Facing Life's Storms with Jesus

Homily for Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B – 23 June 2024

On a cold, rainy Friday evening, the 27th March 2020, Pope Francis walked alone through St Peter’s Square in the dark, and up the steps of St Peter’s Basilica, to a podium. The image of this lone figure dressed in white, making his way through the dark piazza was powerfully poignant. He read the Gospel passage we have just heard and preached on it. It was an extraordinary moment of prayer in the midst of the first wave of the Coronavirus in Italy, where it had hit particularly hard. Pope Francis likened the difficult time to the storm the disciples experienced on the sea in today’s Gospel.

Have you ever really been terrified? Do you fear illness, or death, or humiliation? Perhaps there is something that you are frightened about right now? Perhaps your history, or your past, cause you anxiety and shame? These fears, though more subtle than the storm in the Gospel today, can be as destructive and deadly. It is not for nothing that we are told about 365 times in the Scriptures, “Do not be afraid.” It is as if we need to hear this every day of every year. We are easily and often given over to fear.

Down through the centuries spiritual writers have understood the boat bearing the disciples and the sleeping Jesus, in the midst of a storm, as an image of the Church. Similarly, it is an image of us in the storms of our lives, as individuals and families and communities. In his address, Pope Francis asked us to “invite Jesus into the boats of our lives.” He asks us to hand over our fears to Jesus so that he can conquer them. “With Jesus onboard there will be no shipwreck.”

The Sea of Galilee that we hear about so much in the Gospels because Jesus spent much of his public ministry preaching in the towns and villages on its shores, is actually a big inland lake. It is the largest freshwater lake in Israel - about 21 km long and 13 km wide. That’s a lot of water. And the geographical position of this large lake allows for sudden strong winds to

channel through the valley and rip up an instant storm on the waters. The language that is used to describe the storm in today’s Gospel suggests that it was like a sudden tornado-style whirlwind descending from above. The fact that it was dark would have made it all the more terrifying.

The Jews of Jesus’ time, were not a sea-faring people. In fact, they were terrified of the sea. They were convinced that only God, the Creator and Lord of the sea, could control the wind and the water and the other elements.

The first reading has God answering Job out of the whirlwind. The same word is used to describe the whirlwind storm in the Gospel of Mark. To Job, God describes control of the waters of the sea, saying: “Who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb ... and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come, and no farther’”.

The Responsorial Psalm is the perfect match for the first reading and the Gospel. It describes the fear of sailors in those times in their frail sailing boats before the wind and waves: “Some went down to the sea in ships ... [The Lord] spoke and raised up the storm-wind, tossing high the waves of the sea that surged to heaven and dropped to the depths; their souls melted away in their distress.” The people of those times knew that in those terrifying conditions, only God had the power to save them. And so the psalm continues: “Then they cried to the Lord in their need and he rescued them from their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; all the waves of the sea were hushed.”

This is exactly what takes place in the Gospel for today. In the evening Jesus told his disciples to cross over in a boat to the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee. As they made their way across the lake, the storm suddenly blew up and huge waves were breaking into the boat and filling it with water. Understandably, the disciples were terrified and thought they were going to sink.

But, through it all, Jesus was fast asleep at the back of the boat, apparently either oblivious or totally uncaring, about their situation. In a panic, they wake him up, saying: "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” And Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind and spoke to the sea: “Peace! Be still!” And the wind dropped and there was a great calm. Jesus then challenged them saying: "Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?" But the Gospel says that now they were even more afraid as they stared at him in awe and wonder: “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him.”

Remember the Jewish belief that only God had power over the sea and here Jesus, at the beginning of his public ministry had exercised exactly that power before their eyes. They began to put two and two together. There can only be one possible explanation. Jesus has the power of God; Jesus has the nature of God. No wonder they were filled with awe and fear of the man in front of them. The mystery of Jesus’ identity was gradually unfolding before their eyes. Every Gospel passage is a challenge to us, to discipleship. In the face of the person of Jesus we cannot remain spectators, hangers-on, or curiosity seekers. Like the disciples in the boat, confronted with the divine identity of Jesus, we are called to respond with awe and wonder.

It is not surprizing that Pope Francis chose this passage to preach on at the height of the first wave of the pandemic. This was a storm for us as a Church and as a worldwide community. Four years later we continue to reflect on the huge sufferings that the virus brought to our world. That was the storm then, and we continue to experience storms as individuals, and as a community. So many of us know what is to experience serious illnesses, or loss of loved ones, or loss of jobs, or of fear and anxiety, and of the unknown.

The issue, of course, is where Jesus is during the storms we face as individuals and as Church, at this time, or whenever we have experienced suffering. In the Gospel account, Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat. We have all had the feeling at times that Jesus is asleep or absent during the storms we face, or that the Church continues to face.

At the time Mark was writing this Gospel, the Emperor Nero was persecuting Christians, and the Holy Land itself was in the middle of the Jewish War which would culminate in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Surely, Christians at the time must have been tempted to ask: “Where is Jesus? Why does he seem to be asleep? Why does he seem not to care what is happening to us?”

St Paul, at the time of writing the passage which was our second reading for today, had experienced intense suffering and persecution. The depths of his suffering drove him to deepen his relationship with Christ. And as such, he writes one of the most beautiful lines in the New Testament: “the love of Christ urges us on.” The love of Christ for us drives us to live for him alone, to trust him, to have faith in him.

After calming the storm, Jesus challenged his disciples to faith. In the same way, he calls us to have faith and to trust. Jesus is not asleep. He is present to us. His love urges us on. Perhaps Jesus sleeps within us through our fear and anxiety? We can wake the sleeping Christ within ourselves. We can recognise his true identity and presence, and know his divine power. We can allow Jesus to calm the storms of our lives. His love urges us on.

Pope Francis at the end of his reflection prayed a prayer we all can pray: “Lord, you ask us not be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: ‘Do not be afraid.’”