But Jesus does not flinch. There
isn’t any hesitation in His voice. No sign of doubt in His face. In fact,
He has all the people sit down! I don’t know about you, but we don’t call
the kids to the table until dinner is ready. There is no use in calling
them earlier. It’s only after the fish is cooked and the buns have risen
that I get the word, “Can you call the kids to the table?” and I call out,
“Dinner’s ready.”
But Jesus with only five loaves and
two fish in His hands calls the crowd of 5,000 strong to the table.
“Dinner’s ready.” He has the people sit down. That’s faith.
Then He gives thanks. This is
important – so important that all the gospel writers in their telling of
this event mention this fact. This is so important to John that in writing
his gospel he tells us that Jesus was in this very place again a little
while later – in the same spot – and He refers to it as “the place where the
people had eaten bread after the Lord had given thanks.” (John 6:25)
Jesus gives thanks and in so doing
He praises God for all the blessings received. But more, He is expressing
His dependence upon God the Father. He’s made it explicit before, “I
tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what
he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also
does.” (John 5:19)
He’s expressing His dependence upon
God. That’s what we do when we give thanks. “God is great, God is good,
let us thank Him for our food. By His hand we are fed, thank you God for
daily bread.” We recognize God as the giver of every gift. We recognize
Him and not ourselves as the one who sustains us, the one who provides for
us, we recognize our dependence on Him and not ourselves when we give thanks
to God. That’s why God delights in our thanksgiving. It’s not because He
wants us to be polite – it is rather a statement of faith when we give
thanks – we show our dependence upon God.
Jesus gives thanks and then He acts
– He breaks the bread. Faith and action married in perfect harmony. And
isn’t that the way it always has to be? It’s no good just having faith – we
have to act on that faith, we have to break the bread, we have to step out
of the boat. It is faith married to action.
And then, we don’t know how it
happens – I wonder if the gospel writers know themselves? We are only told
what happens – everyone eats. And at verse 20 we are told “they were
satisfied.” No one asks “Is that it?” No one grumbles about the taste. No
one complains about the plate presentation. No, they were satisfied. You
can hear the collective, “Ah, that was good!”
But more – if that wasn’t enough.
They had to scramble to find Rubbermaid® containers of the day for the
leftovers. There were leftovers – 12 basketful of broken pieces.
And then Jesus does something
strange. Verse 22 – “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the
boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd.”
What’s the rush? The disciples
aren’t given any time to talk with the crowd. No time to say, “Hey, what do
you think of our Lord and Master? Pretty special, eh? Wouldn’t he make a
good ruler?” John tells us in his account that the crowd already had that
idea – and they intended to make Jesus king by force. Clearly Jesus did not
want that to occur, it was not the way the Kingdom was to come – so He
quickly calls an end to the party.
Matthew tells us Jesus wants to be
alone to pray.
But what’s the rush? Why the hurry?
Didn’t Jesus want to debrief the whole thing with His disciples? He’d just
fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. Weren’t there lessons to be
learned and applied? Weren’t there concepts to grasp?
Ah! Maybe, maybe, but they weren’t
going to be learned in the midst of the crowd. They weren’t going to be
experienced in the open fields but instead in the confines of a boat.
So with the disciples barely able to
ask, “Who, what, where, when or how?” they sail off and Jesus has a quiet
time with His Father in prayer.
And then, as so often happens on the
Sea of Galilee, a strong wind whips up. The geography surrounding the lake
with its imposing mountains makes the event of strong winds certain but at
the same time hard to predict.
The boat is buffeted by the waves –
tossed back and forth as easy as a bar of Lifebuoy® soap is sloshed back and
forth in the bathtub.
We aren’t told how the disciples
feel. Tired? Certainly, for the waves were against them. Confident?
Perhaps - they had the situation in hand, they were seasoned fishermen after
all, but probably not.
What is clear is that the disciples
aren’t the focus of the story at this point. Our attention is all on Jesus,
because during the fourth watch of the night sometime between 3 and 6 in the
morning Jesus goes out to them - I find it heartening that while Jesus is
praying – its almost sounds like He’s watching over the disciples at the
same time. He’s watching the winds whip up and at just the right time He
comes to the disciples. So we read that He lives to make intercession for
us.
So Jesus goes out to them and if you
thought feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish was impressive look at
this – Jesus comes to them by walking on water!
Sometimes I think we need to close
our Bibles and sit in quiet awe of Jesus. For those of us who have grown up
in the church, we’ve heard this story often enough that when we hear it now
it no longer impresses, it’s usual, it’s commonplace, it’s like that
magazine you received last month. At first you pour over every page,
reading each article, looking at each ad. But with the passing of time that
magazine gets moved from your reading chair to the bedstand, then from the
bedstand to its final resting place in the bathroom on the back of the tank
for your guests to read – but you don’t take a second look at it.
So just rest here for a moment -
Jesus walks to His disciples on water, we need to sit in quiet awe.
In the days of the Old Testament if
a person simply touched the Ark of the Covenant they would die. If you were
to go near the mountain of God while He was giving His revelations, people
suggested that you might want to pick out your casket beforehand to save
them the trouble because you were as good as dead.
And when God decides to reveal
Himself – and even then just the hem of His garment or just a glimpse of His
back – people are blinded and bedazzled, stricken to the ground. Always
they covered their faces and cried out at the awesomeness of the majesty of
God.
And here is Jesus, clearly God in
the flesh, for He walks on water. This is the conclusion that the disciples
come to at the end of the story. They fall down and worship Him saying,
“Truly you are the Son of God.”
We are not to pass over this verse
quickly. Jesus walks on water. Our Lord and Master is Lord and Master! He
is the awesome one. What is the law of gravity to Him? What does
displacement mean to Him? All we can do is open our mouths and sit in quiet
awe.
And don’t get to thinking that this
is a somehow a trick. You know, perhaps Jesus got a good run at it, like
this dog and was moving so fast on the water that he defies gravity – kind
of like Wily Coyote of the old Roadrunner series who runs off the cliff for
about twenty steps and hangs in mid air for a moment.
Nor was it that the disciples had a
poor grasp of reality – Jesus wasn’t simply standing in shallow water, like
this fellow. A kind of optical illusion so that afterward someone could
say, “He really wasn’t walking on water.”
No, Matthew makes it plain to us in
verse 24 – the boat was already a considerable distance from land. They are
in the deep end of the pool.
And Jesus walks on water. He does
the impossible. What is out of the question for you and me, well it sounds
like an everyday occurrence for Jesus. He walks on water as leisurely as we
stroll around the paved paths of our local pond.
And notice that while the waves
buffet the boat, they don’t affect Jesus whatsoever. To paraphrase one
commentator, what was swirling around the heads of the disciples as a threat
– was under the feet of Jesus.
Jesus walks on water, our Lord and
Master walks on water.
At verse 26 our attention shifts to
the disciples who are shaking with fear, “It’s a ghost!” they say. They
don’t understand the whole thing. Of course not - we are so often slow to
understand that which is not of this world. We explain away miracles with
what is understandable and controllable, tamable. “It’s a ghost, yes that’s
what it is, that’s what it’s got to be.”
But Jesus seeks to calm their fears
and says to them, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
And then Peter says, “Lord if it is
you tell me to come to you on the water.”
Now if I was one of the other 11
disciples in that boat – I would say “What?? What are you asking that for?
Why would you want to go out there on the water? Why would you want to be
able to walk on the water? The boat is just fine isn’t? Why, not just say,
‘Lord if it is you then come and join us in the boat?’ ”
But Peter says, “If it is you then
tell me to come to you on the water.” Perhaps it is spiritual
grandstanding? I don’t think so, it’s not the time.
No, these events, the feeding of the
5,000 and the walking on the water, are about faith – about depending on
God. On recognizing His authority and His power and His strength and His
majesty and trusting Him to do in us and through us what we cannot do on our
own. We are to trust God, we are to depend on Him.
I think Peter is hesitantly
recognizing the authority of Jesus. Lord if it is you – there’s the
hesitation. If it is you then tell me to come to you on the water – there’s
the recognition of authority – if it is you then you should be able to allow
me to come to you on water.
After all, Jesus did say, “I tell
you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.”(John
14:12).
Peter recognizes – however
hesitantly – the Lordship of Jesus. When Jesus gave thanks to God before He
broke the bread, He recognized His Father’s lordship. Jesus was setting an
example for us. Peter was learning the lesson.
Are you? Do you recognize the
authority of Jesus? Here is one who walks on water. And are you ready to
act on that authority?
Jesus says to Peter, “Come.” I don’t
think Jesus said that with exasperation in His voice. “O, well if you must,
then come on, but do get on with it, it is a frightful night.” Nor do I
think he said that with his best James Earl Jones voice – Come! I think He
must have said that with a great deal of joy in His voice and a smile on His
face – “Come!” Jesus loves those who were willing to trust His authority.
Who are willing to take a step of faith in His Lordship and supremacy.
I think He must have said this with
a great deal of delight in his voice – because when we step out in faith in
Him what wonders He has to show us. What experiences He has to give us,
what an adventure He has to take us on, if we will only take that step of
faith and really trust that He is the one whom we say He is.
Faith and action together. God
takes great delight in His people when these two attitudes are married
together. Not faith alone – the 11 other disciples had some faith but they
weren’t getting out of the boat. Not just action. Peter didn’t just throw
himself overboard. He said, “Lord, if it is you then command me to come
to you.” Then having received the word he got out of the boat.
I wonder if when we think that the
Christian life is boring, dull and bland, if what we really need to do is
recognize Christ’s authority and step out in faith and do what He calls us
to do.
And I wonder if the church’s failure
to recognize Christ’s authority has sometimes led it into selfishness – an
unwillingness to turn from its narcissistic ways so that it fails risk
anything outside of its four walls.
We live in a day and age when
Christianity simply blends in with the rest of the fabric of the culture.
Infrequently does it distinguish itself from the rest of the world – and
when it does, it usually is quite embarrassing and shameful that society
only takes notice to laugh at us.
But a church that recognizes the
authority of Jesus is distinctive in its worship. It is one that lives in
constant awe of Christ. Not only is He the one who walked on water but He
is the one in whom rests all power and majesty and strength and honour and
glory. There are all sorts of kings and rulers in this world, but He is the
ruler of all rulers. He is the King of all kings.
A church that recognizes the
authority of Jesus is distinctive in its attitude toward others. It is one
that falls down before Him and says, “We are a people of unclean lips.”
There is a sense in which we are to recognize that we are in the midst of
the Holy one of God and if it weren’t for His grace we would be blown away
like chaff. If we really recognized the authority of Jesus there wouldn’t
be this attitude that we so often see displayed in North American
Christianity that we are better than you and you better smarten up. No, a
church that recognizes the authority of Jesus is one that says that we are
in the presence of the Holy one of God and we are all in need of His
grace.
A church that recognizes the
authority of Jesus is distinctive in its experience of the power of God.
For it is one that one that steps out in faith in response to His call – no
matter how absurd the thing is that Jesus asks us to do and experiences
wonder upon wonder and every wonder true.
And don’t be mistaken this doesn’t
take a great faith. Many of sincere Christians worry that their faith is
too small. But we need to understand that it is not the size of our faith
that matters, but the object of our faith.
One of my favorite quotes from the
missionary, Hudson Taylor is, “It is not a great faith that we need but a
faith in a great God”. And isn’t it true?
This past summer at camp I met a
South African who asked me if I had read a book entitled, “Faith like
Potatoes”. I said, no, I have never heard about it. “Oh,” she said, “it’s
about a South African farmer, an uneducated man who stepped out in faith and
has done great things for God.”
“Sounds interesting,” I said and
never thought about it again. The next month I happened to meet another
South African and I was asked if I had read a book entitled, “faith like
potatoes”. No I hadn’t.
A week after that I was in a
Christian bookstore looking for a good biography to read during my holidays
and wouldn’t you know it – there was the book, “Faith Like Potatoes”. Hey
God, I got the message! I bought the book.
The title of the book comes from the
authors belief that God calls us have a faith that is like a potato, plain,
simple. Faith like potatoes. And this farmer goes on to tell how began to
act according what God was calling him to do – and as a result God was
greatly glorified. This man, a simple farmer started acting in faith upon
God’s word and as a result starving people were fed, orphanages were built,
churches were strengthened and the gospel was proclaimed. All because one
man had faith like potatoes.
Jesus didn’t talk about potatoes –
but He did talk about seeds and He said that if we have faith no bigger than
a tiny seed (Matthew 17:20) God will respond to our prayers according to His
will, wisdom and grace. (I John 5:14-16)
Another time He said, pointing at
the little children that were gathered all around Him, “the Kingdom of
God belongs to such as these.” (Luke 18:16) It was a call to a simple
child-like dependence upon God.
When Jesus gave thanks to God He
demonstrated a dependence, a trust in God. When Jesus walked on water
toward the disciples, He is calling you and me that same trust and
dependence.
Notice verse 29 Peter we read, got
out of the boat and began to walk on water. Wow. Peter actually walks on
water. Having responded to the call – Peter walks on water.
What is it that God is calling you
to? Is He calling you to stop your busyness and rest in His grace and spend
time in prayer and reading His Word? That takes faith, doesn’t it - to
stop what you are doing and simply be with Jesus? After all, there are bills
to be paid and things to be done. It takes faith. Not a great faith – but
faith in a great God that He will supply for your need as you trust Him in
this.
What is it that God is calling you
to? Is He calling you to an act of service that you simply don’t feel
prepared to do? It takes faith – not a great faith but a faith in a great
God that the one who called you is also able to work through you and supply
for your need as you trust in Him.
What is it that God is calling you
to do? Is He calling you to give up a habit? Mend a relationship? Give
some money? Be a friend? What is it that God is calling you to?
