Pentecost 8, 2011 Immanuel Chapel, Matthew 14:22-33
A week ago we were eye witnesses to the glory of the Lord displayed in a desolate place. Jesus strengthened weak hands and restored feeble knees. The blind brought to him could see and deaf ears could hear. Lame people leaped. The mute tongue sang for joy. The prophet Isaiah’s signs of the coming Christ had been fulfilled in the sight of His people. Starting with next to nothing, Jesus had fed a multitude in the wilderness. Then, and only then, did he do what the disciples suggested hours before, He sent the people home healed and with full stomachs. They had tasted of the Lord and saw that it was good.
Immediately, Jesus commanded his disciples to get into the boat and begin to start across to the other side of the sea. What do disciples do when Jesus commands? They obey. Then Jesus went up in the mountain to pray; while the disciples rowed away.
Jesus had bigger fish to fry than those he fed to the hungry multitude. He had more devastating wounds to heal than faltering hearts, arthritic limbs and lungs that are no longer limber. He needed to fulfill one more sign from Isaiah. That would happen in the crowded desolation of the high priest’s and Pontius Pilate’s courtyards. It would lead to the place of the skull, the cruel cross and cold crypt. It was for our transgressions that he was wounded. His stripes healed us of our sin sickness and made us whole.
The image of a boat was often used to describe the church. Our worship center is called a nave. The pulpit likened to the prow of a ship. Through the water of baptism Jesus gave us a boarding pass on the ship of his church. When we left this nave last week, this ark of salvation, we, “The people of God from His dwelling (took) leave.” We went filled, having tasted the Lord’s good Supper. We went strengthened in faith and blessed by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, “To work for God’s kingdom and answer his call.”
So how did our week go? Let me tell you how things went for the disciples after they launched their boat into the sea. Jesus, on the shore, soon receded from their view. Then, they ran into a headwind. For hours in the dark, wind and wave tormented them.
Did you have any moments, minutes or hours this past week, where you headed into a contrary wind from which there seemed no relief? Or perhaps you had smooth sailing this week. No ill wind blew your way. No argument with your spouse. No, need to set things straight with your kids. No need to have patience with your parents. Work was a breeze. Your job is secure for life. Doctors only gave reassuring diagnoses. Congress and the president inspired confidence in their ability to lead. Every thought of your mind and word from your mouth was good and godly, filled with joy and praise. You had a sense that the angel of the Lord encamped around you ready to deliver you from all your troubles. Perhaps that is how your week went or perhaps not. Perhaps Jesus was an ever present help in time of trouble or perhaps he was a figure watching from shore while the wind and waves beat against you.
There was nothing “perhaps” about it for the disciples who still were struggling on the sea past midnight. Then “He came to them walking on the sea.” You see, the Lord who healed the sick and fed the hungry from next to nothing is also the Lord of wind and wave. It was he who brought order out of chaos when the earth, the darkness and the waters of the deep were all a surging void. It was he who had parted the waters allowing Israel to walk through their midst to freedom from slavery. Now the Lord of wind and wave came walking to them on the waters.
When the disciples saw him they cried out in fear, ”It’s a phantasm.” Immediately, Jesus said, “Be courageous.” He clarified his identity, “It is I.” “Fear not.” The One walking on the water is God who revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush, telling him “I am.” “I am he,” Jesus said to the woman at the well, who rushed back into town inviting people to come and see, “Can this be the Christ?” “I am the bread of life.” “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst.” To the scribes and Pharisees he said, “I am the light of the world.” “Before Abraham, I am.” “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” When his friend Lazarus died he said to his sisters, “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
To the mob who came to arrest him in the garden of Gethsemane he said, “I am he.”
All of this is in that statement, “It is I” Therefore, “Fear not.” Do you see? In the midst of the contrary winds and waves that harass us in our life, Jesus does come to us.
And Peter did take courage. He asked the Lord to give him another command “to come to you on the water.” Peter wanted to be like Jesus, courageous and fearless. But he wanted it on his own terms. Jesus said, “Come!”
Christ has also to us, “Come.” Come not to a comfortable ministry of doing the same old thing. Come to do the thing to which he sent his church long ago. “Go, make disciples of all nations.” The Lord has said to us, “Be courageous. It is I, fear not. Come”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Peter had to leave the ship---in order to learn both his own weakness and the almighty power of his Lord.” At the point where we are overwhelmed and sinking in doubt, in moment of dire need our only cry is ”Lord, save me,” for there is only one source of salvation.
The Lord who healed the sick and filled the hungry and is Lord of wind and we is also the Lord of our salvation. The reason for Jesus coming is given at time of his birth into the world, “he will save his people from their sins.” God, in Christ has reached down and pulled us out of the deep waters.
We can do no other than those first disciples did. They made a church of their boat and worshiped him, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
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