Gospel Reading

[Lil Red]

+JMJ+
[url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/010610.shtml"]yesterday's Gospel reading[/url] was after the feeding of the 5000. so Jesus sends his disciples off in a boat to go toward Bethsaida, he goes up the mountain to pray. then in the evening, a big storm comes, and he sits on the shore and watches them be thrown around and be scared. then it says "He meant to pass by them". What the heck? why was he going to do that?

and then it says "on the contrary, their hearts were hardened". why, even after the multiplication of the loaves, and Jesus walking on water, were their hearts still hardened?

okay, [url="http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/010710.shtml"]then today's Gospel[/url] says: "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth." so, then, if everyone was amazed and spoke highly of him, then why did they turn on him? (this is most likely a very dumb question, but oh well.)

thanks.

[cappie]

"He meant to pass by them"

He wishes to teach us that even when we are in very pressurized and difficult situations, he is nearby, ready to help us; but he expects us to make an effort, to strengthen our hope and temper our resolve as an early Greek commentator puts it: "The Lord allowed his disciples to enter danger to make them suffer, and he did not immediately come to their aid: he left them in peril for the whole night, to teach them to be patient and not to be accustomed to receiving immediate succor in tribulation" (Theophylact, "Enarratio in Evangelium Marci, in loc.").

The disciples do not yet see Jesus' miracles as signs of his divinity. They witness the multiplication of the loaves and the fish (Mk 6:33-44) and the second multiplication of the loaves (Mk 8: 17), but their hearts and minds are still hardened; they fail to grasp the full import of what Jesus is teaching them through his actions -- that he is the Son of God. Jesus is patient and understanding with their defects, even when they fail to grasp what he says when he speaks about his own passion (Lk 18:34). Our Lord will give them further miracles and further teaching to enlighten their minds, and later, he will send the Holy Spirit to teach them all things and remind them of everything he said (cf.Jn 14:26).

St Bede the Venerable comments on this whole episode (Mk 6:45-52) in this way: "In a mystical sense, the disciples' efforts to row against the wind point to the efforts the Holy Church must make against the waves of the enemy world and the outpourings of evil spirits in order to reach the haven of its heavenly home. It is rightly said that the boat was out on the sea and He alone
on the land, because the Church has never been so intensely persecuted by the Gentiles that it seemed as if the Redeemer had abandoned it completely. But the Lord sees his disciples struggling, and to sustain them he looks at them compassionately and sometimes frees them from peril by clearly coming to their aid" ("In Marci Evangelium expositio, in loc.").

"all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth."
At first the people of Nazareth listened readily to the wisdom of Jesus'words. But they were very superficial; in their narrow-minded pride they felt hurt that Jesus, their fellow-townsman, had not worked in Nazareth the wonders He had worked elsewhere. They presume they have a special entitlement and they insolently demand that He perform miracles to satisfy their vanity, not to change their hearts. In view of their attitude, Jesus performs no miracle (His normal response to lack of faith: cf., for example, His meeting with Herod in Luke 23:7-11); He actually reproaches them, using two examples taken from the Old Testament (cf. 1 Kings 17:9 and 2 Kings 5:14), which show that one needs to be welldisposed if miracles are to lead to faith. His attitude so wounds their pride that they are ready to kill Him. This whole episode is a good lesson about understan-
ding Jesus. We can understand Him only if we are humble and are genuinely resolved to make ourselves available to Him.

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

[Theoketos]

They turned on him because they were concerned with having instead of being.