This is a most interesting story, to say the least, in Matthew 14.  Jesus walks on water.  This is made into language to describe someone who is highly thought of or performs seemingly impossible tasks – “They think he or she walks on water!”  Jesus calms a windstorm.  He had done this before on the Sea of Galilee in chapter 8.  This is where we hear the disciples respond with the line from which we took the title of this series – “What sort of man is this, that even the wind and the waves obey him?”  At that point, the disciples were afraid.  They thought they were going to drown.  There is no such fear here, though.  They are sailing into the wind, and it is making things difficult.  The waves are against them, but there is no description of imminent danger.  The disciples don’t start fearing until they see Jesus, in fact.  Peter steps out of the boat.  This story goes much beyond an object lesson in getting out of our comfort zones and stepping out in faith.  Peter is saved.

This is what Jesus does, after all.  Jesus saves.  We’re looking at what kind of man Jesus is through these weeks.  We’ve seen Jesus as our unfailing one – the one who never wavers from his Father’s purpose and plan.  We’ve seen Jesus teaching and speaking about the importance of us not only hearing but doing.  We’ve seen Jesus making people whole.  We’ve heard Jesus make an invitation and a promise in the middle of a lot of different reactions to him and questions and doubts – “Come to me all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Here, we see Jesus coming to the disciples in the middle of a windstorm.  At the end of this story, a confession is made – “Truly you are the Son of God.”  They worship him.  There are two foundational truths at play here.  The first concerns who Jesus is (we call this Christology) because this is always where we must start.  The second is what constitutes a good and fitting and proper response on the part of those who follow him (or what we call discipleship).  Matthew is addressing who Jesus is with his right hand, and who we are in him with his left.  Here’s the quote – “Jesus’ lordship is revealed by our discipleship.  The better we see him, the better we understand who we are.”  We want to see him more clearly.  Let’s ask for God’s help as we look at His word.  Let’s pray.   

“Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.” (14:22) Word has come in chapter 14 about the death of John the Baptist.  Upon hearing the news, we read Jesus withdrew to a deserted place by himself.  Crowds followed him.  Jesus had compassion on them and fed them.  “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.”

So, Jesus is not with them.  From the earliest days of the church, the image of the church as a group of people in a sailing ship.  If you look at the ceilings of many churches (including this one), you see that the beams look like the hull of a ship that is turned upside down.  Life for the early church was difficult as they sailed along.  The same thing can be said for the life of the church in any era.  There is no golden age of the church for us to look back and or long for or wish for when everything was blue skies and rainbows.  There was never a time for the church where we haven’t faced opposition or division or failure to live as we should.  If you are looking for the “perfect church” where seldom is heard a discouraging word and all is sweetness and light, you’re going to be looking for a long time.  I do pray that we all find ourselves in a community of faith filled with people who know their need for Jesus, though.

He's coming and he’s coming in our story.  More bad news though before we get to the good news (we’ll get there though!).  Look at what the disciples are facing here.  Contrary winds.  Headwinds that are turning what should be a couple of hours of smooth sailing into an all-night event.  Tacking (zigzagging back and forth for us non-sailors) to try and make progress in the face of the wind.  Working as hard as we can and making very little progress.  Can we identify?  Taking down the sail and going to the oars in the face of the waves hitting the bow of the boat.  The ground is inherently unstable because it’s not ground.  Uncertainty is all around us (and do I need to remind us once again how the sea represented chaos to the ancient Israelites?). Living in the in-between time of the already and not yet of the kingdom of God.  Living in the promise as we await the fulfillment of the promise. Feeling like we need clarity. 

Also it’s dark.  The shoreline is not in sight.  Are we even going in the right direction?  We ask questions.  Why the cross?  Why suffering?  We know that sorrow lasts only for the night and joy comes in the morning, but the night can be hard.  The ark can make it difficult to even see Jesus or know him when he appears.  Thanks be to God though, that Jesus’ appearing is not dependent on our ability to recognize him.  Thanks be to God, we are not left alone.  In the middle of this situation in the middle of the Gospel of Matthew, we are reminded of two verses that bookend this Gospel.  An angel appears to Joseph and Matthew notes “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord, through the prophet, ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us.’” (1:22-23)  We go to the last words of Jesus in Matthew for “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (28:20b)  It’s early in the morning, but there’s enough light to see a figure walking toward them on the sea.

“And early in the morning, he came walking toward them on the sea.  But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’  And they cried out in fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” (14:25-27)

Let us consider what this scene tells us about who Jesus is and what kind of God we follow.  Jesus came walking toward them on the sea.  He didn’t need to.  He could have calmed the winds from the shore.  Is Jesus simply showing off in a “Look what I can do!” sense, as one commentator put it?  Or is there something else going on here in terms of what God is like and what God does?   We have been talking from the beginning of our journey through Matthew about how the Old Testament resonates and echoes throughout this good news. 

From the time that God delivered the people of Israel from slavery and oppression in Egypt, He has shown that He is the God who delivers, the God who makes a way through the sea.  This is the God who is making whole.  This is the God in whom we find rest.  Again, what welcome words from Jesus, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”  (14:27) 

Listen to the echoes of words like “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Josh 1:9) This was before the way was made through another kind of water – the River Jordan.  Listen to the echoes of Job as he declares this about God – “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.” (Job 9:8) 

Surely, Matthew is making a point about the divinity of Christ.  This man who has power even over the wind and the waves.  The other thing to consider, though, is what does this tell about who Jesus is functionally – what is it that Jesus does?  Look at what God making a way through the sea meant to the people of Israel – it meant deliverance.   It meant deliverance from bondage and slavery and oppression and injustice.  It meant freedom.  It meant life.    Listen to how the Psalmist sings of this – “When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you they were afraid; the very deep trembled…Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters; yet your footsteps were unseen.”

Here we have Jesus making a way through the sea.  This is the thing about the situation that Jesus’ followers were in on this boat.  They were in a situation from which they were unable to extricate themselves.  At the mercy of forces beyond their control.  Battered by the waves, far from land, the wind against them.  The word for battered here is “tormented.”  Tormented by the waves.  They are in a situation in which they are tormented by forces beyond their control.   

He came walking toward them on the sea.  When you are God, you come to the rescue.  What is it that we need to be rescued from?  I like to describe God as a deliverer.  What is it that we need to be delivered from?  What is it that God has delivered you from?  I like to ask this question.  We might answer despair.   Meaninglessness.  Ourselves.  Our own worst impulses in all the many forms our own worst impulses take.  Jesus comes walking towards us and says, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.”

Do not be afraid.  The command that’s repeated more often than any other command in the entire Bible.  Don’t we need to hear this message today?  Do not be afraid.  Jesus has delivered us from a situation.  It was a situation from which we were unable to extricate ourselves.  He’s delivered us from sin.  From the barrier that kept us from God.   Jesus comes to our rescue.  We’re looking ahead, of course.  We read this story knowing where it is going.  Knowing that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.  Knowing it is there that Jesus will bear the weight of the world’s sin on Calvary to deliver us.  We come back to the cross and we come back to the table time and time again to say thank you and to be formed as his people.  This is what God does, friends.  This is how God loves.

So what do we do with this news?  What is the fitting and proper response?  Faith.  Trust that Jesus is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.  Trust.  No matter how meagre.  The invitation is to respond with faith. 

Peter literally steps out in faith.  As the sort of number one disciple, Peter very much stands as a representative of every follower of Christ.  The first called.  The first named in any list.  The archetypal disciple, as someone has said.  His experience.  Our experience.  The one who seeks out Jesus’ teaching.  The one who desires to be close to Jesus even while showing weakness in trusting.  The one who affirms Jesus as the Mesiiah, the Son of the Living God, while showing that he doesn’t fully know what Messiahship means.  The one who falls asleep when called upon by Jesus to watch.  Just like us.  Peter knows what to do when doubt and fear threaten to overwhelm.  He calls out in a prayer that is right up there with “Lord help me!”  “Lord, save me!”  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Jesus is not condemning Peter’s lack of faith here.  He’s lamenting it, ok.  Jesus says those words as he is holding onto Peter, and I can’t imagine that Peter wasn’t clinging onto Jesus here with all his strength in this early dawn lake storm scene      

Let us hear these words of Jesus with tenderness.  We just heard that he’s tender and humble of heart.  Here is the great truth that I’d like us all to take away from this scene today.  It’s good news!  Why?  Many of us live with a great deal of pressure.  There’s a whole song about it.  More than one, but you know the one I mean, maybe.  Pressure as husbands, wives, sons, daughters, leaders, managers, supervisors,  employees, teachers, students, children even.  Here is a truth which means no pressure at all on me.  My being saved/delivered/made whole/given life eternal for now and always (ransomed/healed/restored/forgiven, as the old hymn goes) is in no way dependent on the amount of faith I have.  It is entirely dependent on the strength and faithfulness and steadfast love, which is never ending of the one who has reached down and caught hold of me and is holding me in his strong right hand. Jesus, namely. May we rest in this great truth as wind and waves and darkness and doubt and fear assail.  If it’s clear seas right now, rest in it too. 

Tim Keller wrote a great bit on the life of faith.  “Imagine you are on a high cliff and you lose your footing and begin to fall.  Just beside you as you fall is a branch sticking out of the very edge of the cliff.  It is your only hope, and it is more than strong enough to support your weight.  How can it save you?  If your mind is filled with intellectual certainty that the branch can support you, but you don’t actually reach out and grab it, you are lost.  If your mind is instead filled with doubt and uncertainty that the branch can hold you, but you reach out and grab it anyway, you will be saved. Why?  It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.  Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.”

Jesus steps into the boat, and the winds are stilled.  The disciples respond in the same way we’re invited to respond right now.  With a confession of faith and with worship.  We’re going to have a chance to confess our faith using the words of the Apostle Thomas.  We’re going to worship together by coming to the table and symbolically catching hold of our righteous branch, the shoot that came from the stump of Jesse.  I invite you to say with me, “My Lord and my God.”

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – My Lord and my God.

By his great mercy, he has given us a new birth in a living hope through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead – My Lord and my God!

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift – My Lord and my God! Amen