It was
the first time he’d left them. Our
gospel says that Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead
without them. He had crowds to send
forth, crowds that he’d just miraculously fed (this gospel picks up right where
we left off last week). And, then, he needed some prayer time. So, he goes up the mountain. He mourns his friend and forerunner John the
Baptist, whose death at Herod’s hands he’d just heard of. Maybe he begins to fear for his own death
which may come the same way. He needs to
experience anew and afresh the closeness of his father, to re-member whose Son
he is, to re-find the strength to be God-with-us to this hungry world. A world that suddenly looks more dangerous
with John’s death. A world that’s about
to get a lot stormier.
It’s
no wonder the disciples didn’t want to go off without him, and in their
feelings of nervousness, loss and abandonment, the worst they could imagine
hits: a storm. A storm is not just an inconvenience;
it’s a threat to their very lives. Our
text describes their boat, translating literally, as tortured by the waves.
Deeper than that, they are steeped in Biblical images of the sea as representative
of the forces of chaos that God’s creative providence normally keeps at bay. Isaiah uses the “raging of the sea” as a
poetic image for the most terrible noise imaginable; the Psalmist boasts over
how much greater the God of Israel is than any other so-called god of the
nations, for our God “rules even the surging sea, when the waves mount up, He
crushes them.”
But it
wasn’t waves that were being crushed now.
Wouldn’t following Jesus protect them from this kind of distress, fear
and possible death? No, like the house
built on rock Jesus spoke of at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, they would
still have waves crash against them. But
they would not fall. Could they
understand that yet, without having experienced it? Suddenly, they see him. But they can’t believe their eyes. Could it be?
They thought it quite impossible, it was humanly impossible, but here he is: Jesus is with them in the
storm! That’s the greatest claim faith
can make, not that we would evade storms, but that we dare to believe that
Jesus is with us in any storm.
And
Peter wants even more. Peter wants so
much to be close to Jesus that he’s prepared to make another impossible request:
he trusts Jesus’ enough – trusts Jesus’ power, and trusts Jesus’ love for him –
that he asks to walk towards him, over water.
Only gods could walk on water, or human heroes to whom a special favor
had been granted by a god – that was
the conviction of the Greeks; only God, the true creator God, had power over
the seas – that was the conviction of the Jews.
And Peter dares to ask… he dares to recognize that the power of God is
present in this miraculous man he wants to be close to and he dares to see
something even more glorious and powerful – that his love is reciprocated! A hundredfold!
That Jesus, God-with-us, wants Peter to be close to him as much, even
more!, than Peter wants to be with Jesus.
So, Jesus gives the foundation-laying command that makes human response
possible. “Come.”
And
Peter does, or he starts too. He walks
on water! But, then he looks down. “Don’t look down!” How often have you heard that call arise to a
daredevil? Well, Peter dares to trust in
the power of God’s love, he has faith, but it’s little-faith, and he looks
down. And he sees and hears the wind
roar and the waters rage, that terrible sound, and he lets that block out his
master’s voice, and he lets the distress, the fear, the symbol of death rule
him. And he sinks. Peter, the rock, starts to sink. And Jesus saves him.
In a
moment, a fraction of moment, Peter feels Jesus’ embrace. He’s been caught. Jesus’ hand has been extended. The hands that cupped the seas and spanned
the measures of the sky extend to save, to hold. The hands that would be stretched out over
wood and pierced not just by nails but by the sin that drove the nails, extend
out of love, to save, to hold. And
Peter, who thought he had to do something mighty and amazing and marvelous to
be near to Jesus, finds himself held, a fraction of a moment after he fell,
after he doubted, after he looked down.
Just as he realized that he was overwhelmed, that he would never be
enough to be able to walk out over the sea to get to Jesus, he realized that he
would never need to be, that Jesus in his divine power and just as divine love would
extend his hand across that watery threshold, and hold, and save.
And
the disciples in the boat finally get it and are the first humans in Matthew’s
gospel to proclaim: “This is the Son of God!”
Pope Saint John XXIII once said that “the secret of life is to be
carried by God and so carry others to
him.” Peter encounters Christ as the one
who carries him, and in being picked up from his failure, carries a whole boat
to a whole new level of faith and confession.
You’ve
probably noticed that Holy Cross religious wear a cross and anchors symbol
round our necks. This is to remind us
that in any storm, Christ is with us, and Christ’s cross – the ultimate
reminder that he will always let his hands be extended to save us, no matter
what the cost – Christ’s cross is our anchor, our hope. Christ holds us, and saves us.
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