Treading Water

Perhaps no miracle was more spectacular than the one that finds Jesus and Peter walking on the surface of the Sea of Galilee. And the fact that Matthew’s account (Matt. 14:22–33) unusually employs the word “immediately” three times (Matt. 14:22, 27, 31)—a stylistic choice more typical of Mark—suggests that Matthew is recording an eyewitness account given to him by Peter himself. Peter is saying to Matthew, “I want you to tell this story as I saw it!”

And what a story it is! A storm at sea. Stunning miracles involving both Jesus and Peter. And an embarrassing collapse of faith followed by a rescuing hand of the Master.

Faith Will Be Tested

The disciples are in a boat on the Sea of Galilee because Jesus told them to “go before him to the other side” (Matt. 14:22). Crowds had gathered to hear Jesus. They wanted to see miracles too. But it was now time to dismiss them because evening was approaching.

The disciples are “a long way from the land” (Matt. 14:24) when a storm arises. This is not the first storm that Peter has witnessed. He had seen Jesus’ power in stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee before (Matt. 8:23–27).

The Sea of Galilee is 680 feet above sea level, and 30 miles to the north, Mount Hermon rises to an impressive 9,000 feet. Topography dictates that sudden downdrafts of cold air from the north can quickly cause windy gusts and choppy waves on the Sea of Galilee. No doubt the disciples had experienced these many times. Yet on this occasion, they were in trouble at sea because they had obeyed their Master’s command to sail to the other side. Obedience can sometimes get you into trouble.

Faith will always be tested. It was one of the very first lessons that the Apostle Paul learned following his first missionary journey: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Peter would reflect on this idea many times afterward: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

Peter came to understand all too well that there are “various trials” (1 Peter 1:6). The word translated “various” (Greek, poikilos) suggests multivariate, an entire rainbow of tribulations: physical, spiritual, mental, or even a combination of all three. They may appear to be strange, and God may orchestrate them for a season, but He is always in control. Still, we need never think that He will abandon us.

God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform;
he plants his footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sov’reign will.¹

Terrified

The disciples are suddenly “terrified” (Matt. 14:26). It isn’t only the ferocity of the storm that makes them afraid; it is the sight of Jesus walking through the storm “on the sea” at around 4 a.m. (Matt. 14:25).

It is “the fourth watch of the night” (between 3 and 6 a.m.; Matt. 14:25). This means that the disciples have been at sea for more than nine hours. Jesus has made them wait. He could have come to them at the very beginning of the storm, but He did not. For reasons known only to Him, He wanted them to experience the trial for a certain amount of time. It was a test. Trials always test our faith.

What was Jesus doing all this time? Praying! He had ascended a mountain near the shore “to pray” (Matt. 14:23).

Why should the Son of God need to pray? After all, He holds the universe in the palm of His hand. He dictates the course of history. Are not the forces of the universe, including the powers of darkness, subject to His will? Why, then, does He pray?

Before answering that question, it’s worth noting that Jesus’ praying on this occasion was not an anomaly. He prayed after His baptism, in the morning before heading to Galilee, after healing people, before choosing the twelve disciples, before feeding the five thousand, while healing a deaf and mute man, before feeding the four thousand, at Caesarea Philippi when He asked the disciples who people thought He was, at the transfiguration, at the return of the seventy-two, before giving the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, before raising Lazarus from the dead, when He blessed little children and laid His hands on them, at the Last Supper, for Peter when Satan asked that he might sift him as wheat, in the upper room the night before His death, in Gethsemane, when nailed to the cross, in His dying breath, and before eating bread with His disciples in His resurrection body.² In short, it’s probably not an exaggeration to suggest that Jesus was always praying. It formed an essential pattern of His daily life.

But to go back to the original question: Why? The answer lies in the reality of His incarnation. In the words of the Nicene Creed, Jesus is “God of God, . . . very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” But He is also human. He has a human body and a human soul. He has a human mind and a human will. In His earthly life, He experienced pain, hunger, and thirst. More profoundly, He experienced death, the separation of body and soul.

Jesus’ prayers indicate that according to His humanity, He was utterly dependent on His heavenly Father’s support and provision while on earth. He lived by faith in the tenderhearted encouragement of His Father. He was dependent on His Father for food, strength, knowledge, and insight. All that Jesus did was by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, in utter dependence on His Father. He did not pray simply to set an example for His disciples. He prayed because He could not survive without it. The One who walked on the Sea of Galilee was at the same time wholly dependent on the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit.

Even the Winds and the Sea Obey Him

As we have already noted, this was not the first storm at sea that the disciples had witnessed. Earlier they had been in a boat, this time with Jesus, who was sound asleep. It is a testimony to the reality of His true humanity that the disciples had to wake Him up, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing” (Matt. 8:25). He had been so utterly exhausted that not even a storm could wake Him! Chiding them for their “little faith,” He rebuked the storm, and there was “a great calm” (Matt. 8:26). The disciples marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matt. 8:27).

Evidently, the memory of that miracle has now faded. The men are not expecting Jesus to repeat the miracle, and most certainly they are not expecting Jesus to walk on the Sea of Galilee straight into the storm. Instead, when they see the form of someone walking on the water but cannot make out who (or what) it is, they jump to the conclusion that “it is a ghost!” (Matt. 14:26).

The Jewish people had a love-hate relationship with the sea. Although technically they had access to the Mediterranean, for much of Israel’s history the coastline was occupied by Israel’s enemies. And Leviathan, the great, mythical, Ugaritic sea monster, loomed large in the nation’s consciousness (cf. Job 3:8; 41:1; Pss. 74:14; 104:26; Isa. 27:1). This may in part explain the fact that the disciples are suddenly “terrified” (Matt. 14:26). Until, that is, they hear a familiar voice, saying: “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (v. 27). In the previous chapter, we pointed out the frequency with which the Bible employs the refrain “do not be afraid.” Fear is conquered when Jesus is near.

Many twentieth-century New Testament scholars scoffed at this miraculous event, trying to explain it away by claiming that the boat was merely in shallow water, near bulrushes close to the shore. Antisupernaturalism, the consequence of the Enlightenment, drove them to these conclusions. To accommodate Scripture to “science” and a more modern understanding of the universe, theologically liberal scholars quietly removed miracles. But at what cost? Since the entrance and exit of Jesus into and out of this world involves the supernatural, opposition to the miraculous undoes the very essence of Christianity. Without the miraculous, there is no Jesus. And without Jesus, there is no gospel.

The Greek is stubbornly unsympathetic to this accommodation to antisupernaturalism, using the word “on” (epi), not in (se or entōs), for Jesus’ relation to the water (Matt. 14:25; cf. vv. 28–29). It is as if Peter is saying: “I was there. And Jesus was on the water. And so was I, for a minute or two.”

Triumph and Failure

What happened next is so typical of Peter. It is what endears him to us. If, as we suggested earlier, Peter is the one telling this story to Matthew, Peter tells it without attempting to dilute his tragic lapse of faith.

Peter’s initial response to hearing Jesus call out to the disciples was to ask Jesus to allow him to do the same. And Jesus did. Peter got out of the boat and walked toward Jesus. He was walking on water, defying the laws of gravity and density.

Was it bravado? That Jesus bid Peter come to Him suggests otherwise. None of Jesus’ miracles lacks significance, and none is a mere display of showmanship. All of them are purposeful. And this one demonstrated that the winds and waves obey His voice.

Why not have all the disciples walk on the sea? The obvious answer is that only Peter suggested it. Perhaps the rest thought that Peter was crazy. And it was Peter’s faith that needed to be tested if he was to fulfill the special role that Jesus had planned for him.

What is faith capable of? A great deal, according to Jesus. Upon seeing a ripe fig tree wither in seconds, Jesus told the disciples:

Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith. (Matt. 21:21–22)

This is the same Peter who would later urge Christians to resist the devil, “firm in [their] faith” (1 Peter 5:9, emphasis added).

But Peter’s faith failed him. When faith in Jesus becomes faith in faith, it always does. He looked away from his Savior and calculated the illogicality of it all. And viscosity took over. He was heavier than water, and the laws of the universe asserted themselves. His faith became “little faith” and quickly turned into doubt (Matt. 14:31).

This is often the tempter’s ploy. In C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, an apprentice demon is being schooled in the art of casting doubt:

But there is an even better way of exploiting the trough; I mean through the patient’s own thoughts about it. As always, the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind. Do not let him suspect the law of undulation. Let him assume that the first ardours of his conversion might have been expected to last, and ought to have lasted, forever, and that his present dryness is an equally permanent condition. Having once got this misconception well fixed in his head, you may then proceed in various ways. It all depends on whether your man is of the desponding type who can be tempted to despair, or of the wishful-thinking type who can be assured that all is well. The former type is getting rare among the humans. If your patient should happen to belong to it, everything is easy. You have only got to keep him out of the way of experienced Christians (an easy task nowadays), to direct his attention to the appropriate passages in scripture, and then to set him to work on the desperate design of recovering his old feelings by sheer will-power, and the game is ours. If he is of the more hopeful type, your job is to make him acquiesce in the present low temperature of his spirit and gradually become content with it, persuading himself that it is not so low after all. In a week or two you will be making him doubt whether the first days of his Christianity were not, perhaps, a little excessive. Talk to him about “moderation in all things.” If you can once get him to the point of thinking that “religion is all very well up to a point,” you can feel quite happy about his soul. A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.³

Worship

After Jesus and Peter are safely inside the boat, the wind ceases, and the disciples are amazed. Once again, they are overcome by the knowledge that they are in the presence of One who is holy and powerful. They do the only thing they can do. They worship Him (Matt. 14:33).

There is nothing fouler to the Jewish mindset than idolatry. It bedeviled the narrative of the Israelites’ entire history. That there is only one God who deserves to be worshiped was a canon emblazoned on their hearts. It was enshrined in the Ten Commandments. And yet these Jewish Christians are worshiping Jesus. And Jesus does not reprimand them. He gladly accepts their worship.

The disciples recognized again that this man from Nazareth, the son of Mary and Joseph, was also God. For everything else about which the disciples are confused, there is no doubt about the divinity of Jesus in the Gospels on the part of the disciples. The early disciples accepted as fact that Jesus is God. This truth about Jesus is as simple as it is astonishing and beautiful all at the same time. More importantly, without this fact, there is no Christianity. In the boat on the Sea of Galilee that morning was God Himself.