Storms Do Not Last, But His Liberating Presence Does!

(Homily 12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr. B)

     The message emanating from the liturgical readings of this Sunday presents God in His sovereignty, Jesus in his human and divine natures and God’s power over the created order. God spoke from the tempest to respond to Job’s interrogations, and Jesus spoke to the storm and calmed the fears of the disciples. The question that lingers is this: “who can this be?” The first reading presents God as the Creator and Sustainer of all there is, man inclusive, while the Gospel passage serves as an attempt to unravel the question of and on Jesus’ identity, who is He (Jesus)? Then from the question of who Jesus is, to the question of who a Christian should be and what ought to be his or her comportment. To this, the Gospel says that a Christian is one who has Christ in his boat, who welcomes Him in his or her heart and makes Him a companion in his journey of life. In the same vein, St. Paul in the second reading reiterates that a Christian is a new creature, one who has been captured and possessed by Christ and continually moved by the love of Christ.

     In the first reading (Job 38:1.8-11) we see partly the ordeal of Job. The book of Job poses before us, the profound question on how to reconcile God’s existence and love and man’s suffering. In fact, each of the comforters of Job had spoken his mind, and Job too responded to their arguments and provocations. Job indeed spoke for all us. Finally, Yahweh speaks to Job, He spoke to him “from the heart of the tempest” (v.1), which denotes a theophany, the manifestation of divine presence. In his response, Yahweh asserted His transcendence and the inapplicability of the human standards to judge His ways. No doubt, Job was inexistent at creation! So he cannot comprehend the power and workings of God. Indeed, in this passage, we are confronted with the question of why sometimes God does not intervene in some human ugly situations or He permits certain things that in human viewing are unjust. On this, the book of Job questions, how can you understand the designs of God, and His actions, as small as you are? This passage reveals God’s identity, when the Lord told Job “Who put limit to the sea… and I said here you will arrive and not beyond, thus far shall you come and not further.” Therefore, God presented His transcendence as the Creator. As such, the questions of and for meaning raised by Job can only find response in the workings of God and in God. Be that as it may, the first reading introduces us and prepares the ground for the Gospel passage on the stilling of the storm. In that bid, it reveals the symbolic meaning attached to the sea in the Jewish culture. It reminds us of God’s power over the created order.

     In today’s Gospel (Mark 4:35-41) St. Mark featured the great event and spiritual adventure of Jesus demonstrating his power as God over the created order, He calmed the storm. The whole Gospel of Mark is centered on the question: who is Jesus? Above all else, let us situate ourselves very well into the context of this passage. It was already evening and Jesus invited His disciples let us go to the other side of the river, which means there is a mission there, something needed to be done at the other side. As we can read in Mark 5:2: “as soon as he came down from the boat, a man with unclean spirit met Him.” We see the same event equally in the Gospel of St. Matthew, when he asked them to go to the other side and he went to pray, and when they were faced with a great  storm He surfaced walking on the water (cf. Mt 14:22-32).

     As they were sailing to the other side, when they saw the great storm of wind, they disciples were filled with fear, and they turned and saw Jesus sleeping on the cushion (was He really sleeping?) as if He was not concerned with their well-being. They reproached Him this time around, do you not care if we perish? As Mark narrates it, He woke up immediately and calmed the sea: “Peace! Be still”. And upon Jesus’ command there was great calm. Here, Jesus is presented as one with authority even over nature. Even though Jesus was with them, they still ran into a storm. Thus, the presence of Jesus with us doesn't mean that we would never encounter difficulties. On the other hand, it does, however, mean that, when the difficulties do arise, all we have to do is to call on him with faith. No matter what you are passing through today, Jesus is aware of it, he is aware of your own storm too, but he leaves you to choose how to deal with it. No doubt, we will have problems; but we also have a solution: “Ask, and you will receive” (Mt. 7:7). This indeed is a reminder to us that the acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, is not a guarantee that we will be free from troubles or from the storms of life. Instead, faith requires and demands the risk or better the courage of a radical trust in and out of season, to remain assured that Jesus is always present even when he is silent and appears to be sleeping. Beyond that, Jesus wants us to discover that he is greater and bigger than our fears and our storms. Even when the forces of darkness threaten to ensnare or overwhelm us, let us be rest assured that Jesus can save us. His liberating presence is ever active and powerful. It is not only that he saves us from the storm but another important dimension to this miracle is that he brings us out and leads us through to the other side, strengthened for our mission in life, and opens up a new horizon.

     Beloved in Christ, like the disciples of Jesus we too need sometimes to cry out in our fear, panic and storm: "Do you not care?" and like the disciples be open to discover that he really cares about us even more than we can ever imagined. Prior to the passage of our first reading today, Job entreated the Lord: “I cry to you and you give me no answer; I stand before you, but you take no notice. You have grown cruel to me and your strong hand torments me unmercifully” (Job 30:20-21). Again, we could hear the supplication and words of bewilderment of the disciples to Jesus: “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (Mark. 4:39). These two expressions of need might have taken place so many years ago, but they reveal our yearnings and cry help today. They reveal and evoke our cry for help in a society like ours that has lost the respect for the sacredness and dignity of human life, our cry in a country where our leaders are insensitive and unconcerned to the plight of the masses, our cry in a country where political divide and tribalism have plunged us into an existential quagmire and uncertainty of the future even of our life. Ours still remains a cry for help! Just like the boat of the disciples, the boat of Nigeria is filling and sinking, Lord rescue us!

     When all was calm again, Jesus now turned and reproached His disciples, with a dint of surprise “why are you afraid? Have you no faith? With these words, it does appear Jesus was asking them: You still don’t have faith in me? You have not yet understood who I am? You don’t understand that I have the power to control nature? There is an implicit invitation in the interrogation of Jesus, and that is the invitation: “Do not be afraid” for I am with you. His presence drives away fear, with Him we can fight fear with faith. As a matter of fact, through the boat of the disciples, St. Mark intends to reveal to us our own existential boat that at times because of great storm is already filling. And to us, in certain circumstances is as if Jesus is sleeping especially when we are encountering difficult and painful situations, as if He is absent from our life. Contrarily, St. Mark is intent rather to make us understand that it is not so, He will not allow us to get drown if he is with us. And Jesus can only be with us if we believe in Him, if we put our trust in Him, if we abandon ourselves to Him. Having Him in our boat means that we have nothing again to fear; if at the mention of His name every knee bows (Phil. 2:10), imagine what happens at His presence!

     The first reading and the Gospel raise the question of the identity of Jesus. This question captured the attention of the three Synoptic Gospels, in Mt 8:27: “what kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him.” Mk. 4:41: “who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.” Lk. 8:25: “who can this be? That gives orders to winds and waves and they obey.” But what does Jesus has to say about himself? He says: “It is I, the first and the last, I am the living one. I was dead but look I am alive forever and ever” (Rev. 1:17b-18). And of him others say: “Jesus is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). “Truly this man was Son of God” (Mk. 15:39). “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (Mk. 1:1).

     Drawing the issue further, from who then is this?, we can pass to the question who then is like Him, for none is like him. There are numerous scriptural passages that explore this dimension: “Yahweh, who is like you, majestic in sanctity, who is like you among the holy ones, fearsome of deed, worker of wonders? (Ex. 15:11); “Who is like Yahweh our God? (Ps. 113:5); “Yahweh, who can compare with you?” (Ps. 35:10); “Who in the skies can compare with Yahweh? Who among the sons of god can rival him?” (Ps.89:6); “No one is like the God of Jeshurun: he rides the heavens to your rescue, rides the clouds in his majesty” (Deut. 33:26); “To whom can you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One” (Is. 40:25); “Yahweh, there is no one like you, so great you are, so great your mighty name” (Jer. 10:6).

     Indeed, one of the literary preoccupations of Mark’s Gospel is about the identity of Jesus, who is He? This is the question that St. Mark intends to pose to all his readers. And the answer is implied in the question of today’s episode, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey Him?.” He that commands the wind and the sea! He cannot be a simple man. In the Old Testament the dominion over wind and sea is a prerogative only of Yahweh. We remember the episode of the Red sea (cf. Exodus 14), and Psalms (Ps. 103-106) recount the greatness of the Lord over all. In fact, the Psalmist says you “appointed the winds your messengers, flames of fire your servants. You fixed the earth on its foundations, for ever and ever it shall not be shaken” (Ps. 104:4-5). Therefore, if Jesus has this prerogative ascribed only to Yahweh, He is God, for upon His command the wind and the sea were calmed. The Jesus of Mark is a “moving Jesus”, always on the move to meet men in their difficult moments, and as He moves he calms the existential storms of those He meets. The Jesus of Mark is close to human reality, he enters into peoples houses (cf. Mk. 7:24) and goes into the Synagogue (cf. Mk 3:1). But sometimes when we are confronted with the storms of life, we like the disciples begin to question Jesus, we call on God to ask Him why? What is your own storm? What type of storm are you passing through now, I can hear the words of Jesus saying “Be still”. He will equally calm your own storm. Jesus is inviting us too, to the other side, for a transforming encounter, leave fear behind, fight fear with faith. And you will actually be a new creature.

     The second reading (2Cor 5:14-17) similarly continues with the question of Jesus’ identity and not only, also of the identity of Christians. Jesus according to the second reading is the One who died for all. Christians are those who live not for themselves but for Him who died and was raised for their sake. Secondly, a Christian is a new creature, a new creature because old things have passed away, and the new has come. The new identity occasioned by His death and resurrection. St Paul in his reflections on salvation in Christ completed the picture of Jesus presented in the Gospel. It is as if St. Paul tells us, Jesus saves, not because he calms a storm but because he accepted death out of love for the sinful humanity in obedience to His Father’s will.    

     Above all, our three readings today ferried us in a journey of discovery, from discovering who God is, to who Jesus is and finally who a Christian is called to be. A Christian is one who takes Christ in his boat, who welcomes him in his heart and makes him a life companion. Child of God have you allowed Jesus in, in the boat of your life? Is He your companion in the journey of life? More so, the storm foreshadows the future trial that the disciples and the Church were to experience. For in the broad sense, this story evokes the image of the Church, which many a times has been referred to as the boat of Peter, and like the disciples, the Church on her earthly pilgrim continues to invoke the assistance of Christ in the storms which beset her. But in this story also we have symbolized the life experience of each one of us, for the series of storms that beset us. However, we find an assurance of faith in the words of D. Bonhoeffer when he affirmed that God “does not save me from the tempest but in the tempest. He does not protect from pain, but in pain. He did not save the Son from the cross but in the cross.” In the midst of every kind of storm, we pray o Lord that you help us to learn to put our trust in You in order to overcome our fears. Amen!

(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)