Today’s Gospel concludes with these words: “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” And that will be my topic for today. Who is this person? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? Who is he?
Today’s passage was taken from Mark’s Gospel and Mark says that Jesus is the Son of God. He begins his Gospel with these words: Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. According to Mark, Jesus is the Son of God and He has all the virtues of His heavenly Father. For example, His Father is able to calm the storm on the sea. That is what we learned in today’s first reading.
God the Father brought this question to Job: “Who calms the storm when the sea is raging?” “You do.” Job says. “And who calms the storm in your heart when you are upset because you see that life isn’t fair?” “You do.” Job says. Then God says, “Now I will calm the storm in your heart by showing you how to accept your lot in life, painful as it is. I will show you how to accept the bad things that have descended upon you.” So that is what God the Father does and that is what Jesus does. They calm the storms on the sea and they calm the storms in the hearts of their people.
Time for an Old Testament story about God the Father. The First Book of Kings tells the story of Naboth’s Vineyard Naboth owned a vineyard that bordered King Ahab’s palace. King Ahab asked Naboth, “Give me your vineyard; in exchange, I’ll give you a better vineyard for it.” Naboth responded, “I won’t give it to you because I inherited it from my ancestors and I want to keep it in the family.” King Ahab went home resentful and upset. He lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat. His wife Jezebel found him sulking and said, “Cheer up! I will get Naboth’s vineyard for you!” Queen Jezebel wrote letters to the city leaders and she ordered them to have two liars come forward to accuse Naboth of cursing God and cursing the king. And then they should stone Naboth to death.
After the city leaders followed Queen Jezebel’s instructions they sent a message to her saying, “Naboth has been stoned to death.” Then King Ahab went to take possession of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kin 21:1-16). At that point the Lord said to the Prophet Elijah, “Go to the palace and meet King Ahab and tell him, ‘The Lord says that you murdered someone just to take possession of his vineyard.’ ” King Ahab was cut to the heart by those words and he saw the error of his ways. He fasted and wore sackcloth and repented and asked God to forgive him. The Lord God said, “Since you humbled yourself before me, I will not punish you. I will forgive you instead.”
Jesus made a similar choice during his time on the cross. He could have justifiably condemned the soldiers who nailed Him to the cross. But instead He forgave them. Jesus could have closed the door of paradise to the Good Thief because his sins were public and well known. But He forgave him instead. Jesus chose to leave this world as a forgiving person, not as a punishing person. Who is Jesus? He is a forgiving person.
When He forgave the soldiers and the repentant thief, He revealed to us that forgiveness is a choice. Namely, a deliberate choice to want something good for those who have hurt you. In fact, it is a freeing choice. When we forgive someone, we are free from the burden of carrying resentment. Forgiving is a choice - and that is a lesson that we learn from the Son of God. That is a lesson that we should never forget.
Today Jesus is asking us to be active participants in His community of forgiveness. He knows that we are tempted to hurt those who have hurt us. We are tempted to retaliate when someone deliberately hurts us, or hurts our family members, or friends, or church, or country. We feel a strong urge to retaliate and even the score. We would like to go the route of resentment and revenge. But Jesus says, “Turn away from those temptations and take on a new identity. Take on the identity of being a forgiving person. Forgive others as God has forgiven you.
In today’s gospel, the disciples were suffering. More than anything, they were suffering from anxiety because the storm kept getting worse and worse and the boat was taking on water and they were afraid that they would drown. But all was not lost because they found grace in the midst of all the turmoil. And the grace that they found was a person - namely, Jesus of Nazareth. They turned to him and he saved them by calming the storm.
The bottom line is this: Jesus was with them. They were not alone. He was in their boat. He was in their midst. That’s why they were able to call upon him. The storm was real and so was the presence of Christ. They found grace in the midst of the storm. When we read that scripture passage, we might think about the storms that cause chaos in our lives today. The windstorm in the gospel story symbolizes the difficulties that we sometimes have to deal with: chemical dependency, dysfunctional behaviors, family alienation, divisions in the church, polarization within our country, conflicts at work, and a host of other difficult situations. The windstorm in the story represents situations of difficulty…and the disciples represent us.
Notice how they turn to Jesus for the help that they need. And notice too how their faith is weak. Jesus chides them for having weak faith. But their weak faith is still good enough.
Jesus responds by calming the storm. Sometimes we think that we have to have a fully mature and strong faith before we can turn to Jesus. But the disciples had a weak faith and it was rewarded. Their faith did not become mature and strong until Jesus rose from the dead and came back to visit them.
Jesus is always in our midst. He is always in our boat and always waiting for us to turn to him. We should thank Him for giving us an important lesson in today’s Gospel. Finding Jesus during stormy times is easy because He is in the boat with us. We now ask Him to calm the storms that we are facing in our lives.
Dear Jesus, our loving savior, please command our stormy situations to: Be still and go away!
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