One Of The Greatest Stupid Questions Asked Of Jesus

Saturday of the Third Week in Course

There are a few truly mindless questions in the Bible, or implied by the stories. You can probably think of a few offhand. “Noah, why are you building a big boat many miles from the ocean?” “David, have you seen the gorgeous woman next door on the roof?” My favorite is right here in Mark’s Gospel, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” But, really, when something goes wrong in my life, and maybe yours, don’t we want to shake our fists and ask the Lord if He really cares about us?

The author of our letter to the Hebrews has a better approach. He takes his readers back to the very beginning of the Jewish relationship to their God–the story of Abraham. He left his land and his home, everything he was familiar with, to become an exile in Palestine, with his barren wife, Sarah. He had heard the divine promise of land and a huge family; he didn’t hesitate, because he believed the divine voice he had heard. Sarah, too, initially laughed when promised that she in her ninth decade of life would bear a son, but she had faith and her belief was rewarded. They got to dwell in tents with their son, Isaac, and even saw grandchildren. They desired a better country, but didn’t find it on earth or in earthly life. No. The better country they really wanted is the one we all want–the very dwelling land of the Trinity.

In our psalm, which is the Gospel canticle of the priest Zechariah, we see the rest of the story, how God promised to king David that his throne would be occupied by a descendant of his for all time and beyond. Now most of his kingly heirs were total jerks, who yielded to the pagan culture and worshiped false gods. But David’s descendant, Jesus, was both God and man, and His paschal mystery, his passion, death and resurrection, served to give all of us a path to heavenly citizenship, with Jesus as our Lord and King. We are delivered from our diabolical foes, able to serve our Lord without fear, and bring ourselves and families and friends to that kingdom through our witness, prayer and sacrifices.

So return to that boat of Peter’s in the midst of the terrible storm. Of course Jesus cared that His apostles were in danger. The whole history of the Jewish people should have proved that. His words to the wind and waves should be something we all can hear whenever we are in a potential disaster: “Peace, be still.”