Lenten Reflection – Day 32 of the Great Lent
It Is I; Do Not Be Afraid: St. Mark 6:47-56
“But He said to them, ‘Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.'” (6:50)
Yesterday Christ went up the mountain to pray. He sent the disciples ahead in the boat and dismissed the crowd. The shepherd withdrew. The inhale began. The silence of the mountain replaced the noise of the ministry.
Today we discover what happened while He was on the mountain.
The disciples are alone. In the dark. On the water. The wind is against them. They are rowing hard and getting nowhere. And Christ is not with them.
This is the passage for the person who has been doing everything right during the fast and finds himself in the middle of the sea at night with the wind in his face and no sign of God anywhere. The person who prayed and the prayer did not seem to land. The person who fasted and the hunger produced nothing but hunger. The person who showed up every day and feels further from God than when the fast began.
The mountain and the sea happen simultaneously. Christ is praying on the mountain. The disciples are straining on the water. And both are part of the plan.
Straining at Rowing (vv. 47–48a)
“Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He was alone on the land. Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them.” (6:47–48a)
Two locations. Two conditions. Both happening at the same time.
On the mountain: Christ. Praying. In communion with the Father. At peace. The deepest silence the Gospels ever record. The Son of God alone with the Father in the dark.
On the sea: the disciples. Rowing. Straining. Fighting the wind. Getting nowhere. The Greek word is basanizomenous. It means tormented. Tortured. Not simply inconvenienced. The rowing was anguish. The wind was relentless. The sea was not cooperating. And the shore was not getting any closer.
“He was alone on the land.” Mark places this detail between the boat and the storm. The disciples are on the water. Christ is on the land. The distance between them is not just geographical. It is experiential. They are suffering. He is praying. They are straining. He is still. They are in the storm. He is on the mountain.
And He sees them.
“He saw them straining at rowing.” From the mountain, in the dark, across the water, Christ sees. The disciples do not know they are being watched. They think they are alone. They think the mountain has swallowed their teacher and they have been left to fight the wind by themselves. But they are seen. Every stroke of the oar. Every gust of wind that pushes them backward. Every moment of exhaustion and frustration and fear. Seen. From the mountain. In the dark. By the One who sent them into the boat in the first place.
This detail changes everything.
On Day 20, Christ saw the crowd’s hunger before they mentioned it. On Day 28, He saw the bent woman before she asked. Today He sees the disciples’ struggle from a mountain in the dark. The pattern is consistent. Christ always sees. Even when the distance feels infinite. Even when the darkness feels total. Even when you are convinced that the mountain has consumed Him and you are alone on the sea.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Commentary on the Diatessaron, writes that Christ’s seeing from the mountain is not the observation of a distant spectator. It is the attention of a shepherd counting his flock. The shepherd on the hill sees every sheep in the valley. Not because the sheep are visible. Because the shepherd’s eyes are trained to find them. Ephrem teaches that Christ was praying for them while watching them. The prayer on the mountain was not a retreat from the disciples’ struggle. It was the source of the power that would soon end it.1
Thirty-two days into the fast. Some of us feel like the disciples in the boat. Straining. Rowing against the wind. The shore no closer than it was a week ago. The spiritual progress we expected has not materialized. The prayer life feels like rowing in a headwind. The disciplines feel like torment rather than training.
And we think we are alone.
We are not. The One on the mountain sees us. He has always seen us. The distance between the mountain and the boat is not the distance between God and us. It is the space in which the miracle is about to happen.
The Fourth Watch of the Night (v. 48b)
“Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.” (6:48b)
The fourth watch. Between three and six in the morning. The last watch. The darkest hours. The hours when the body is at its lowest. When the will is weakest. When despair is most convincing.
The disciples had been rowing since evening. Mark says the boat was in the middle of the sea when evening came. Now it is the fourth watch. They have been straining for six to nine hours. Against the wind. In the dark. Without progress.
Six to nine hours.
And Christ comes in the fourth watch. Not the first. Not the second. Not even the third. The fourth. The last possible moment before dawn. The moment after every other hope has been exhausted.
This is how Christ often works. Not at the beginning of the suffering. Not in the middle when we are still managing. At the end. When the arms are too heavy to row. When the wind has worn us down. When the darkness has been total for so long that we have forgotten what light looks like. The fourth watch.
The Great Lent is measured in watches. The first watch was fresh. The second watch was disciplined. The third watch was grinding. We are now in the fourth watch of the fast. The final stretch before Passion Week. The darkest hours. The hours when the body and the spirit are at their lowest.
And this is when Christ comes.
“Walking on the sea.” The sea that has been tormenting them. The water that has been their enemy. The waves that have been pushing them backward. Christ walks on all of it. The thing they have been fighting, He walks on as though it were a floor. The sea is not His enemy. It is His footpath. The storm that has been tormenting them is nothing more than the ground beneath His feet.
“And would have passed them by.”
This is the most mysterious phrase in the passage. He would have passed them by. Why? Why would Christ walk across the sea toward His struggling disciples and then pass them?
The phrase echoes the Old Testament. In Exodus 33:19–22, God passes by Moses on Sinai. In 1 Kings 19:11, God passes by Elijah on the mountain. The “passing by” is not indifference. It is theophany. It is the way God reveals Himself. He comes close enough to be seen. Close enough to be recognized. And the recognition changes everything.
Christ was not ignoring the disciples. He was revealing Himself to them. Passing by so they could see who was walking on their storm. The God of Sinai. The God of Elijah’s mountain. Walking on water in the fourth watch of the night.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his Commentary on the Gospel of John (on the parallel passage in John 6:16–21), teaches that Christ’s walking on the sea was not a demonstration of power for its own sake. It was a revelation of identity. The disciples needed to know who they were following. Not just a teacher. Not just a healer. Not just a prophet. The Lord of creation. The one who has authority over the sea because He made the sea. Cyril says the storm was the classroom. The waves were the lesson. And the walking was the exam. Could the disciples recognize God walking toward them in the dark, on the water, in the fourth watch?2
It Is I; Do Not Be Afraid (vv. 49–50)
“And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, ‘Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.'” (6:49–50)
They see a figure on the water. In the dark. In the storm. And they think it is a ghost.
Of course they do. People do not walk on water. The human mind, faced with the impossible, reaches for the nearest explanation. Ghost. Phantom. Apparition. Anything but the truth. Because the truth is too large.
“They all saw Him and were troubled.” All of them. Not one brave disciple recognizing the Lord while the others cower. Every single one of them saw the figure and was terrified. The fear was unanimous. The mis-identification was complete.
And then the voice.
“Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
Three statements. Each one does something different.
“Be of good cheer.” Tharseite. Take courage. The word addresses the emotion. They are afraid. He meets the fear first. Before the theology. Before the explanation. Before the identity reveal. He says: courage. The emotional state is acknowledged and addressed. He does not say “stop being afraid” as though fear were a moral failure. He says “take courage” as though courage were something He was handing them.
“It is I.” Ego eimi. In Greek, this is not just a casual identification. “It’s me, relax.” Ego eimi is the divine name. The name God gave Moses at the burning bush. “I AM WHO I AM.” When Jesus says ego eimi on the water in the dark in the fourth watch of the night, He is saying: the God of the burning bush is walking toward you on the waves. The I AM is here. On the water. In the storm. In the darkest hour. The same God who parted the Red Sea is walking across this one.
“Do not be afraid.” Now the command. Now that the identity has been revealed. Do not be afraid. Not “do not be afraid because the storm will stop.” Not “do not be afraid because I will get you to shore.” Do not be afraid because I AM is here. The storm may continue. The wind may still blow. The waves may still rise. But the fear can stop. Because the I AM is on the water. And if He can walk on it, He can carry you across it.
St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily 50 on Matthew (on the parallel passage), teaches that the words ego eimi on the water are the most concentrated revelation of Christ’s divinity in the Synoptic Gospels. The disciples were not just frightened by a ghost. They were confronted by God. And the appropriate response to the presence of God is not calm analysis. It is exactly what happened: terror, followed by the voice, followed by peace. Chrysostom says this is the pattern of every genuine encounter with God. You are afraid because the presence is overwhelming. Then you hear the voice. Then the fear becomes awe. And the awe becomes peace.3
For us on Day 32, the words are the same. Be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid.
We are in the fourth watch of the fast. The wind is against us. The shore is not getting closer. And a figure is approaching across the water. It might look like a ghost. It might look like a phantom of our own exhaustion. It might look like an apparition born from too many days of fasting and too many hours of prayer.
It is not a ghost. It is the I AM. Walking on the thing that has been tormenting us. Coming to us in the darkest hour. And saying: courage. It is I. Stop being afraid.
Their Hearts Were Hardened (vv. 51–52)
“Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marvelled. For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.” (6:51–52)
He gets in the boat. The wind stops. Immediately. The sea that has been tormenting them for hours goes quiet the moment Christ steps aboard.
And Mark adds a devastating editorial note.
“For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.”
The loaves. The feeding of the five thousand. The miracle from the day before. Yesterday, Christ took five loaves and two fish and fed a multitude with twelve baskets left over. The disciples distributed the bread. They collected the fragments. They saw it with their own eyes. They held the multiplied bread in their own hands.
And they did not understand.
If they had understood the loaves, they would not have been afraid on the sea. If they had understood that the One who multiplied bread could also master the waves, they would have recognized Him on the water instead of mistaking Him for a ghost. The miracle of the loaves should have prepared them for the miracle on the sea. But their hearts were hard. The lesson did not penetrate.
This is the most honest verse in the passage. And possibly the most relevant to Day 32.
We have had thirty-one days of loaves. Thirty-one days of Scripture. Thirty-one days of miracles in the text and miracles in our own experience. Moments when God was unmistakably present. Moments when the bread was multiplied and the fragments collected and the evidence was in our hands. We saw it. We held it.
And today, in the storm, we are afraid. Because we did not understand about the loaves. Because the lesson did not penetrate. Because our hearts, after thirty-one days of fasting and prayer, are still capable of hardness.
Mark does not say the disciples were bad. He says their hearts were hardened. The word is pepōrōmenē. It means calloused. Thickened. Not dead. Insensitive. The surface had become too tough for the lesson to get through.
On Day 29, we reflected on the potter and the clay. The same sun melts wax and hardens clay. Here is the proof. The same miracle that should have opened their eyes left their hearts calloused. Not because the miracle was insufficient. Because the heart was not soft enough to receive it.
St. Macarius the Great, in his Spiritual Homilies, teaches that the hardened heart is not a wicked heart. It is a distracted heart. A heart that has seen the miracle and been impressed by the miracle and still has not let the miracle reshape its understanding of who God is. Macarius says the distance between seeing the bread multiply and recognizing Christ on the water is the distance between observation and faith. Observation records the event. Faith understands what the event reveals about God. And the heart that observes without believing grows hard. Not from rebellion. From repetition without penetration.4
Thirty-two days. Have the loaves penetrated? Or have we collected the fragments and moved on without understanding?
They Touched the Hem of His Garment (vv. 53–56)
“When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored there. And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people recognised Him, ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick to wherever they heard He was. Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.” (6:53–56)
After the storm. After the walking on the water. After the calloused hearts. Ordinary ministry resumes. And something extraordinary happens in the ordinary.
The people of Gennesaret do not have deep theology. They have not watched Christ on the water. They have not heard the ego eimi. They have not reflected on the loaves. They simply recognise Jesus and bring their sick.
They bring them on beds. On stretchers. On whatever they can carry them on. From every village and city and country place in the region. They lay the sick in the marketplaces. Not in the synagogue. Not in a special healing service. In the public square. Where commerce happens. Where ordinary life unfolds.
And they ask for one thing. To touch the hem of His garment. Not His hand. Not His face. The fringe. The border. The edge.
“As many as touched Him were made well.”
Not some. As many as. Everyone who reached out. Everyone who touched even the fringe. Healed.
This is the simplest expression of faith in the entire Gospel of Mark. No argument like the Canaanite woman. No friends tearing open a roof like the paralytic. No persistence through silence. Just a hand reaching out. And a hem within reach.
On Day 21, the Canaanite woman said: “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” The crumbs were enough. Today, the hem is enough. The fringe of His garment. The outer edge. The last thread. Enough.
St. Ephrem, in his broader treatment of the healing miracles, writes that the power of Christ is not diminished by the distance between the centre and the edge. The hem contains the same power as the heart. The fringe heals as surely as the hand. Because the power is not in the garment. It is in the Person. And every part of the Person is fully God. The fringe of Christ’s robe is no less divine than the hand of Christ that multiplied the loaves. Ephrem says: do not wait for the dramatic encounter. Reach for the hem. The hem is close enough. The hem is available. And the hem heals.5
What This Means for Day 32
Three scenes. Three lessons for the fourth watch of the fast.
The storm. It is real. The wind is against us. The rowing is agonizing. We are not imagining it. The fast is hard right now. The disciplines feel like rowing against a headwind. The spiritual progress we expected has not materialized. The shore is not closer than it was a week ago. The struggle is real.
But we are being seen. From the mountain. In the dark. Christ sees us straining. And He is already walking toward us across the water.
The identity. The figure on the water is not a ghost. It is not our imagination. It is not a phantom of spiritual exhaustion. It is the I AM. The God who made the sea is walking on it. The God who multiplied the loaves is approaching the boat. And He is saying: courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. The storm does not need to stop for the fear to end. The presence of Christ in the storm is enough.
The hem. We may not have the strength for a dramatic spiritual breakthrough in these final weeks of the fast. We may not have the energy for a mountaintop encounter. We may be too tired for anything except reaching out our hand. That is enough. Touch the hem. The fringe of His garment. The smallest point of contact. The prayer we barely have the energy to whisper. The faith we can barely find at four in the morning. It is enough. As many as touched Him were made well.
For Our Journey Today
Name the storm. What is the headwind we are rowing against right now? Not the headwind from Day 1 of the fast. The headwind today. This week. This hour. Name it. Not to analyze it. So we can stop pretending it is not there. The disciples were straining at rowing. Acknowledge the strain. The strain is not failure. It is faithfulness in the headwind.
Listen for the voice. In the storm, on the water, in the dark, a voice says: it is I. Today, listen for that voice. Not in the dramatic moments. In the ordinary ones. In the cup of water we drink after fasting. In the face of the person across from us at morning prayer. In the line of Scripture that suddenly stops being words and starts being a voice. The I AM speaks in the fourth watch. Listen for Him there.
Reach for the hem. We do not need a dramatic encounter today. We need a point of contact. A hem within reach. The prayer that takes ten seconds. The cross we press to your forehead. The breath we take before the next task. The moment we stop and remember that the I AM is on the water. Reach for the hem. The hem heals as surely as the hand.
Lord Jesus Christ, who walked on the sea in the fourth watch and said “It is I; do not be afraid,” walk toward us today. We are in the fourth watch of this fast. The wind is against us. The shore is not closer. We have been rowing for thirty-two days and our arms are heavy. We are afraid. Not because the storm is too large. Because the night has been too long. And we have forgotten about the loaves. We saw the miracle. We held the bread. And we still do not understand. Soften our calloused hearts. Let the loaves teach us what they were meant to teach: that the One who multiplied bread can master the sea. That the One who feeds can walk on the thing that torments. Come to us on the water. Speak the name that silences every storm. Ego eimi. I AM. And let us stop being afraid. Not because the wind has ceased. Because You are in the boat. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Evangelist Mark, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Patristic References
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Commentary on the Diatessaron. ↩︎
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444). Commentary on the Gospel of John, on John 6:16–21 (the parallel passage to Mark 6:47–52). ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407). Homily 50 on Matthew, on Matthew 14:22–33 (the parallel passage to Mark 6:47–52). ↩︎
- St. Macarius the Great (c. 300–391). Spiritual Homilies (Homiliae Spirituales), particularly Homilies 5, 15, and 27. ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373) Same as 1 above ↩︎
