This evening I will take myself off for 48 hours of solitude in the prayer hut at Ngatiawa. Perhaps, like my wedding, this will prove to be a highlight of my sabbatical. Unlike my wedding, I am feeling a degree of trepidation: what will these 48 hours mean? What am I being called to?
I have been reflecting this week on a small incident recorded in Matthew’s gospel:
When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.
With Jesus, it wasn’t just about the crowds, healing people, dealing with their suffering. True, that was a part of it – he had just been healing people and casting out demons. But it wasn’t the whole picture. Jesus didn’t come to be just a miracle worker, magically fixing all the world’s problems. A frank look at the ongoing war, violence, abuse and natural disasters we see in today’s news is enough to tell us that.
Nor did he come just as a great teacher, up there with the likes of Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, or the Buddha. Again, that was a part of it – Matthew had just recorded the Sermon on the Mount – perhaps some of the greatest religious teaching of all time. Jesus didn’t come to be a great teacher, to show us all how to live better lives so we can solve the world’s problems: again, a look at today’s news, or even at my own life is proof enough that, if that were his mission, he failed.
The uncomfortable reality, as I look at this verse in Matthew, is that Jesus wanted his disciples to go further and deeper – to cross to the other side of the lake. He wanted disciples who would come away from the crowd, who would spend time with him, getting to know him, drawing closer to him.
He wants followers who will launch out into the unknown with him; who will cross to the other side of the lake. Is that the place of stillness and silence? Or the place of uncertainty, of turmoil and storms?
What about me? Am I prepared to cross to the other side of the lake? Will I take the risk of launching out into the unknown? Will I press deeper to get to know Jesus, to spend time with him? Am I prepared to scratch beneath the surface – to see beyond any popular conceptions of who Jesus is – whether as a teacher or a healer – and find Jesus as the suffering servant, the one who took up our infirmities and bore our diseases? Am I prepared to join Jesus in the pain and turmoil of life?
