Who then is this?

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark (4:35-41)

When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them just as he was, in the boat. And other boats were with him. And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” and he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” and they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

Reflection

The narrative of St Mark’s Gospel has a rapid pace about it. It is as if he wants to get us there quickly on this one singular and important question: who is Jesus? It was the very question that Jesus’ calming of the storm prompted the terrified and overwhelmed disciples to ask: ‘Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?’ (v. 41). The answer to the question is really self-evident. Who but God could calm the wind and the waves? Who but God could perform such a miracle and govern nature in this way?
Nevertheless, many do not believe that Jesus was God. Many believe he was a good man, a prophet even, holy certainly and possibly one of the most important human beings in human history – but God? The teaching that Jesus is God is what makes Christian faith so utterly radical because it reveals in a scandalous and shocking way that God loves us and is close to us. Jesus revealed in his person that God is not cold, remote or indifferent but prepared to immerse himself in our lives, our world, our history. He was prepared to live and work and move as a human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. What is the correct and proper response to this realization, this insight and this revelation? There can be only one true and proper response: to bow down and worship and confess that ‘Jesus is the Lord God to the glory of God the Father’.
Jesus is also the Creator. He who became subject to the limitations of creation was himself its Source and Life. As St John so eloquently expressed it: ‘all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made’ (John 1:3). How true are these wise words of C.S. Lewis: ‘No philosophical theory which I have come across is a radical improvement on the words of Genesis that ‘in the beginning God made heaven and earth’. The power of the gospel is this – that the same God who made heaven and earth, humbled himself and became a man and became humbler yet by dying on the cross.’
‘He was created of a mother who he created. He was carried by hands that he formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, he is the Word without which all human eloquence is mute.’
(St Augustine of Hippo)