After making the crossing to the other side of the sea,
Jesus and his disciples came to land at Gennesaret
and tied up there.
Jesus came to his disciples in the middle of their voyage as they made that crossing into Gennesaret, when they were having trouble because the wind was against them. He came to them, walking on the water, and spoke to them, saying "It is I", using the divine name to reveal himself to them. When he got into the boat with his disciples the wind ceased.
We see in Jesus the word that was spoken over the world when it "was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept the waters." He himself was the "God said" that transformed the chaos of the tohu va bohu, as the Hebrew called it, into something well ordered, something which God himself called "good".
They scurried about the surrounding country
and began to bring in the sick on mats
to wherever they heard he was.
There was a sense in which Jesus, disembarking from this boat, emerging from the chaos of the sea, was like the land of a new creation emerging from the waters. All around him the world had slipped to varying degrees back into the condition of tohu va bohu, but wherever he came this devolution was reversed and the order of creation was reestablished. Creation was restored from something that pulled away from and distracted from God and transformed into something which could be the place of acceptable worship, as it was always meant to be. The new creation that emerged was therefore inherently sacramental, for through it the mind could now be elevated to God. Through it the great "I am" revealed himself to us.
they laid the sick in the marketplaces
and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak;
and as many as touched it were healed.
The tassel represented a visible reminder to keep God's commandments. It was therefore the case that, perhaps without fully understanding, the people knew that it was the fidelity of Jesus to his Father's will in which they themselves could hope for healing. They implicitly recognized that they had no claim of merit on their own. But they trusted in Jesus to allow his merit to speak for them.
We see the world in varying degrees of tohu va bohu in our own day. But we too can look to the new creation emerging in Jesus. We too can reach for his merit to heal our brokenness when we lack merit of our own. Jesus himself is the light of world, the eternal day of the new creation.
Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end (see Isaiah 60:20).
By abiding in his light we ourselves are transformed from chaos and darkness into new creation (see Second Corinthians 5:17), temples where right praise is offered (see First Corinthians 3:16), living sacrifices to God (see Romans 12:1)
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you have wrought them all—
the earth is full of your creatures;
Bless the LORD, O my soul! Alleluia.
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