February 2025
‘Take heart, it is I’. Mark 6.50 (NRSV)
Mark’s Gospel is short, bustling and full of action, concentrating at on the things
Jesus did and the places he went to rather than on his sayings, as Matthew does,
or on the life story that Luke gives us. So in these chapters we have tales of
Jesus’s activities, of miraculous healings, multitudes fed, and here in February’s
Saying, we find Jesus calming the storm and walking on the lake.
In the second part of this Saying, Jesus says ‘do not be afraid’. Sometimes when
people say things like this to us, we are tempted to reply ‘it’s easy for you to say
that – you can’t understand or share our situation’. But Jesus’ words: ‘it is I’, have
added significance. The Greek can be translated as ‘I AM’, exactly the same in
Greek as the 'I AM' sayings in St John's gospel; the divine 'I AM'. Jesus is here
giving reassurance based on his divinity. Christ in his human nature,
experienced what we experience. He teaches us with a compassion that comes
from fully sharing in our human condition as well as from his divine authority.
The waters of life are not always calm. There are storms and other fears than
those in the Gospel story; the fear of loneliness, of poverty, of old age, of ill-health, of the future, of losing one’s job or one’s home. Christ invites us to stand
alongside him in these storms; to open ourselves to the reassurances of his
Word. So we listen to this Saying, recognizing the presence of Christ as he says
‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.
Whenever we face moments of despair or anxiety, these words are for us. At such
times, we can say these words over and over again. They can be spoken to
ourselves or to others in intercession: ‘Take heart’; ‘do not be afraid’.
Many people say they can’t concentrate, their minds wander and they start
thinking of other things. This is why when we use our Saying we repeat it over
and over to hold our attention. With practice, some of us find that it grows in our
minds and hearts until we cease to hear the noises, to attend to the thoughts.
We truly can begin to contemplate; to allow the Saying to grow without our own
effort and to explode into our inner selves: ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.