(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Walking on Water”, originally shared on July 22, 2021. It was the 133rd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Have you ever walked on water?
Jesus walked on water. More than once. Today we’re going to talk about
what that means for us.
Have you ever walked on water? I have. Many times.
I used to walk across frozen lakes and rivers all the time. I walked on
the frozen pond we made with the garden hose on our back yard, and on the
delicate ice sheets in the streets and on the sidewalks. Well, ice is water
too, right? It’s just in its solid form.
Walking on water in its liquid form? That’s something else. That’s an
attention getter. That creates an impression.
We can’t do it. It wouldn’t even occur to us to try.
Jesus walked on water in its liquid form. Several times. We see one time
in John 6:16-21.
It was a dark and stormy night.
It was the night after the feeding of the
5,000.
Jesus had withdrawn to the mountain to pray after people were about to
come and take him by force to make him king.
The disciples had left the venue without Jesus and were heading back to
Capernaum, their home base in Galilee. It was the location of Peter’s mother-in
law’s-house and they often stayed there. This is how the story begins, in John
6, 16-17:
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got
into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and
Jesus had not yet come to them.
Jesus had not yet come to them.
Well, how was he going to come to them? He was in the hills above the
northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. They were out at sea. And then one of
those sudden storms came up. They were commonplace when the cold mountain air
circulated with the warmer below-sea-level sea air.
The wind was heaving in from a direction that made their sail useless.
They had to get out the oars and row, in a storm, at night. They rowed for a
mile, then for two miles, then three, maybe four. And that’s where we pick up
the story in verse 18:
18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When
they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and
they were terrified. 20 But he said to them, “It is
I; do not be afraid.”
How would you react if it was dark and
stormy, and you thought you saw someone walking on water toward you?
Yeah, they were terrified.
Do you like scary movies? One of the prime
methods for structuring scary movies is to let the viewer see the source of
danger that the characters in the movie don’t. And sometimes they let you think
you see the danger, but you don’t. It’s coming from someone else.
That’s where the disciples were in this
event.
They saw Jesus, but they didn’t know it was
Jesus.
They were in a storm. They were scared. Then
they saw someone walking on water. People don’t walk on water, so what was
coming at them? Was it a demon? Was it a ghost? It was getting closer. It was
coming directly at them. They were terrified!
Then Jesus, says “It is I; do not be
afraid.” There are those words again.
I don’t know if that calmed them down much,
at least not right away. What was he doing there? Who walks on water, in a
storm, on the water?
And then they knew.
The story concludes with verse 21:
21 Then they wanted to take him into the
boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
I’m not sure what “immediately” means here, as the disciples and Jesus
were about half-way to their destination at this point.
John is highly symbolic, though. There are layers upon layers of meaning
in the gospel of John.
Perhaps it means that when they saw it was Jesus, they knew they were
OK.
Jesus is life’s destination. Life’s storms mean nothing to Jesus, and
Jesus will calm us in our life’s storms when we recognize him for who Jesus is.
Our Savior. When Jesus is within us, we’re all in the same boat, and that means
that we’re going to make it home.
Walking on water is a miracle, but miracles point to the way the world
was supposed to be at Creation and to the new heaven and the new earth that God
will bring after the Judgement. God will restore God’s intentions at Creation.
In fact, the word John often uses for miracles is “signs”. Signs point to
something else.
The pivot point between the beginning and the end is the cross. Jesus is
the beginning and the end.
Dr. Roberta Hestenes taught at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena for many
years, and then was called to serve as president at Eastern College, a
Christian college near Philadelphia.
She came back to Pasadena to deliver a lecture and told about the
graduation of her first class of students. She said that the class officers had
come to the administration with a special request. Eastern has a beautiful
campus and graduations are traditionally held next to an on-campus lake. The
graduating class processes down a lush green hill on the shore of this lake to
take their seats for their graduation ceremony.
The class officers asked if they could install sheets of plexiglass just
below the surface of the water, so that they could walk down the hill, walk on
water, and then take their seats.
The request was, sadly for them, denied.
The disciples saw Jesus, but they didn’t know who he was.
He was revealed to them in the midst of a storm.
I don’t suppose that the storms in our lives are the first place we
would look for Jesus. In fact for many people, it’s the last place. But among
we who are being saved, that’s where Jesus is. He is with us in our suffering.
That’s what Emmanuel means. God with us.
We may be at the end of the pandemic, and maybe we’re not. We’ve seen
our share of life’s storms and many of us have lost a lot.
But many of us have also gained in the recognition that God has been
with us at every stage of the pandemic and continues to be there with us.
I have long thought that crisis is an amplifier of who we are as
persons. What was weak gets weaker. What was strong gets stronger.
And so it is with faith. Faith is like a beard. If you let it grow, it
becomes the first thing people notice about you.
Faith is a living relationship with the one true living God. It
transforms us. We are made a new creation; we are born again because of the
indwelling power of God pointing us to the cross as the pivot point of human
history and of our personal histories. We live in Christ because Christ died
for us. That is a countercultural life. And people notice.
Jesus is the destination. Life’s storms mean nothing to Jesus, and Jesus
will calm us in all of life’s circumstances, including in our life’s storms,
when we recognize him for who Jesus is. Our Savior. Emmanuel. God with us.
Whatever turns the pandemic may take, however hard we have to row
against the wind, we know that Jesus is with us, and will be with us forever.
We don’t know what the future holds. But we know who holds the future.
When Jesus is within us, we’re all in the same boat with Jesus, and that
means that we’re going to make it home.
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