Just as he was

Just as he was

Just as he was

# Reflecting on the Scriptures

Just as he was

Perhaps the most obvious link between our two readings this week (2 Corinthians 6.1–13 and Mark 4.35–41) is the idea of salvation from danger or hardship.  In the gospel we encounter again that all too well known story of Jesus calming the storm.  Our familiarity with it perhaps blunts for us the original impact - here is a human being with complete control of the elements, doing the things that scripture until this point has reserved for God himself! (Psalm 107:23-31). Even if we do miss this seismic shift in the nature of who God is and how he relates to us, we still retain an understanding on the most basic level that God looks out for those who choose to travel with him. 

Thankfully the input of St. Paul writing to the Corinthians protects us from too simple an understanding of that salvation.  He's very realistic about recognising the almost limitless list of dangers and sufferings that can beset us - and very clear that the simple, natural reversals or protections from them will not always be a part of our story, walked in faith or otherwise.  He looks, instead, to the deeper freedoms and healings that come from walking with God: peace, hope, and even joy in the midst of suffering.  He writes,

"We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything."

 For him the sufferings we face and see have no power to detract from the promises of God's reconciliation of all things to himself - they are just the background noise of our current lives even as the greater, truer, and more amazing picture of God's saving work plays itself out.  

It's very easy to think there cannot be a God, or he can't be all that good, or all that powerful when we see the pain and suffering in the world around us - but Paul tells us that even in the midst of all this, is where we encounter God: "now  is the day of salvation".  

There's a few small words that I don't think I've ever noticed before in the account of the calming of the storm, right at the beginning, that seem to make a similar point "And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was."

Just as he was. 

God - the one who creates the universe and commands the elements - chooses to make himself known not apart from the world and its sufferings, but in the midst of them, he chose to join us in them and walk amongst them.  Not distinct from them, or immune to them, but in human flesh, vulnerable, without any special protections, just as he was. 

I wonder what would happen to our narrative of the world if we remembered that more; if we remembered that it is precisely in the mess and pain that God chooses to join us; that it doesn't disprove him, but finds itself being redefined and transformed by him.  Perhaps we might discover that there is, indeed, proof of, and reason for, hope.  Perhaps we might discover that Paul was right, and now, indeed, is the day of salvation!

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