Let us go across to the other side
Mark 4:35-36
4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side."
4:36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.
The universe is a strange place. There is always another side, except when there is none, but that is another case.
There is always another side in the case of the omnipresent symmetry in the universe, which is a very odd phenomenon in itself.
Left and right, up and down, in and out, off and into are directions in space,together with x,y,z in a coordinating system. There are also the temporal dimensions like the then and now, which ever comes faster, as time runs fast enough through the present moments, but there is always the this, and there is always the not this, but the that.
Beside the physically opposing sides, like the turning of the other cheek, there are the social, the psychological, the moral, the religious, the metaphysical sides.
In the battlefield the distribution of the troops looks mostly clear, regarding which side belongs to the enemy, and which is the friendly side.
Although the application of the hostile and friendly terms in a war depends on the frequently changing point of view called the situation report.
In a class society the perpetual class warfare among the classes is millennia old, where the two major sides were always the rich and the poor, even in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, in the medieval German Empire, in the Victorian England, or in the Soviet- Union, same old story about the Haves and the Have Nots.
In the spiritual reality on the eternal battlefield of the souls the demarcation line is drawn between the good and the bad, between the wicked and the godly.
Especially in the spiritual reality, we can see that the two sides are not morally equivalent, and the Holy Scriptures demand that we have to take side in this antagonistic opposition by siding with the good and goodly, siding with the holy and God.
The Gospel story, talking about the boat in the storm, when the boat and its riders were threatened by the waves and the wild weather of perishing has a parallel narrative in the Greek Mythology. According to the myth of Charon and his boat, there is a river, called the Styx, which separates this world from the other side, the Afterlife. The only way to cross to the shores of the Afterlife is the Boat of Charon, where Charon is the ferryman of the Greek underworld.
In a figurative explanation, as a metaphor, Jesus invited the disciples to go to the other sided world, while in this side the cosmic law of the entropy and decay threatens everything, the animate together with the inanimate inanimate. As all systems animate or inanimate were born, so all systems is sentenced to death by Time, as itself mus obey the laws in the universe.
The opposite of this side, the other side is not subjected to the laws of the this sided world, the other side is not subjected to the material decay, entropy and this order.
In a metaphorical exhortation of the Gospel story, the disciples in the Boat were threatened by the certain death and perishing, that is why, they did not have any other choice but that have to wake up Jesus, who did what, he was sleeping,as it is written:
“ A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ ”
One of the most vulnerable human physicality, when someone is sleeping, and having no control of his consciousness.
However, as a figurative speech, the Gospel story shows, that the only person who was able to command the storm to stop, was the only person, who was able to peacefully sleep during the storm. Some people think that the Son of God did not need to rest, like ever.
There is a saying, commonly held in Transylvania, that the devil is the one who is not sleeping, like ever.
We all know, that in general we may endure a maximum of two days without water, approximately three weeks without food, just a few minutes without Oxygen, and only a few days without sleep. This latter is quite interesting, because we can have a rest without sleeping, like doing absolutely nothing, but still, without sleep we will become very speedily worn out, and extreme sleep deprivation may cause death as well.
Every single night or sleep time according to our sleep schedule, we must sleep.
And sleeping is very similar to recharging of the batteries. The cars, running on fossil fuels, technically can run almost without end whenever the tanks are filled and the car parts are in a good shape. The electric cars must be regularly recharged and it takes a while. Humans look like hybrid cars, we need biochemical fuel to run our activities, and also we need to recharge the batteries, where this electromagnetic phenomenon, we call human soul, requires spiritual energy.
The source of the spiritual energy is in the spiritual realm, we call Heaven. Every single night or sleeping we cross the boundaries between this world and Heaven, and we have to go to the other side, to the source of the spiritual energy, to the source of life in order to recharge the batteries of our souls.
Despite the popular wishful thinking of any scientific attempt to describe life, the source of life is not here in the biophysical world, but it is on the other side in the original home of the souls, where we came from and to where we return not only after this life, but also every single night or daytime sleeping.
Also there is a transitional method, to reach the Heavenly sources in order at least to partially recharge the spiritual batteries, and this is the explicit channel to God, what we call prayer, meditation and contemplation, like bridges to the source of life, overarching the border between this life and the Afterlife.
Thus, in the Gospel story, when Jesus invited the disciples to go to the other side, he knew what this crossing will bring, so the whole experience is pinpointing the major godly wisdom, that not one can make it to the other side, but by faith, as it is written “ Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them,‘Why are you afraid?Have you still no faith?’ ” May God grant us death rejecting, victorious faith by the grace of the Lord, AMEN
