Matthew 14:22-33 Jesus Walks on Water
Our Scripture this morning begins where last week’s ended. Jesus has fed the people, the disciples have gathered the leftovers, and now, Jesus makes it a solid point to dismiss the people who had gathered, and to also dismiss the disciples back across the lake. It is evening, and although navigation by the stars was common place, on this night those stars were not showing. There was a storm brewing as was very common on the Sea of Galilee. Just about the time the disciples get halfway home, the storm hits with all it’s fury. Must have been a powerful one, because it says the disciples were afraid, and these are hardened and experienced fishermen in the boat. Not some lily-livered weak kneed land lubbers. It was no caressing breeze, this was a gale. And then, bone tired and fearful for their lives, they look up and see SOMETHING in the foggy night. People simply don’t walk on water, so they figured it had to be something unusual. Their first guess is a ghost, and then they recognize Jesus. Still fearful, not completely believing their eyes, soaking wet and waiting for the boat to capsize, they try to make sense of the whole situation.
Do you ever wonder why Jesus would have sent the disciples out onto the lake in the first place? This was Jesus we’re talking about…He would certainly have known a storm was coming. He is the all-knowing, all-seeing Son of God. He commands the weather with just the sound of his voice. So why not just tell the disciples to spend the night on shore with Him? If he wanted to be alone, he certainly could have walked away from them and gone up into the hills. But He chose not to. It’s not the disciples choice; it is Jesus command for them to return to the other shore.
Jesus did not send the storm. Just as Jesus does not send the storms of life our way today. But Jesus knew what was coming, so why not spare the disciples all this fear and turmoil and danger?
Sometimes there are great revelations that come out of our storms. Let me tell you about a man named Tom White. In the 1970’s when America was full of protest marches and flower power, stories began coming out of Castro’s Cuba of terrible torture and imprisonment of Christians there. Castro’s government denied all the allegations, but refugees who made the dangerous crossing to Florida’s shores told another story. In the winter of 1972 Tom White arranged for a fishing boat to sail along Cuba’s coast and he and a few others dumped 50,000 watertight plastic packets into the sea to be washed ashore. The packets contained Spanish translations of the New Testament.
A year later Tom planned another similar boat ride, but the boat and captain became unavailable at the last minute. Tom found a Christian pilot who agreed to fly him over the island in the dead of night, and Tom dropped a hundred thousand more of the leaflets. If the story ended there it would still be good enough, but Tom’s life was about to take a drastic turn.
In December of 1973 Tom married, bought a home, and became a leader in his local church. Soon, he began to feel sick, grow weak and pale, and was unable to keep any kind of food down. The doctors confirmed stomach cancer, and Tom went through a long and difficult course of treatment. A little less than a year later, still too weak to walk by himself, Tom felt compelled to organize another air lift drop over Cuba. The leaflets were printed; the pilot was lined up, and Tom insisted on boarding the plane to help drop another load of Spanish New Testaments over Cuba.
Unfortunately another one of those severe storms at sea changed his plans. The pilot was forced to make an emergency landing in Cuba, and Tom and two others were arrested and thrown into prison. All of them were tortured, starved, and accused of being U.S. spies. Tom never took his eyes off Jesus, and could be heard throughout the day singing hymns and reciting Scripture during his confinement.
Seventeen months later, Tom and his friends were released and he returned to the United States. Tom would later tell of seeing a ghostly figure in his cell with him almost nightly. When Tom would feel himself slipping into the dark hole of unconsciousness, the figure would reach for his hand and forcibly pull Tom back up to the confines of his cell. His jailer would command Tom to stop “talking to himself” but Tom explained he was talking with his “cell-mate”, and praying to God for the jailer’s soul. The jailer would shake his head and walk away, but 17 months later, it was this jailer who opened Tom’s cell door and escorted him to freedom.
The storm that brought down Tom’s plane in the middle of enemy territory also served to strengthen Tom’s resolve to reach the citizens of Cuba, and to reach out in a much more personal way to a jailer who was lost. Tom later said that he was better able to face every challenge that came along in his life from that point on, because he had been to hell, and Jesus had pulled him out.
The storms in our life are not sent by God; but sometimes they allow us to see the God who reaches down to save us more clearly. Tom White, and the disciples on that day long ago saw a very real Christ reaching to them. Today, the image may not be as clear, but Christ’s actions in our life are happening just as often.
God does not wish the storms of life upon us, but when everything in our lives is going well, we often see no need to rely on our faith. We don’t see the point in crying out to God for rescue when rescue isn’t necessary.
God would never, ever wish hard times upon his children, but when they come, so does the opportunity to see God more clearly, experience Him more fully, realize His presence more tangibly than we ever have before. Christ did not call up the storm over the Sea of Galilee; but when his brothers cried out in fear, it was Christ who came to their rescue.
It is like the brand new, high tech fire helmets sent to a big city fire department to try recently. They were shiny, reflected light, had adjustable sizes, even a built in radio receiver. There was only one problem. When they were exposed to high heat they melted. But our lives are like that. We may be sailing along, living in fine houses, driving fine cars, working at terrific jobs, but Jesus says to us, “That’s all fine and good, but they won’t stand up to the heat when the storms of life come along.” So what does the Lord do? He says, “When the storms of life come along and you’re struggling with difficulties, you’ve got to rely on me to get you through the tough times. The things of this world just won’t pull you out like my own Hand will. It is during the storms that my anchor will hold you.”
Our seasoned fishermen/disciples knew the Sea, were all hardened fishermen. They had seen storms, and survived storms, and would live through storms in the future. But for all their experience, all their nautical knowledge, they needed to experience Christ’s rescue of them on a first hand basis. They needed to be scared out of their wits, at the end of their ropes, and then to experience the miraculous rescue by Jesus, SO THAT THEY WOULD HAVE THAT EXPERIENCE TO CARRY THEM THROUGH ALL THE STORMS THAT WOULD COME UP IN THE FUTURE.
Of course Christ rescued all of the men in the boat, for they believed in Him, and called upon Him. But here is the difference: ONLY PETER EXPERIENCED A CLOSE, LIFE SAVING ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS ON A FIRST HAND BASIS. FOR ONLY PETER WANTED MORE THAN JUST SITTING IDLY BY IN THE BOAT. PETER MET THE STORM HEAD ON, FOUGHT THE WAVES AND THE WIND AND FELT THE AWESOME EXPERIENCE OF TOUCHING THE VERY HAND OF CHIRST -- BECAUSE PETER WAS THE ONLY ONE WILLING TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT AND RUSH TO JESUS SIDE. IT WAS ONLY PETER WHO WASN’T CONTENT TO STAY WHERE HE WAS AT, IN HIS COMFORTABLE SEAT. PETER WANTED MORE AND PETER HAD THE COURAGE TO STEP OUT OF THE BOAT.
The real miracle of this Scripture is not that Jesus walked on top of the water. Peter walking on the water was miraculous, but Christ reaching down and pulling Peter up with the strength of a few fingers was a far more noteworthy event. And for Peter it was the revelation of having Christ reach down and touch him personally.
As today’s disciple, Christ looks down on us, and of course is pleased with our worship, happy that we have come into his house. But until we have the courage to step our of our seats, to want to enlarge our faith, to have such a passionate desire to actually touch Christ and so we are willing to do more than sit in our pews, we will continue to have that “comfortable” faith. No risks, no growing closer to God, no touching of others because we are burning inside with the excitement of Christ, then we can expect that Christ will continue to wave at us from a distance. As a church, as an individual, as a people of faith, in order to spread the Gospel, to live out a personal relationship with Christ, we have to have the courage to get out of the comfortable boat and try walking among the waves of today’s world.
We can concentrate on everything that is going wrong, we can scream our heads off from fear of what might happen, and we can choose to keep God out of our own storms of life. Christ will weep for us; He will be aching for wanting to reach out to us; but Christ will not come until He is recognized and asked for help. Christ needs YOU to realize where the help is coming from. It’s not from your own strength; it’s not from those big cars and fine houses. It’s from a heavenly hand attached to a Savior who has one purpose; and that is to save his children from the storms of life.
There are storms in every life, sometimes they feel like they’re drowning us; sometimes they’re just a hurdle we have to climb over. But in every storm, Christ is waiting with outstretched arms, to save us. It is up to us to call out to him before the waves overtake us. Do not wait until you are drowning to realize your own strength will never get you through. And do not allow the waves to overtake you simply because you are too afraid to get out of your comfortable seat. Move out, reach out, cry out, and allow Christ to come and personally touch you.
Tom White and thousands like him have dared to step out of their comfortable chairs, and lives have been changed. This morning, I ask you to think about changing only one life, and that is your own. Don’t wait for the storm to overtake you.
