That’s what gives us the reason for living. And so as we come to the scriptures and more importantly, as we come to the Eucharist, the Eucharist then stands as the visible, visible sign that Jesus walks with us, that Jesus brings us into the greatness of Jesus’s life and again gives us the strength to go out, to go out not in fear or anxiety, but to go out in hope and in love, to share with others the goodness of God’s love.