Awe and wonder!

The tempests and storms in our lives often fill us with fear and dread but Jesus is right there too.

WORD OF FAITH: A breakdown of each week's upcoming Sunday readings to better understand the Word of God at Mass.

The readings this Sunday are certainly stormy! In the selection from the Book of Job, God answers Job out of the whirlwind. Job is anguished about his horrible plight — he has lost his children, his wealth, his health and his honor in the community. Everyone is convinced that Job must have a terrible secret sin because he has been “punished” so severely by the Almighty. 

Job has questioned the Holy One for 37 chapters wanting to know why this has befallen him. So God has had enough and steps up to respond to Job — but not to give answers to his questions. In a magnificent tour de force of the power and inner workings of creation, the Holy One makes it clear that God is beyond questioning, beyond imagining — God is the great I AM and awesome mystery. Job is humbled when he realizes his place in creation. He is filled with fear and awe. That sense of fear and awe, and the questions God asks Job about who can contain the sea are our link to Sunday’s Gospel.

In the Gospel, the disciples are filled with fear as a great storm, “a violent squall,” bears down on them in the Sea of Galilee. If we can imagine ourselves in that boat, we can have a visceral experience of fear, with waves breaking over the boat making it rock violently and taking in water. The counterpoint to this fear is Jesus — peacefully asleep on a cushion in the stern. How is this possible? Is he exhausted or uncaring that “they are perishing”?

Jesus wakes up and calms the chaos — both of the elements and the fear in the disciples. “There was great calm.” Jesus is mystified by their terror — and at their lack of faith in him. They have witnessed his healings, they have heard his preaching yet they seem to be clueless about him. Now awe overcomes them and they question, “Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

This reading invites us into the boat. Our discipleship can feel terrifying at times. As we follow Jesus’ call to love, to cling to the beatitudes, and to strive to be faithful to forgiving, we may experience being storm-tossed. Wouldn’t life be so much easier if we didn’t have to love our neighbor as ourselves — or even more challenging — to love our neighbor as Jesus loves him and her? Many times storms rage within our hearts as we struggle to live like Jesus and not like our culture allows. Do we listen as he gives us wisdom and courage to follow him?

Then there are the tempests that come as a matter of course in life: our own illness or that of family or friends, financial stress, employment challenges, dilemmas with our children — the list goes on. These situations often fill us with fear and dread. Jesus is right there too, even though our worries sometimes prevent us from seeing his presence. He might not immediately still the storm, but he gives us calm and clarity to deal with it.

In Sunday’s Gospel, the disciples were also filled with great awe as they contemplated who Jesus is; he is the One who speaks out of the whirlwind with the power to calm the tempest. We too are blessed with the gift of awe, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This gift moves us to love the Holy One, to experience great reverence for God and in all things to cherish and to desire a deep relationship with our God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit!