NOTES for Mar 4:35-41

In the story of Jesus calming the sudden storm, the most interesting thing is the dialogue between the Teacher and the disciples. He reproaches them for their little faith, and they, struck by what has happened, try to understand: who is He, that He has authority even over the elements? As we can see, the evangelist emphasizes precisely this, there is no other word for it, misunderstanding between Jesus and the apostles. And the point is not that the disciples cannot understand Who is before them. The point is that they are unable to concentrate their spiritual attention on what is necessary for an adequate understanding of the situation. In their souls there still lives the fear of imminent death they experienced during the storm, overlaid by a mystical, almost superstitious dread before the power their Teacher possesses. But He wants to turn their spiritual gaze from the outer to the inner, from effects to the meaning of what is happening. That is why He speaks to them about faith, about trust, without which there is no Kingdom, whether trust in God, in Christ, or in one's neighbor.

If the disciples had had enough trust and inner wholeness, without which, as without trust, there can be no talk of faith, the storm would have subsided according to their faith, without Jesus' intervention. But the point is that, as we see, the apostles do not yet have this inner wholeness. They have enough faith to follow the Teacher, but not enough to remain in the spiritual space of the Kingdom. In that very spiritual space where there is no place for a storm, where the elements are completely subject to the human will: the will not only of the Messiah, but of every person living the life of the Kingdom. If the disciples had been rooted in the Kingdom, they would not have had to wake the Teacher; the storm would have subsided at the command of any one of them, or perhaps it would not have begun at all.

Of course, in the Kingdom the relationship between Christ and each of His disciples remains no less close than in the untransformed world. There it even proves still deeper, more conscious, more intense than in this world. But Christ does not need to pull a person rooted in the Kingdom by the hand out of every difficult situation, if only because in the life of a person rooted in the Kingdom there are no accidental difficult situations. As we can see, this is exactly the thought Jesus is trying to convey to His disciples.

But their attention is wholly absorbed by the extraordinary power their Teacher has revealed. This is no surprise: power always attracts more attention than the Kingdom. And to learn to see the Kingdom, the breath of the Kingdom must touch a person and change his heart. That is what happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.

Jesus' calming of the storm undoubtedly made an indelible impression on the disciples. None of Israel's great prophets could do such a thing: they, of course, also sometimes worked miracles, or rather, God sometimes performed miracles through their prayer, but no one had ever managed to calm a raging lake with one word. Of course, God's power, acting through Jesus in all its fullness, could do anything at all: God is the complete and sovereign Master of His world. Here, however, it was not simply God's power at work; here the breath of the Kingdom was blowing, which was especially important and relevant.

Indeed, humanity has encountered manifestations of God's power from the very beginning of its existence, and the fall did not change anything here in principle: God is God, and after the fall He remains God; His action is still the same as it has always been. It is another matter that after the fall a person perceives the action of God's power differently, often not even understanding what kind of power it is or where it came from. God's power by itself does not always change a person, and even more, it does not always change him radically. For radical change, the conscious participation of the person himself is needed in the process, first of all the participation of his will, and such participation for a fallen person often proves to be, if solvable at all, a very difficult task. That is why miracles in every age have been relatively infrequent in the fallen world.

It would be more accurate to say that few people saw them: one can see a miracle only when the heart is open to God, when God's great world is a reality for a person and he lives precisely in that world, and not in the little fallen world of the human being separated from God's world. Before the coming of Christ this little fallen world, which sometimes appears large to us, was completely isolated from God's great world, which is called the Kingdom. In those times miracles existed only for those for whom God and His presence in the world were an unquestionable and absolute reality.

Now, with Christ's coming, the situation has changed. His coming broke the barrier, destroyed the separation of our fallen world from the Kingdom that had existed before. Now a miracle has become an objective reality, and everyone sees the calming of the storm, regardless of their condition and their attitude toward God and toward Christ. The Kingdom, its power, and its breath have become part of our world. Outwardly nothing special happened, but in reality everything changed.

After the parables about the Kingdom of God being like a seed that grows unnoticed by the sower, Mark tells of the calming of the storm. When Christ entered the boat, could He really have been unaware that there might be a storm? Perhaps the experienced fishermen among His disciples discussed it before setting out. Apparently, He was so tired that He fell asleep in spite of everything. One can sleep in such a situation only when one trusts one’s companions and feels completely safe in their presence. Jesus’ conduct therefore shows once again the remarkable relationship that existed between Him and the apostles. The Lord falls asleep like the man who has sown the seed and does not know how it grows. Yet the seed grows regardless of whether he constantly intervenes in the process.

Sometimes it seems to us that God is asleep and does not see what is happening in our lives. But perhaps He has simply entrusted this part of our life story to us because we are able to handle it ourselves. Yet as soon as we are threatened by real danger, He will immediately come to our aid.

What is the faith of which the Savior speaks today? It seems to be the opposite of fear, faintheartedness, and uncertainty about the future. Yet He Himself warns us against worrying about the future, about tomorrow's needs... Therefore, all that remains for us on the stormy sea of our lives is hope in Him, trust in the Teacher, even when He seems to be asleep. Indeed, sometimes we see no evident action of Christ in our distress, no sign of His help, and we do not feel His presence. But we still have faith that we are in the same boat with Him; and if that is so, no shipwreck threatens us. This should be the remedy for our fears, depression, and faintheartedness. This is faith in the invisible, which is nonetheless far more real than all the storms, winds, and waves of the sea.

Today's reading tells us about Jesus' parables, in which He speaks of the gradual and unnoticed coming of the Kingdom of God, which, at the same time, in the end becomes so noticeable that it is impossible not to pay attention to it. In these parables the image of a sprouting grain constantly appears, an image widely spread in antiquity throughout all the countries of the Near East, from Egypt to Babylonia. The sprouting grain became here a symbol of eternal, constantly renewed life, which stands against death and conquers it. It is not surprising that Jesus uses this image to describe the Kingdom of God, for in the Kingdom of God everyone is given the whole fullness of life that can be imagined, and there is no place for death in it. But it does not come all at once, in such a way that the beginning of its coming is noticeable to everyone. Clearly, in order for the Kingdom of God to be revealed in all its fullness, time is needed, and this is exactly what Jesus speaks about, comparing it to a seed that at first is unnoticeable and then grows into a tree visible to everyone. This same passage mentions Jesus' calming of the storm that arose on Lake Gennesaret while He and the disciples were crossing to the opposite Galilean shore. It should be noted that storms on Lake Gennesaret are not uncommon, especially in winter. Winters in Galilee are warm; even in January the temperature rarely drops below +10, but strong winds blow, and on Lake Gennesaret, with its by no means small size, real storms occur. Fishing boats, even fairly large ones, are still not as large as real seagoing ships, and such storms pose serious danger to them. Fishermen caught by a storm far from shore could be in real danger of death, although the event was not taking place on the sea. Jesus calms one of these storms, saving the lives of His companions.

Today the Lord addresses to us one of the most important questions: "How do we listen?" We regularly read the Bible, and even visit Bible sites on the Internet, but do we have ears to receive the Word, let it take root in our heart, and bear fruit?

The Lord says: "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and more will be added to you who hear." In essence this means: what a person wants to find in Scripture, and in God's revelation in general, is what he will find. The Bible can provide us with the richest material for history, literature, philology, mysticism, and so on, but only the one who seeks in it the knowledge of God, that is, living personal relations with Him built on trust and love, will be able to find God in reading Holy Scripture.

And here the words that "to the one who has, more will be given" acquire their meaning. In listening to and understanding the Word of God, we can only deepen and multiply what we already have; that is, we must approach it from within an already existing bond with God, in faith and prayer.