By
Bimal John
The traveler to Zion will travel beyond
Don’t be afraid to see the waves…
Wind and sea
There is someone in the boat who is able to control…
As usual, when I sat with the children for the evening prayer, I thought to praise God by singing this familiar song. As I was singing the first four lines, fingering the strings of the guitar like I knew it, a vision came to my heart. On a train journey many years ago, one evening at dusk, a girl of eight or ten years of age, must have boarded from a station which had stopped just before, with a small instrument made of two pieces of wood in one hand and begging for alms while singing this song with the other hand. I didn’t think she knew the language or the meaning of the song, but I remembered that the song that rose in the train that cut through the wind and swayed to the rhythm filled me for a moment with thoughts of my beloved Jesus. After singing four lines, I suddenly stopped singing and looked at my children’s faces. Then shared the experience with them. But at least some people who were troubled by various thoughts on that train journey may have been comforted by the song she sang without knowing the meaning. May have caused them to be happy thinking about the Lord who cares for them. This is what I told the children. Remember how lucky the Lord has given you to live without knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of children wandering the streets without being able to satisfy their hunger. After I finished speaking, I continued to sing the song.
When I was singing, I remembered the time when the Lord Jesus was traveling to other side of the lake with his disciples one evening. Mark’s Gospel says this in chapter four, verse thirty-five. “And when it was evening, he said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.”” This event is recorded in Mark’s Gospel as an incident that took place in the early stages of our Lord’s ministry. Bible scholars have interpreted these words and actions of the Lord in many ways. The Lord was tired after giving a long sermon to the crowd gathered by the sea. The only way to escape the crowds on land is to cross the lake. Remember the verse that the Lord was sleeping with a pillow on the stern when the wind and the sea blew. At the stern was a leather, or perhaps wooden, movable seat for the man who steered the boat. Imagine the sight of our Lord with his body stretched out on the bottom of the boat and his head resting on it in exhaustion. The disciples who experienced the wind and hail were wrong in their fear, but in their fear and distress, their decision to look to the Lord was absolutely right. “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. 40 He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ ( Mark 4: 39-40 )
Our Lord revealed His full divinity to His disciples while still being fully human. “Why are you so cowardly? (Mark 4:40) Remember that if Christ is in the boat, we cannot give any reasonable account of fear. If our faith unites us to Jesus, nothing should shake our courage. On that very day, filled with multitudes of requests for healing, the religious leaders rejected Jesus for blasphemy. The crowd refused to recognize the truth of who He was. But the Lord took care to encourage and nurture His chosen disciples in their faith by interpreting His parables. He knew that this would enable them to weather the coming storm in their lives. Moreover, our merciful dear Lord knew that on the other side of the lake there was a naked, demon-possessed man (Mark 5:2). Jesus foreknew his deliverance by his faith and grace in the Lord.
“When it was evening, he said to them: “Let us go over to the other side”. We can also think of this verse in connection with the end of this world that we see and experience. We must remember that we are in a twilight time when world events herald the coming of the Lord. We can ask ourselves how ready we are to meet our Lord in the plane if we are still alive or if we are raised to meet him on the shore of that hope. Watchmen, what happened to the night? Watchmen, what happened to the night? We have heard the question and the watchman’s answer: The morning and the night have come (Isaiah 21:11-12). Those who follow Christ have nothing to fear because morning and night have come together. “Why are you so cowardly?” The Lord who asked is our morning. Our Lord said, “I am the root and the seed of David, and the bright rising star” (Revelation 22:16).
The Lamb is the lamp
There is no darkness here
He will give me a crown
He will dress me in festive clothes