January 5th; Wednesday after Epiphany
1 John 4:11-18 / Mark 6:45-52
Ethel Waters was a famous black singer. Her heart was as big as her body. In her last interview before she died, she said: "I'm not afraid to die, honey... I know the Lord has his arms wrapped around this big, fat sparrow.” Ethel Waters loved much, and so the biblical revelation, “God is love," came quite natural for her. And if God is love, there is nothing to fear when death comes, especially for one who spent her life loving.
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How do we picture God? Is our image of God one of love or of fear? “He prayeth best who loveth best All things great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
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The weekdays of the Christmas-Epiphany season continue day after day to confront us with the person of Jesus. This child and our brother is God, and yet, this Son of God is fully human. This man Jesus manifests his divine power – in today’s gospel, by walking on the waters of the lake, with water a figure of death and the power of evil, which he overcame. His coming among people is God’s work of love; hence, the readings in this season are taken from John’s first letter, the core theme of which is love.
Both today’s readings bring out another contrast: love and fear. We have nothing to fear, not because we are without sin but because God loves us as we are, on account of Jesus. The apostles are still afraid because they do not really know yet who Jesus is, the one who overcame evil and death, and therefore all fears.
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The Church teaches that Jesus is God and man. He is fully divine and fully human. As much as there are many theological reflections done on that, how we are to understand it may depend on our encounter and experience of who Jesus is to us.
In the gospel, the disciples had only come to the understanding that Jesus was only human. They had seen the multiplication of loaves. For them, a hunger problem was solved and they may still be wondering about the deeper meaning of it. Then as they saw Jesus walking on the water, they thought He was a ghost and they cried out in fear.
It was only when Jesus got into the boat and the wind dropped and all was calm that they were utterly and completely dumbfounded. They had encountered the humanity of Jesus but they had yet to understand the divinity of Jesus.
As for us, we may understand a bit of both. We acknowledge that Jesus is our Saviour and we also see Him as one who came to be with us. We turn to Jesus in our difficulties because we know that He will understand because He was human like us. We turn to Him for divine assistance for we believe that He can make all things possible. But more importantly, let us love God and neighbour. That is what Jesus came to show us. That is what He wants us to do if we really believe in Him.
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Prayer
Lord God, loving Father, fear runs in our blood. We are often afraid of facing the future, of committing ourselves to one another, even of trusting ourselves, our emotions, and the forces slumbering within us. Convince us that there is nothing to fear and that you love us as we are, for you are our Father and you have given us your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
