Second Wednesday of Advent – Mark 4:35-40
On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
How do you experience peace? We often feel as though our to-do lists keep getting longer no matter how hard we work. When we finally sit down to rest, our minds quickly turn to tomorrow’s work, or we think about everything we didn’t get done today. In a world where we are always reachable, we start and end our days by checking email just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Because of this reality, we find it incredibly difficult to experience peace.
In today’s reading, Jesus makes a connection between fear (lack of peace) and faith (trust). He says, “If you trusted me, you wouldn’t have been afraid.” At the root of peace is trust. If the disciples trusted Jesus, they would have known that things were going to work out.
Perhaps we have such a hard time experiencing peace because we are afraid of what will happen if we let go of our control. We have a hard time trusting that the world will keep on turning without us.
In Advent, we are invited to step back and recognize that we are not in control of the world around us. Rather than experiencing the fear that comes with uncertainty, we can step into the peace that is offered to us when we trust that our lives are in God’s capable hands, and that’s a good thing.
- When was the last time you experienced real peace?
- Have you ever felt like things were out of control in your life?
- What would it look like for you to unplug for an evening or a day this week/weekend and trust that God is at work, even when you are resting?