The disciples said, with astonishment, “How is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” They said this because they were eyewitnesses to Christ’s majesty, and had beheld His glory and power. They said this because after they woke Him up, they watched Jesus rebuke the wind and they watched Him say to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And they witnessed what happened next: the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

To them were revealed more of the truth of Jesus of Nazareth: to those who show faith in Christ, to those who show they believe in Him, Christ has power over creation. The storm is stilled because creation itself is a continuous process of love, not a system of infallible laws, and the Creator incarnate as the right to change the process as the artist, and only the artist, has the right to alter his own picture: prayer controls matter.

After all, all of creation, all the things of creation, which we call creatures both great and small, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, all things have been made through Christ. It was from His mouth that it was said “Let there be light.” And likewise, “Let there be a firmament; Let there be water; Let there be dry land; Let there be grass and trees; Let there be lights for illumination; Let there be water creatures, and creatures of the sky; Let there be creatures of the land.” As is sung in the well-known hymn: All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.

And yet how much more has God made through Christ? As we hear from the account of blessed and righteous Job, the divinely-made creation includes the measurements of the foundation of the earth; the bases upon which it rested, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God (that is, the angels) shouted for joy; shutting in the sea with doors; making clouds for garments; commanding the morning; causing the dawn to know its place; even creating the gates of death, and so much more of the expanse of the earth.

Those words spoken by God to Job and Job’s companions with their tremendous meaning are summed up in the first line of the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible” as well as the first verse of Scripture in Genesis: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth” and echoed in the first verses of the Gospel according to Saint John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made.” All things, including the wind and the sea and the laws of creation.

We ask God in our Collect to grant to us such strength and protection, as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations. We do this with the knowledge that comes first not by kneeling down and closing our eyes but with standing up and opening them very wide, much wider than we generally do. All our prayer, worship, devotion and love, all our religion, is based upon, and begins with creation, with being in the world and getting to know, understand, and love, not only the material and immaterial things of creation, but recognizing as a habit that all the material and immaterial things of creation are made by God, through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

When we recognize all this as a habit, we recognize the divine presence everywhere, and see all things, including ourselves and all human beings, as created and sustained from moment to moment by the love of God. This sense of God’s omnipresence in things, of their, and our, absolute dependence on Him, this childlike sense of wonder, is one of the most potent weapons against the root sin of pride. By wondering at the majesty and glorious beauty and astonishing sophistication of God’s creation, we are made humble, which destroys pride. All because of the love revealed to us through Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

[Certain sentences are adapted from the classic text, The Purple Headed Mountain, by Father Martin Thornton. You can purchase the text here.]

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