Calm The Sea

The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” Jonah 1:11

I listened to the book of Jonah dramatized on You-Tube after my evening prayers last night. It is a fascinating story. What, indeed, shall we do when we feel as though the storm we are going through is about to take us down? Shall we attempt to make a bargain with God to save us? Shall we attempt to find the guilty party; the person or persons, that may have offended God and make a scapegoat of them? Shall we offer up a sacrifice to God? That is exactly what the men on the ship with Jonah did. They threw him overboard to drown in the depths of the sea. Only, he did not drown. He got another chance. He lived to continue on the mission that God had sent him on in the first place.

When the sea gets stormy and when times get rough, we don't get to make scapegoats of others. Because the truth is that we are all guilty. We all make mistakes. We all sin. We all, at times, by our actions or our inactions, put others in harm's way.

Justifying our own sins by blaming others will not erase our sins. We cannot and will not be able to appease or bargain with God by making someone else the scapegoat. The Good News is that the only sacrifice for our sins that is required has already been made by Jesus on the cross. With him and in him, we have died; and, have been born again. We have been given another chance and even another to live as a child of God; to go forth and continue in the mission God has called us to.

Let us go forth and proclaim the Good News that our sins have been washed away by the blood of Jesus the Christ. Let us proclaim that, through him, we are reconciled to God our Father for time eternal.

God's Peace - Pr. J