The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
--Psalm 9:9-10
The fact that Jesus was aboard the boat and sound asleep during the storm -- as we hear about in this week's Holy Gospel -- doesn't change the truth of Psalm 9:9-10. Asleep or not, Jesus is still that stronghold of which the psalmist writes. When oppression and trouble strikes, as it did out in that storm, Jesus was there for them.
Neither were the troubled disciples forsaken on the boat. They sought Jesus, to use the language of the psalm, and He became that stronghold; the raging storm was stilled.
Those who know your name put their trust in you, says the psalmist. We know that name as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. With the Scriptures, we are able to "unpack" who each person of the Holy Trinity is and what each one does. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the One who creates and nourishes faith in Christ. Thus equipped with such a faith, we can turn to creation -- and even the weather! -- and receive it, as faith does, for all the gift that it is.
The weather may be sunny skies and seventy two degrees, or it may be the tornado that takes our life away. Whatever the case, we trust in the Name, the Name that was put upon us with the water of Baptism. We are in the stronghold.
PD
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