February 23, Second Sunday Before Lent
Readings: Gn. 2.4b-9, 15-25; Rev. 4; Lk. 8.22-25
Theme: The Sleep of the Just
There is an interesting overlap between the Old Testament reading and the Gospel for today. In both cases, sleep features prominently. In the reading from the Book of Genesis, in order that man should have a helper, God puts Adam into a deep sleep so that a rib can be removed from him and used to create woman. In the Gospel, it is Jesus who is asleep whilst he and the disciples are sailing on the lake, and the disciples wake him up in order to save them all from the gale that had caused water to fill the boat and put them in danger. What might the connection be between these two accounts of sleeping?
The topic of sleeping is an important one. I am sure that most, if not all, of us have had the uncomfortable experience of not being able to sleep because of something that is preoccupying us, or of a particular situation that we are in. The following day is typically exhausting and if we have to work, we do so on adrenaline and then flop at the end of it, hopefully into a deep and restorative sleep. But in the case of the reading from Genesis, the sleep that is induced in the man is pretty much equivalent to what happens to us when we go into an operating theatre. We are put under, anaesthetized, so that we do not feel the pain of the operation as a surgical intervention takes place. In other words, sleep in this situation, removes the possible of pain by making us unconscious. In this state, we are no longer able to feel the pain. God then does the work on Adam, so that Eve may be created and the two be united in companionship.
In the Gospel passage, the incident is somewhat different. Now we are on a lake sailing and a storm or a gale, as it says in the text, sweeps down on the lake. The disciples are naturally frightened that the boat will capsize, so they wake Jesus by their shouting, which results in Jesus rebuking the wind and the raging waves, so that they become calm and the boat and all its members are restored to a calmness after the panic.
When we compare both of these passages, as we are invited to do in our reading of the Sunday Scriptures, we see that a certain motif overlaps in both of them, even though on the surface, they appear to be completely different. In both cases an act of creation takes place resulting out of sleep. In the case of the Genesis passage this is obvious, Adam is put to sleep and his rib removed to create Eve. In the case of the boat on the lake in the Gospel, it is when Jesus is awoken by the disciples from his sleep that nature is ordered to be quiet, and a peaceful scene is once more created by Jesus.
The use of sleep in both passages is meant to tell us something about what divine creation means. In the case of the Genesis passage, God creates without us knowing what is happening. It occurs when we are unconscious as in a deep sleep. In the case of the Gospel, creation occurs when Jesus is awoken from his sleep. Sleep in both cases is meant to prefigure the act of divine creation. In the first incident, the scene is one of the creation of human beings. Man is created from the dust of the ground and woman is created from man. It is the story of the beginning, as we are told by that first line of the Book of Genesis, ‘In the beginning…..’. However, in the case of the Gospel scene on the lake, the situation is one of recreation, the threatening nature is reshaped into a tranquil scene as the waters and the winds are calmed. In other words, sleep in both passages tells us that God is both the creator of all in the beginning, when all was asleep, and the re-creator of all in the New Creation, when Jesus was asleep. This double motif of creation and re-creation is meant to show us that far from being disconnected, as we sometimes view these things, God’s act of creation and resurrection of Jesus are intimately connected.
The key to grasping this connection is to understand what happens on the seventh day of the creation in the Genesis story. As we are told in the Book of Genesis, ‘And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.’ It is on the eighth day, in other words on the day after the Sabbath, that Jesus is resurrected from the dead. This is the first day of the new week of God’s new creation which is the resurrection. In the resurrection of Jesus, God is continuing his act of creation that he began with the creation of the world as told in the Book of Genesis and now continued in the sequel of the Old Testament, which is our New Testament.
In both passages, the one from Genesis and the one from Luke, the act of creation is prefigured by sleep in order to show us who the creator is, the Lord of all creation. This is why acts of divine creation take place in the situation of sleep or rest because it reveals to us that true creation and re-creation is what God does for us, so that we can know that he is God and we are creatures called to participate in this creative work of salvation. And, as creatures who have been called into his eternal life, we may forever enjoy the sleep of the just until he awakens us at his return.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.