Readings: 2 Samuel 12:1-7, 10-17; Psalm 51; Mark 4:35-41
The First Reading of today narrates how Nathan was sent by God to witness against David, to confront David with his sins. There are so many things we can learn from today’s reading. For instance:
– God loved David but He didn’t spare him punishment when he sinned. God loves us but still chastises us.
– We see that the punishment of sin outweighs pleasure. Brief is the pleasure, eternal the punishment.
– We see that the eyes of the Lord see everything, even what is done in secret.
– We see the mercy of God. God showed mercy to David because he was contrite. He didn’t make excuses or try to justify himself.
– We see the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Nathan reminds us of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He convicts us of sins, He opens our eyes to see what we are doing that is wrong and persistently calls us to repent.
From the moment that David committed this sin, he began to face fresh storms in his kingship. He paid so dearly for his wrong choice and the cascade of wrong choices he made to cover that one sin.
Like David and like the disciples of Jesus in today’s Gospel, we all face storms in our lives. Some we have caused by ourselves, some God allows us to face as part of His program of forming us and with some, we can never understand why we face them and perhaps we don’t need to know why. What is most important is to know that the Lord is with us. Sometimes He may seem asleep but He is with us and because He is with us, the storm will not destroy us but rather He will glorify Himself through our storms.
Perhaps we could pray today for the kind of peace that Jesus had so that He was able to sleep even in the heavy storm so that whatever we are going through, we too can rest in tranquillity, knowing that the “calmer” of the storm is with us.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on January 29, 2022