B Cycle – 12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time 24

Mk.4:35-41

The story of Job in the Old Testament is an interesting story of faithfulness in the face of catastrophic personal disasters.  We do not have time to recount all the things that happened to Job other than to say he lost everything: his possessions, his family, his home and yet he remained steadfast in his belief in God’s goodness.  His friends believed and stated Job was being punished by God because he sinned. But Job affirmed his righteousness while he wondered why all those disasters were happening to him. God’s response to Job’s questions was to recount to Job how creation was fashioned and that He was in control.  What God was telling Job is to stop questioning why and to trust God’s willingness and desire to work good out of all those disasters. 

This Old Testament book about Job is a reminder of God’s fidelity, constancy and how our faith is challenged by the storms and disasters of our lives.  It is a perfect segway to today’s gospel.  When a storm came up and with Jesus visibly present to the disciples, they could only see the disaster that threatened their lives.  It is amazing with Jesus visibly present to them, sleeping, they could not see anything but the boat filling up with water.  It is amazing how events in our lives can shake our faith because God is not present to us.

It is as if we are sleeping in the boat unaware of His presence and how He is guiding us to an encounter with the living God. The opening verses in Paul’s epistle gives us a perfect description of what is necessary for us to totally trust God amid the storms of our lives. In his second letter to the Corinthians, he wrote, “…The love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died (2Cor. 5:14-15).   Listen to those words again and let them settle in your hearts because there was a time when Paul did not believe them.  It was not until his encounter with Christ that Saul of Tarsus became a new creation because of Christ.  Once Paul was convinced about Jesus, his mission was to help everyone experience that transformation.   

Saul in his stubbornness was unwilling to consider the words and actions of Jesus until he encountered Christ on the road to Damascus. That experience became the catalyst for his conversion and a foundational truth that sustained Paul in the most trying circumstances of his life.  Note his words, “once we have come to the conclusion that one died for all.”  Once that belief becomes the foundation of your faith and mine it changes how we live and worship. It sustains us during the storms of our life for we know God is always with us and will never abandon us.  Once we believe that Christ’s death achieved redemption for us, everything changes.   

Shortly we will profess our faith in Jesus Christ by proclaiming the Creed. Familiar words, easy to say but to stand on them in the middle of a life crisis is hard.  It seems as if those words somehow have not penetrated our hearts.  We do believe His death achieved redemption for us, but we do not live as if we have been redeemed. 

Our doubt in God’s goodness impels us to rely on ourselves to ensure we will be embraced by God and strengthened during times of great despair.  That dependence on self makes us wonder why God is sleeping when we need Him.  What we need is an encounter with Christ like that of Saul or any of the people Jesus encountered in the scriptures.    

A dramatic encounter with Christ like Paul’s is life changing and yes it was never intended by God to be selective. Jesus invites us to “come to Him.”  Remember the story of the call of the disciples.  It changed them because they responded to His invitation to “cast their nets into the deep.”  They could have missed it because they were not only tired but because they did not believe it was worth the effort. After all they had fished all night and caught nothing.  Perhaps that is our problem, we do not see results from our efforts so why should we believe God is present to us.  As ridiculous as it seemed to them, they did what Jesus said.  What about us?  Are we doing what is necessary for an encounter that is life changing?  Jesus invites us to “open the doors of our hearts (and He will come in and dine with us” Rev.3:20).

Think about this, the words of God are given to us each Sunday. They are the inspired words of God.  To be honest I am not sure anyone remembers any of the scripture passages they hear proclaimed each week.  I bet Peter was not paying attention to what Jesus was preaching from his boat. He is like us, he just wanted to get home after fishing all night. When Jesus finished, He invites Peter to put out into the deep and cast his net.  We know Peter objected but complied and we know his net was filled with fish.  

We are not forced to respond to Christ invitation to open our hearts. It is an invitation to receive the transforming power of His death and resurrection.  By opening our hearts, we will become convicted about the reality of the gift of salvation and how it has opened the doors of God’s grace to each of us.  We will know Good is with us and will always feel His presence.   What God offers us is an absolute certainty that He is for us not against us and to know who we are in Christ.