Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

— 45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray. When evening came, the boat was out on the lake, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the lake. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

In today’s Gospel, Mark draws us into the wonder of Jesus walking upon the sea and calming the wind. Just moments earlier, the crowds had been fed with five loaves and two fish – a sign of God’s abundant generosity and of Jesus’ tender compassion. Yet Mark tells us that the disciples “did not understand about the loaves; their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:52). How startling this seems until we recognise in ourselves the same tendency to measure the miraculous by our expectations rather than by God’s mystery. The disciples struggled to embrace the divinity of Jesus because they expected a Messiah who would be a political liberator, not the intimate Son who reveals God’s heart.

I, too, have missed God’s presence at work in my life when I am absorbed by what remains unresolved – relational tension, financial worries, unanswered prayers. I can overlook the quiet miracles of grace, dismissing my encounters with Jesus when my own concerns threaten to overshadow the light of Christ.

This eclipse of trust can dim the vision given to us at baptism, when grace claimed us as God’s own. In these moments, Isaiah’s words echo: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). When we come close to the mysteries of God, our hearts can harden into self-protective habits, focusing on what pains us rather than opening to what God is revealing.

As this New Year begins, let us ask for the grace to see again with our baptismal eyes, to trust God’s ways even when the path is unclear and to remain open to the surprising ways Christ draws near to us in the storms and stillness alike.