Who Then is This?

Playing catch up on homilies I haven't posted!

Based on Mark 4.35-end

“Who then is this?”. How would the disciples have answered that question before what happened on the boat? And what would their answer be after it? How could they even begin to fathom what they’d just witnessed?

We might wonder when Jesus says to his disciples “why are you afraid?” if they’re scared of the storm they’ve just encountered, or scared because of what they’ve just witnessed Jesus do; who then is this? Any abstract ideas or beliefs, or any theories they may have had have now stopped being theoretical, they’re confronted with an overwhelming display of power that can’t be reasoned or rationalised. 

This man who looks like them, is from a background like theirs, has a family like theirs, just rebuked the wind and sea, and the wind and sea listened. I think that might cause the disciples to maybe be a bit fearful of Jesus, and even more than that- to fear what this means, to generate more questions, because as they try to fathom “who then is this” they also have to confront “who then am I?” and “what then does this mean for my life?”

When any of us is confronted with the reality of who Jesus is, that he is from God and is God, it has to change us. We can’t know and believe that and then be left unchanged; because if we believe Jesus is who he demonstrates he is, we have to believe in the things that he said and did, and if we believe in those things we have to start living them; and that’s hard. And it’s scary. It can involve a total deconstruction and reconstruction of our lives, motivations and principles. 

In this passage we see Jesus’ place in the created order- his place over the created order as he commands it and it responds. 

We can often feel like the disciples in the storm, overwhelmed by chaos, waiting for God’s intervention. Sometimes it feels like everything is out of control around us, and we look to see where God can be in this, and hope that he will calm the storm. Sometimes this passage is called the gospel for the overwhelmed, but there’s also a message there that God’s presence and intervention can be unnerving, as can the times when it feels God is napping during our own storms and crises. 

Jesus asks “Have you still no faith?” after the disciples witness his power. When we’re waiting out our own storms sometimes faith is all we have, and the knowledge that the gospel stories don’t end with “my God, why have you forsaken me?” but with God overcoming the very worst that humanity could do, and the disciples finally knowing, really knowing “who then is this”, and as we must be when we come to that truth, forever being changed by it.