4th Sunday after Epiphany 29.1.12 True faith
Our Lord rebuked the apostles, not for waking Him, not for asking Him to still the storm, but for doubting Him.
How many miracles had they already seen, and yet they could still doubt? So what can we say, when we have so many more miracles to call upon – and we still doubt?
Our Lord wants and expects that we would believe in Him at all times, all weathers, without doubt, fear or compromise.
The Gospels are insistent on our total commitment. If you put your hand to the plough, do not look back. If you love father or mother more than Me, you cannot be My disciple. If you do not sell all you have and follow Me you cannot be perfect. And many more to the same effect, all calling for a complete dedication on our part. If we would follow this Man it must be without conditions on our part.
He, for His part, promises great happiness to us; but only after we take the narrow and winding path.
On what basis can we trust Him? Miracles we have seen or heard about; also just the ‘miracle’ of the everyday world, which we take for granted yet even the ordinary is extraordinary insofar as it is all designed and kept in place by God; and would collapse in a moment if He withdrew His creative will.
It is only our sin which causes us to doubt. If we had never disobeyed there would be no such thing as an atheist or agnostic. There would be no such thing as a fearful disciple. Sin puts us into darkness, and from that darkness we declare our doubt. But if we could come into the light we would see again.
One way to have more faith is to commit less sin!
We doubt His word because other people lie to us. We doubt His fidelity to us because other people let us down.
But Our Lord is not ‘other people’. He is entirely His own category, a new humanity, where truth and reliability become the new ‘normal’.
Faith can grow through experience. Each time we experience an answer to prayer we can store that away in our memory, and we will then have stronger faith to deal with the next crisis. Collectively as the Church we can borrow from all the miracles that have happened and they can serve to increase our faith.
In practice our faith has a way of going up and down, like the temperature; whereas it should only go up, never down. We might believe in Him one day when things are going well; then we are down again the next day because things are going against us; then we are back on top the day after.
This is allowing circumstances of the moment to influence us. But we are dealing with rock solid, unchanging truth. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
The certainty that we seek is ultimately a gift from Him. He can plant in us a certainty that will enable us to withstand the deceptions of the world, the emotional fluctuations caused by changing circumstances, the cunning of the devil.
If we seek this gift it will be granted to us; and more abundantly still if we act on it.
Who is this man, that even the winds and the sea obey him? Nature obeys Him always, but people only sometimes. We can do better. The more we obey Him the more we will believe. The more we believe the more we will obey – a new humanity free from doubt and fear.
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