February 7, 2025

Mark 6:14-29

In today’s reading, people were encountering Jesus and his “mighty powers.”  In trying to make sense conceptually of their experiences, they tried to define conceptually who this powerful divine presence could be and what it meant.  Some guessed he was John the Baptist who had come before him, now raised from the dead.  Others speculated that he could be the Prophet Elijah, and others an ordinary prophet.  But when King Herod heard of it, his guilty conscience came back to haunt him.  He felt sure it was John the Baptist, whom he had beheaded for a frivolous reason, now raised up. 

Although we can look back with the benefit of history to say assuredly that Jesus was manifesting as the Son of God, if we had been there we too would have experienced not knowing what to make of him.  In fact, even now in prayer, we may experience God in “the cloud of unknowing,” as the medieval monk so aptly wrote. God is beyond concepts; a direct experience of God’s presence is unknowable, nonconceptual, and uncategorizable.  In prayer, let us rest in the state of unknowing. It is beneficial. Our minds are very active by nature, but give it a rest.  Amen.