"Have a boat ready...."

 

“He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him.  He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him.” (Mark 3:7-12)

In the first three chapters of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been on a whirlwind of healing.  Everywhere He went He healed and cast out demons.  His reputation (as a healer) preceded Him.  People were flocking to be in His presence – some even lowered through the roof!  In my reading today, they’re coming from Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea and beyond the Jordan – quite literally people are swarming from every direction!  Jesus is worried about the size of the crowd –“ get me a boat so I don’t get crushed…”

Jesus’ reputation was that of miracle worker and healer—and everyone was attracted, everyone wanted to catch sight of Him, to touch Him, to be healed.  The demons though, cried out ‘You are the Son of God’.   Does that have the same attraction?   If Jesus is the Son of God, what does that mean for me?   How do I enter into that?

It’s much easier, safer even to come to the ‘miracle worker’, let Him touch me and cure me and then I can go my merry way.  But if He is the ‘Son of God’ do I have to stick around, do I have to believe?   Follow?   Change my ways even?

Who is Jesus for me?  Do I have (or want) a relationship or is it easier just to ask for help every once in a while?  What ‘miracle’ do I need to grow my relationship with the Son of God?

Reading this gospel today reminded me of my brother Tom, who died much too early at 44 years old.  I was so distraught that I wrote a booklet (published for family members only) to cope with my distress.  I called on the Holy Spirit often to help me discern what to put in the memoir.  I found a journal that Tom had been writing.  It was a form of therapy he came up with to deal with his own ‘demons’, including the loss of his son Tommy while they were fishing, as well as attention and memory issues related to complications from his illness. 

One of papers he wrote was this one, written when he (I imagine) felt like Jesus in the gospel reading today…crushed (under the weight of sorrow at the death of his only son):

Every time I go fishing I will remember that the last moments of Tommy's life were filled with love.  Because I know how much he loved me and that we had spent a blissful afternoon; and we were excited about the prospect of spending the remainder of the day together fishing, swimming and laughing--completely content. 

Some time ago, I was asked the question, "What do you think are the one or two words that describe how you would like to live the rest of your life?"  I responded with "contentment and serenity."  Afterwards, I was asked to draw what my vision of "contentment and serenity" would look like.

I drew a picture in my mind of a man sitting, no, reclining in a simple rowboat, with a straw hat providing his only disguise from the mid-day sun.  Far in the distance the shoreline doubled as the horizon, with images of some agricultural outbuildings, surrounded by harvested cornfields, somewhat overgrown by time.  The remainder of the horizon was in its natural state, as one would expect to see on any leisurely Sunday drive in the mid-west states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana or Michigan—tall cottonwood trees, Dutch elms, oaks, river birch, and eucalyptus.

The sun was giving the most magnificent reflection of all of Nature's beauty on the water, ever-changing with the passing of the day.  Out of nowhere the sweet, warm afternoon breeze would cause the sunlight to sparkle through the leaves of the trees on the horizon, falling, then without warning, dancing with the boat through the rippling carpet of water.

Tom must have had more to say and was interrupted from his thoughts somehow, because he began another sentence but didn't finish it…”Possibly the most serene notion of this beautiful passage of time is that…"

As I read the passage, I could see what he was seeing as clearly as if he had painted it.  I like to think that the last sentence, if completed would have read, “Possibly the most serene notion of this beautiful passage of time is that…I am the man in the boat.”