"take Courage. It Is I."

One very cold day, a farmer sees a bird lying on the path, half dead. He picks up the bird, cradles it in his hands, and blows his warm breath on it. The bird begins to revive, but the farmer has chores to do, and doesn’t have the time to nurse the bird to recovery. But he spots a fresh cow pile, and puts the bird in it, up to its neck, to keep it warm. Soon the bird, feeling warm and cozy, begins to sing. Unfortunately, the singing attracts a cat, who pulls the bird out, and eats it. Now the moral of this story is that the person who puts you in deep manure may not be your enemy, but the one who pulls you out may not be your friend. But if you’re in deep, don’t start singing!

Well at least part of this story applies to our Gospel reading. About the one putting us in deep not being our enemy, because in our lesson, Jesus had put the disciples in a bad situation. But it was Jesus, still ever the friend, who pulled them out. And it worked out well that Peter didn’t keep quiet. Other than that…..But let’s see how that all played out.

Jesus had received the news that his cousin, friend, and special messenger, John the Baptist, had been beheaded. It’s very likely Jesus and John grew up near each other and had often played together as kids. So, the news hit Jesus hard. But the crowds had found Him and wanted to hear Him speak. He does teach the crowd, and fearing they were hungry and had no food, He miraculously feeds the 5000 with the 2 fish and 5 barley rolls before dismissing them. He’s still grieving, and by now is exhausted from his ministry to the crowd. He tells the disciples to go on ahead to the 5 mile distant Capernaum by boat without Him, so He could spend time alone in prayer, as He often did. He liked to go to mountainside places to pray, where He could escape notice and pray without interruption. It would have been a critical need for Him. He probably found a place overlooking the lake, able to see his disciples in the distance. It had been a calm day until one of the sudden and violent storms suddenly erupted, caused by colder air rushing down the mountain slopes, colliding with warm winds over the lake. The storm lasted several hours into the night, and the disciples would have been exhausted from trying to row against the wind and waves, making very little progress, and trying to stay afloat.

It was ironic that, as I was preparing this message about storms in our lives, we were hit with those bad storms on Wednesday and Thursday. Spencer got over 4 inches of rain on Wednesday with periods of thunder and lightning, experienced violent winds, once even going to the basement during a tornado warning. It gave me a better context of what the disciples experienced.

But was their sudden storm a coincidence, or did Jesus know what was about to happen when He sent them, or even informed about during His time of prayer. From His vantage point, He could have seen their trouble and spoken a word right then to calm the storm. Instead, in a totally unexpected way, about dawn, Jesus comes to them, casually walking on the water during the raging storm, without any sense of urgency. The disciples, thinking it was a ghost, are terrified.

We may chuckle at their fear of a ghost, but theirs was a very real fear, because it was a commonly held belief that evil spirits lived beneath the 141 ft deep Lake. When Jesus cast out the legion of demons from the possessed man living in the cemetery, He sent them into a herd of nearby pigs, who then stampeded over a cliff into the lake and drowned, adding to the belief that evil spirits lurked beneath the water. Seeing a ghost would have been consistent with that belief. And drowning in that lake would have put them in the midst of the hell of demons. This whole night would have been a night of terror and exhaustion for the disciples. But Jesus calls out, “Take courage; it is I.” But how reassuring was that? Oh, it’s OK, just Jesus walking through the storm on the surface of the water. It’s hard to imagine what the disciples were thinking. But then Peter does the unexpected.

Peter was the foot-in-mouth disciple, who often spoke before putting his brain in gear. But he was passionate about being close to Jesus. The one who proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, then tried to prevent Him from going to Jerusalem, who Jesus then called Satan. The disciple who passionately pulled a small sword to fight off an armed guard arresting Jesus, even cutting off a servant’s ear. Peter, the one who had passionately sworn he would never deny Jesus, but hours later, in Herod’s courtyard, swore he never even knew Jesus. But Peter’s passion, rather than wisdom, was to be near Jesus regardless of the risks. Then, like the other disciples, he had hidden behind closed doors, not appearing at the Crucifixion, yet racing to the tomb when told the tomb was empty. Peter had lapses of faith and courage, but was always passionate about being near Jesus.