Mark 6:45-51 And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before to Bethsaida… What is it which so often troubles our faith in the Divine promises? It is the fact that God does not direct events and things for the triumph of His cause, and that that cause seems often to be vanquished by fatality. This is a contradiction which confounds us. God wants truth to prevail; He commands His Church to announce it to the world; His design is here express and manifest, and when, to serve Him, His Church puts itself to the work, God permits circumstances to array themselves against it and hinder it. The wind was contrary! How many times have believers felt this! In the first centuries it was that periodical succession of implacable persecutions, scattering the flocks, immolating the shepherds, annihilating the Holy Scriptures, destroying in one dark hour the harvest of which the world had seen the admirable first fruits. The wind was contrary! At the close of the Middle Ages, and under the influence of the scandals displayed in Rome, it was that mocking and profound unbelief which secretly undermined the Church to such a degree that, without a religious awakening, the world would seem to become heathen again under the breath of the Renaissance. The wind was contrary! Later on came the ardent and generous passions of the eighteenth century letting loose on the world a formidable tempest. In our days listen. Is the wind which comes down from the icy heights of positive science favourable to our cause? Is the stream which comes to us from the springs of our democratic societies sympathetic? Are you not often scared at seeing all the hostile powers which combine against Christianity today? Doctrines openly materialistic, grave or cynical atheism, harsh and disparaging criticism, rightful complaints too well justified by the infidelities of believers, prejudices, misunderstandings, blind passions, — do not all these announce, even to the least clear-sighted, formidable storms to which our actual strifes are only as child's play? Why does God allow His cause to be thus compromised? Why does not He, who is the Master of the waves, pacify the storms? That is one of those grievous questions which none of us can escape. Scripture replies to it in some measure. It has pleased God, says St. Paul, to choose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. One would say that He wishes to show that the triumph of the gospel expects nothing from external things, from the impulse which comes from popular currents. We forget that Christ overcame the world only by raising against Him all its resistance, that the cross has been a sign of triumph only because it has been an instrument of punishment, and that in its apparent impotence and ignominy we must seek the secret of its power. The wind was contrary! But this was not the only obstacle the disciples encountered. Jesus Christ comes to them, but not till the fourth watch of the night, that is to say, near to the morning. Till then, we might say, He has forgotten them. It is in the last hour that He comes to succour them. History is like a night stretching across the ages; in all times believers are called to wait for God's intervention, but God delays to come, and that is the supreme trial of faith, greater perhaps than the opposition of men and even of persecution. The first Christians believed in the immediate return of Christ; that hope has often filled a generation of believers with enthusiasm. Already they saw the dawn breaking, they saluted the King of glory who came to deliver the Church and to subdue humanity. A dangerous excitement, a transitory fever in which imagination had more share than faith! On coming out of those dreams, the enervated soul often despairs, and in a paroxysm of gloomy discouragement it doubts the truth, because it no longer expects its triumph. It must be said that God, who is the Master of time, has reserved to Himself to fix its duration, and that we are absolutely forbidden to bind it in our measures and limits. Now what is true of the history of humanity applies equally to each of us. When the night of trial begins, we want deliverance to be announced during the first watch. Why does God remain inactive and silent? Why those long delays and those unanswered prayers? Why that tranquil, slow, regular course of second causes behind which the First Cause remains mute and without effect? The violent emotions of great trials are less formidable than that pitiless monotony which enervates and wears out the secret springs of the soul. Now, precisely because this danger is so real we must forecast it. Let us know, beforehand, that that trial is in store for us. If God delays, wait for Him. At last Christ draws near. He walks on the waves before the disciples, but they, frightened, see in Him only a phantom, and emit a cry of terror. All the traits of this narrative may seem those of a striking allegory, and this last still more than the others. Often Christ has appeared to humanity as a phantom. That pure and holy image, all whose features unite in the eyes of faith to form the most ravishing harmony, that face which surpasses all those of the sons of men, and which traverses the centuries surrounded by a halo of righteousness, of purity, of infinite mercy, that being at once so real and so ideal, so real that none has left on earth a deeper impression, so ideal that no light has made His pale, that Christ has often awoke in those who beheld Him for the first time only mistrust, hostility, mockery, and more than one generation has hailed Him with a repellent cry. Let the writings of the most ancient adversaries of Christianity be read. Let one page be quoted to me in which a trace is recognized of the moral impression which the life of Christ produces today on every sincere conscience. We believe that they never contemplated Him; that their look was never stayed on Him in an hour of justice. They had the Gospels, they had the living testimony of the Church, and the history of Jesus was not yet disfigured by the iniquities of its defenders. It does not matter, they saw Him only through the thick cloud of prejudice and hatred. It was a phantom they fought against. The Christ of Celsus and of Julian, the Christ whom anti-Christian satire mocks, is a silly Jew, whose greatness no one suspects for a moment. Our century has seen the same facts reproduced in an entirely different form. To what did that vigorous and learned attack against Christianity tend, so cleverly led by Strauss, if not to make a myth of Christ and His work; that is to say, a mere conception of the human consciousness? Now a mythical personage is a phantom and nothing more. The supernatural Christ was to them only a phantom, and they would never have believed then that one day they would find light and peace at His feet. But in the midst of the gloom which envelops the disciples a voice is heard. Jesus Christ has spoken. He has said, "It is I; be not afraid." The apostles recognize that voice, and in the midst of the storm their hearts are penetrated with a Divine peace. It is the same at all seasons. There is an incomparable emphasis in Christ's sayings. Yesterday we were in trouble and anguish, today we hear and are subdued. Explain who can this phenomenon. It is a fact for which witnesses would rise today in all parts of the world. Here is the tempest of doubt. Here around you and into your very soul another night descends, envelops and penetrates you. It is the night of remorse, the memory of a guilty past which haunts and besets the human conscience. Here is the hour of suffering. Finally, here is death, death which for in any of our travelling companions is the extreme end and the separation without return. He has spoken. Will you pay attention to this? I do not say, "He has reasoned, He has argued, He has proved." I simply say, "He has spoken!" Now it is found that everywhere and in every age there are men who are enlightened, soothed, consoled by this voice, and to whom it gives an invincible conviction, an immortal hope! (E. Bersier, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. |
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