A tourist in New York took the tour to the top of the Empire State Building. As they looked down from the viewing area, the people on the sidewalks looked like ants scurrying about. “I imagine this is the way we humans look to God” he said. No way! God doesn’t look down from a high pinnacle and watch people struggle and suffer. He himself came down to earth in the Person of Christ and went all the way to the Cross to help us. He came to be God’s compassion to us.
We heard last week that compassion literally means “to suffer with another”. Jesus came to be God in flesh and bone to share in our sufferings, but also to help us in our plight. Just before today’s text, we heard how God’s Kingdom reigned through Jesus’ ministry to bring freedom from physical suffering, death and demonic oppression. Such a large crowd had followed Jesus, and there was so many needing healing that it was getting late. The disciples look to worldly means of provision: “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” But the disciples were only looking to what was in their hands, rather than looking to Jesus. Jesus tells them to bring the little they had to him—five loaves and two fish—and blessed it and gave it back to them, to make enough for twelve basketfuls of leftovers.
With this miracle Jesus revealed his divine nature to the crowd—that he is the Son of God who makes the possible out of the impossible—and was teaching his disciples to rely on him for all that is needed…even life itself. Just as importantly he was revealing God’s compassion to them.
These themes—Jesus’ divinity, his compassion, and his power and authority to bring the possible out of the impossible—continue in today’s text. Immediately Jesus sent the disciples away in a boat to go on before him to the other side while he remained to dismiss the crowds. Evening had come and the disciples had already sailed a considerable distance. A strong wind drove hard against the boat, churning up waves, buffeting them to and fro. They are vulnerable and in peril in their modest boat, and still far off from their destination.
In the worldview of Matthew’s initial audience, the sea was seen as the place of chaos and evil. This is implicit in the Genesis creation account: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” God’s first creative work was to bring light in the darkness and good order to disorder and chaos. He did this effortlessly, by speaking: “Let there be…and it was so.”
This is an important theological connection with today’s text. In the fourth watch of the night (about 3 am) Jesus came to the disciples, effortlessly performing a feat impossible for any ordinary human—walking on the surface of the deep; a tumultuous and stormy one at that. Jesus shows that he is divine, exercising effortless mastery over all creation and authority to trample all over evil, bringing order out of chaos.
The disciples don’t grasp this straight away. From a human standpoint it is understandable that the disciples think Jesus to be a ghost hovering over the waves, not a flesh and bone person walking on top of them. When they saw Jesus, they were terrified and in fear cried out “It is a ghost!” But immediately Jesus speaks to bring calm and order to their turbulent hearts: “Take heart! It is I—do not be afraid!”.
Peter answered Jesus: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come toward you on the water.”
In relation to this passage people often say things like: “You’ve got to show great faith by stepping out of the boat. Just step out in faith.”
But I think Peter showed great faith even before he stepped out. I’ve often wondered why he would say: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come toward you on the water.” Why would Peter address him as ‘Lord’ yet in the next breath ask “if it is you?”
The Greek word for ‘if’ can also mean ‘since’ and I think there is a good case for that reading here: “Lord, since it is you, command me to come toward you on the water.” Perhaps Peter has the feeding miracle fresh in mind, where Jesus made possible what was humanly impossible, and redirected their focus away from worldly resources and human capabilities, towards him, and his capacity to provide. As there is no escape route from the boat, which is surrounded by rough waters, perhaps Peter has joined the dots, and believes that he can escape the same way that Jesus has come to them: by walking on the water. It seems that Peter believes Jesus can again make possible that which is impossible for humans, so that Peter too can walk out on the water, where he will be safe in the refuge of Jesus, rather than staying in the besieged boat. Peter seems to know that he can only do this if Jesus first calls him to do so. Yes—Peter shows great faith here: “Lord since it is you command me to come to you on the water.”
And Jesus invites him: “Come.”
So Peter does. But for a fleeting moment, Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus and looks to the wind, and fear grips him. He knows in his own strength he is doomed against such forces. After all, he is a frail, mortal, human being. His great faith has evaporated and he begins to sink.
It is easy to be afraid. When we look at the storms of life raging around us—health crises, cost of living pressures, social instability and conflict, violence, war and terror—it is easy to be afraid. When we look at the winds crashing against the church, buffeted by the temptations of the devil and attacks of sinful people—it is easy to be afraid. Whenever we look to our problems, to the adversarial forces around us, and to our limited resources of overcoming them, it is easy to be afraid. Yet when we look with human eyes at our problems and challenges, and then to our own toolkits, and forget what we have heard God teach us and promise us—we are like Peter, taking our eyes off Jesus.
In his moment of sinking, faith comes to the surface again for Peter. He cries out: ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and grasps Peter. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus says.
None of what happens in God’s ordering of things is coincidental. Remember that this incident began by Jesus sending the disciples away to the other side, while he remained behind. With his divine foreknowledge, Jesus would have been aware that such a wind would later suddenly whip up, but he sends his disciples headlong into it? Why?
Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side. He was always going to be there for them. He sent them into a situation to again show them the inadequate human resources, and come to see their utter dependence on him. This was a part of God’s strengthening and shaping of their faith; a part of his ongoing revelation to them of Jesus’ divine nature and power and authority that transcends the physical world. It is another event in the continuation of his opening of their eyes for them to see that which is normally unseen: the invisible spiritual reality that simultaneously exists with, in and under our visible existence. They are placed in a situation in which they can do nothing else but to cry out to Jesus: “Lord, save us!”
When Jesus called Peter to come, he did not expect Peter to triumph over the stormy waves by his own frail strength. Faith is not something we can conjure up, nor is it an end in itself, but it only has power because its object is Jesus. Faith is the God-given means to receive from our ever-present Lord what he powerfully does and gives. Jesus was already there to welcome Peter, just an arm’s length away, stooping down to Peter, reaching out, to grasp Peter tight, plucking him from the watery chaos, and save him. Then they got into the boat and the wind ceased, just like that—and together the disciples confess: “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Perhaps there have been times where you wonder where Jesus is in the storms of your life. Perhaps it feels as though Jesus left you to battle on against the waves alone. It might seem as though you are just treading water, flat out just trying to stay afloat, let alone steam ahead against the adversarial winds of the devil, the world and the sinful self.
That’s why today’s reading is such good news. Like he did with his disciples in our text, God also took the initiative to come to you. He didn’t just come across the sea for you. It was when all human strength and hope had gone, and we were powerless to come to God, that Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth, to be born for you as your Saviour, to live perfectly for you, and to overcome all evil and chaos, Satan, the kingdom of darkness, every force of evil, hell, sin and death for you, and trample it underfoot, when he died on the Cross.
It was on the Cross, through Jesus’ outstretched arms, that God reached out to embrace the world with compassion; with forgiveness and grace, reconciling us to him by Jesus’ precious blood. And then he stretched out his arm to save you, through the waters of baptism, and drag you into his boat of the church. You can be sure that when you cry out: “Lord, save me!” he will. Because he already has.
How do you know? Because God has already come to you. He has opened your lips by the power of the Holy Spirit to be able to confess of Christ with the disciples of old: “Surely you are the Son of God!” That is more than merely a little faith; that is great faith; miraculous faith, for it something that cannot be engineered by mere humans but can only come from the new birth given from above. This is saving faith—faith that your Father in Heaven will never reject, for whoever comes to Jesus he will certainly never drive away.
As you sit in the boat—tired, afraid, fearful, guilty, anxious or ashamed—Jesus takes your hand in his to calm the tumult, and with his other on the wheel, he will safely pilot his church to our heavenly harbour. Until that time do not look at the waves and the wind. Do not look to yourself. Look to the Cross. Look to Christ. As you come again to him today, see him place in your hands his body pierced for you, and his precious blood poured out for the forgiveness of all your sins. And as the waves die down at the presence of your Saviour, hear again his words to you: “Take heart, it is I do not be afraid.” Amen.
