After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14.22-33)
If there is one biblical story that everyone can identify with, it has to be the story of the disciples struggling on a boat as a storm on the sea threatens their lives. There is something quintessentially universal in that harrowing tale that we hear on this Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. We don’t even have to have ever been on a boat on a sea to know that this story, more than any other, speaks to the human condition.
The simple truth is life is fragile and it is a truth that is learned very early by everyone, even by a small child who has little consciousness of danger, but still runs to his or her mom when hurt, crying in rushed sobs and holding out baby arms to be held close to someone who will soothe the terror. We may outgrow our childhood, but we never outgrow that sense that danger comes out of nowhere and we all want someone we can turn to with our fears.
For that reason alone, the story of the disciples on the wind-whipped waves of the sea touches us in a fundamental way, a perfect template for the human condition, a state of being where we are all too small for the big storms that assail us, threatening us and putting us in a panicked mode, unsure of our survival, unable to do much except cry out in alarm into the empty abyss, hopeful, but never certain that someone will hear and come to the rescue.
This story appears in all four gospels, at least in one form or another. Interestingly, Matthew has two versions of the story within his gospel, one in Chapter 8 and a second version here in Chapter 14. His second version and John’s version are very similar, with the exception that Peter jumps out of the boat in a failed attempt to reach Jesus who is walking on the water (John may be borrowing that part of the story in his post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Jesus who waits on the shore for the disciples to return after a failed night of fishing).
In short, we seem to have two versions of the same story that find their way into the four gospels, resulting in slightly different stories, one story having Jesus asleep in the boat with the disciples when the storm appears, the other having Jesus walking on the water towards the disciples who are alone in the boat. But, the through lines are all the same. The disciples are caught in a storm on the sea and are afraid. Jesus stills the storm and rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith. These are the core elements in the different versions of the story, the details that differ in them changing little in the end.
And, of course, it is those same central elements that make the story so relatable to us. There are times in everyone’s life when the storms batter our boats, finding ourselves caught in a precarious and perilous situation as we attempt to find our way through the stormy and choppy seas, our primordial response being to hang on for dear life and to cry out at the top of our lungs.
Those situations vary from person to person, but they’re all the same when stripped of the details. For Matthew’s audience at the time, they could easily see themselves in the boat with the disciples, battling headwinds in the form of persecution and annihilation, vicious and voracious waves stirred up that threatened to pull them into the deep.
They needed to hear the story because they needed to know that Jesus heard them when they came face to face with their fears and with their too little faith. They wanted to believe that Jesus could calm the sea and would join them in the boat, steering them to safe shores. In this way, the story bolstered their spirits and encouraged them to stay calm even as the seas of hatred raged around them.
If we strip down the story to its central thesis, it is an argument on behalf of the presence of God in our lives. And that is the really big question of life for any of us. Is God present or is God absent? Is it, as Christianity has as its central tenet, true that God is with us, as the word Emmanuel claims? Or, is he far away in his heavens, out of reach, deaf to our pleas?
As we make our way through the journey of life, that question is the one that we continuously try to answer. We want to believe that God is near to us, but we also live with that deep-down, existential fear common to humanity that we are lost in space, alone and abandoned, left to face on our own the many threats to our very being that we encounter at every turn in the road.
The question does not confront us when we are comfortable in our easy chair at home, our minds more or less peaceful and unbothered, but instead blasts before us like a loudspeaker on its highest volume when we find ourselves in a perilous situation, stuck on a boat far from the safety of shore, clinging to the boat’s side as the skies overhead darken and as the storm surrounds us with a ferocious intensity. Those are the times when we struggle for an answer.
The spiritual tradition often refers to those times as the dark night of the soul. It is an apropos image, primarily because we see least clearly in the darkness. Without light, we walk blindly, often stumbling as our feet catch on an obstacle in our path, our hands reaching out before us, trying to find something solid and sure on which to hold us steady.
It is when we are in that dark night of the soul that we feel utterly alone, finding no sign of God’s presence with us, no sense that he hears our cries or the deals we’re willing to make with him. There is nothing but dead silence, save the prayers that fall from our lips, unsure where they land or if the sound of our words slowly fades into the vast emptiness that envelops us.
It is for that very reason that the story of the disciples on the turbulent seas strikes home and stays with us. It puts before us the frailty and fragileness that are constants in our lives and forces us to find the faith to believe God is with us or, on the other hand, convinces us that we’ll all alone in the fight, the heavens above us silent, finding ourselves with nothing to anchor us as the winds whip us about as if we’re nothing more than rag dolls.
Another thing about the story that probably resonates with us is seen in the words that Jesus says to Peter when his faith falters in the face of his sinking into the deep. Jesus says to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” He does not say “You of no faith.” So, it would seem that Peter has faith, but it is insufficient in the moment of testing.
In all likelihood, the same could be said of most of us. We are not completely without faith, but we also cannot lay claim to big faith, a rock-solid, robust faith that doesn’t sputter or weaken in the time of need like a vehicle running on fumes instead of a full tank of gas. Here, Peter is presented as neither perfect in faith nor empty of faith, only little of faith, a description that lands squarely on our shoulders as well. We aren’t empty, but we’re also not running on full.
The story of the disciples tossed about on the waves ends with Jesus catching Peter’s hand as he sinks and bringing both of them into the boat. We’re told that as the two got into the boat the wind died down, presenting a picture of Jesus in control of the forces of evil, silencing the winds and calming the seas, in this way restoring stability and sanity to the stressed out disciples who minutes before believed everything was lost.
In this way, the story reaffirms again for us that God is with us, the central message of the Incarnation, his presence found in his beloved Son who pitched his tent among us, lived and breathed in this world, and sent his Spirit to stay with us when his time on earth had ended and he had returned to his Father’s right hand. The story simply states in another way the truth of Jesus’ words to his disciples when he told them, “I will not leave you orphans.”
So, the story makes the bold assertion that we are not alone, especially in those moments when we feel most alone. God is with us in the boat, steering us through the storm, moving us to the shores. Filled with fears and unable to see our way because of the darkness that surrounds us, we may doubt his presence, but our doubts do not prove his absence, only our little faith.
As we can see, there are many lessons to be gleaned from the story of the disciples on the turbulent seas. We don’t want to overlook any of them. But one lesson that is not as obvious as others is the statement that the story seems to make about God’s presence. It is this. Contrary to how it feels and looks, God is not absent in turbulent times, but instead he is more present, not less present.
That’s why I personally like the image of Jesus walking on the sea towards the disciples in distress. It makes clear that God does not walk away from us when we’re in trouble. God walks towards us. We surely can find some consolation in that thought. When we find ourselves in one of those horrendous storms that life sends our way, we need to remind ourselves that help is on the way.
We may not see him at first glance, particularly with the waves slapping water into our faces, but Jesus is walking towards us, moving steadfastly on the tumultuous sea, getting close enough so that he can reach out and take our hand into his own. With just a little bit more faith than we normally can marshall in those trying moments, we might even feel the touch of his hand, steadying us, calming our fears, pulling us towards the safety of the shore.
–Jeremy Myers
