Who is this, whom even the wind and the sea obey? For he is the Son of God through whom the Father God made the world and to whom the Father God has subjected all creation. In the first reading that accompanies this Gospel we hear the voice of God speaking also of his creative power: he explains how he set limits for the sea when it gushed out of the bosom of the earth and gave it the clouds and the fog for blankets and swaddling clothes. This is poetic language that expresses God’s rule over creation.
I want to dedicate this homily to that theme that we proclaim in the Creed and that we almost never talk about or explain. God the Father, we say in the Creed, is CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, OF ALL THAT IS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. It is striking that this is the only thing the Creed says about God the Father, because He has done many more things; but to emphasize that He is Creator is to declare that God is the origin and foundation of everything that exists. We know the account of the creation of the world in seven days which is the first page of the Bible. But there are many other passages in the Bible that speak of God as creator with other terms, with other emphases, with another order. One of the most poetically vehement texts is chapter 38 of the book of Job, from which today’s first reading is taken.
To speak of the world as God’s creation and of God as creator means several things. In the first place, that the world and we in it are not the fruit of chance, but of God’s loving and salvific design. Science is able to see the order of the cosmos and today’s devices allow scientists to see what happened at the origin of time. But only faith is capable of intuiting in the order and beauty of the cosmos the intelligence and wisdom that sustains it. To say that God is Creator is to affirm that the world has its foundation in a meaningful design, that it is not the fruit of chance or coincidence. All this is given to us as a gift. Neither the world nor we ourselves have given ourselves existence.
Secondly, when we declare that the world is God’s creation, we affirm its consistency, beauty and goodness. In the face of philosophies and religions that consider matter as evil or the enemy of the human spirit, we Christians say and prove that the world has consistency, it is true; it is beautiful, it has form and harmony; it is good, it is a place fit for human life. From that conviction our life has consistency, form and purpose and we can discover its order and laws.
Thirdly, when we affirm that the Father is the creator of all that is visible and invisible, we affirm that the world is not exhausted in the horizon of immanence, of what we can touch, measure, weigh and feel. There are realities beyond what the method of science can grasp and control. There is time, but there is also eternity. There is cosmos, but there is also sky. It is that dimension where God dwells, where we aspire to reach. It is the dimension where the angels who surround the throne of God live and give glory to Him.
As far as we humans are concerned, Sacred Scripture affirms that God created us in his image and likeness, that he made us male and female, that he placed us in the world as his representatives to rule it in his name. We are not intruders in the world; the world is our home, our house. God gave it to us to live in and care for. We are also constituted of body and soul, of a visible and an invisible or spiritual dimension; we are sexed and the sexual identity we receive from the body comes from God. That is sacred and cannot be manipulated. We are like God in that we can listen to him and talk to him. We are like God because, like him and in our own measure, we are free and we can love, just as God is free to love. The world and man has its laws, but we are prone to act in ways that are destructive of ourselves and society. Did God then make us sinners?
Humanity acts against itself, transgresses moral laws, behaves in such a way that it is incapable of reaching the goal of fulfillment for which God created us. Did God sow in our will the seed of evil and sin? In addition, we suffer illnesses, physical and psychological damage of all kinds and finally we die. Did God make us for death or for life, for suffering or for joy? Evil in the world cannot be easily explained. But the Bible gives one. The Bible tries to explain the presence of evil in the world in such a way that two objectives are fulfilled: God is not the origin of evil, nor did God make man a sinner. But evil exists and is real, but it is alien to man. Moral evil and physical evil are not connatural to man, for if they were, no one would be able to remove from us the evil that afflicts us, moral evil and bodily evil.
How does the Bible explain the origin of evil? It places the origin of evil in a creature of God who perverted himself, and who bears the name of Satan. Satan was created by God good like the other angels, but he led a rebellion against God and since then he became perverted and, out of envy, makes war on God to ruin his purpose of communicating life and salvation to mankind. It is not a god equal to the Creator; it is a creature and therefore may be defeated by God. Satan is irredeemable, insurmountable, but he is the creature that allows us to have hope of salvation; for if evil has its origin in him, when he is defeated we will be free from all evil. Satan is the lightning rod of creation. Therefore, when the Bible explains how mankind began to sin, it says that it was because of a cunning serpent, who also spoke, who suggested to the first man and the first woman to rebel against God as she herself had done. That serpent is Satan. This means that, if the seed of evil and death was not placed in us by God, but by Satan, God can save us by defeating Satan and his influence in us. That is why Christ came, to subdue Satan as He did the sea. The subjugation of the sea under the word of Jesus is an image of the subjugation of Satan for the salvation of man. Let us fight evil in ourselves, let us not succumb to its influence, but let us entrust ourselves completely to Christ the Lord. He will subdue Satan as he subdued the fury of the sea.
Msgr. Mario Alberto Molina, OAR
(The image accompanying this reflection is a painting by Rembrandt entitled “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee”).