3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday – 29th January 2022 — Gospel: Mark 4,35-41
Power of the two worlds
Mark’s account of the boat being tossed in the sea is commonly referred to as the miracle of the calming of the Storm. There are many elements in this story that have parallels and verbatim with the story of the cleansing of the unclean spirit (1,21-28). Jesus’ rebuking the spirit and the command to “be silent” in 1,25 are parallel to Jesus’ rebuke of the wind and the command to “be still” in 4,39. The response of the crowd in 1,27, “What is this … he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him,” is parallel to the response of the disciples in 4,41, “who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” These similarities suggest that, for the evangelist who formulated and transmitted these stories for the early Christians, it means the exorcism and the stilling of the storm illustrate the same point: Jesus has power over both the natural world (winds and sea) and the supernatural world (demons).
