Jesus Walks on Water

Lord God, I pray that you would this evening do an enlivening work in the hearts of some who are outside of Christ. Convince and convict each of us of our sin and misery before you. Enlighten our minds in the knowledge of Christ, of who he is and what he has done for us. Renew our wills, that we would each desire what you will. Enable us to freely embrace the Jesus offered to us in the gospel here this evening. Make each of us alive in Christ, that we may successfully live lives of faith for you as a people who bring you glory. For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This is an account of the fifth miracle found in the book of John. It is highly compressed, compared to the parallel texts. In it we are not expressly told that Jesus had sent his disciples away across the lake ahead of him, or that he was alone up on a mountainside above the lake, praying. Nor are we told that Peter walked on the water at the Lord’s invitation, and then when his faith began to flag, he began to sink.

But John does tell us in verse 15 that Jesus went off alone, and John tells us also what the pressures were that provoked Jesus to go and pray. You should recall that immediately prior to this, Jesus had just finished feeding the five thousand with the two fish and the five loaves. The people’s hunger was satisfied. They were probably ecstatic that they had been fed out there in the middle of nowhere, and all for free. And because of that, they began to imagine Jesus was their meal ticket. If he could do this once, perhaps they could eat free forever, if he was their king. They would have all their needs provided for.

They also began to think perhaps this man could be a political Messiah who would deliver them from being underneath the thumb of the Romans. So they purposed to take Jesus by force and make him their king. But Jesus would not go along with their program. That is not the reason why he had become a man. As the Son of Man, Jesus had come, not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So Jesus sent his disciples off in a boat ahead of him, and then he dismissed the crowd so that he could withdraw and go up the mountain to pray by himself.

He prayed for a good eight to ten hours. Now Jesus and his disciples were on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So when the disciples boarded their boat, their intent was the cross the lake to the northwest shore of the Galilee. It was a distance of about five miles or so.

It was night. It was dark. And the disciples were about halfway across the lake when they were caught in a nasty gale that descended upon them and impeded their progress, resisted their forward movement. And the rough waves threatened to swamp their boat.

This storm is a metaphor for all the powers that are against every Christian, and all the serious problems that we as Christians encounter in life. So I want to examine three things from this text: first, caught in the storm of life; second, Jesus sees and cares; third, Jesus comes and saves. Then we will look at our own response to Jesus.

Caught in the Storm of Life

None of us gets through life without experiencing some of the storms of life. We face adversity, and surely you’ve noticed that already in your life, if you are at least three years old or older. In fact, most people’s lives contain more than one storm that threatens their entire state of well-being.

These storms take different forms. They affect our lives in different ways. But all storms contain some things in common. They often come on rather suddenly and they take us by surprise. They can be quite severe and even cause us to despair. They tend to fill our hearts with fear and they test our faith in Jesus. And if we are Christians, they certainly should cause us to cry out to our Lord and Savior for his help.

Notice the severity of this storm. It was night, and darkness in the Bible often is a symbol of evil and ignorance and trouble and sorrow. The Bible speaks of the powers of darkness, the powers of Satan, those powers that oppose the people of God. And also in the Bible the sea and its storms and its restless waves are often symbols of chaos and disorder, the tribulations and troubles of life, in particular. “All your waves and breakers have swept over me,” the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42:7. It was a way of describing his woe. “I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters. The floods engulf me” (Ps. 69:2).

In the parallel text (Matthew 14), Matthew tells us in verse 24 that the disciples’ boat was buffeted by the waves. Their progress was painfully slow. They had been rowing for perhaps eight or ten hours, only to have gone halfway across.

Now the one thing we each should have discovered by now is that being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus, does not exempt us from the trials of life. The disciples had their trials, and so will we. To make things worse, Jesus was not in the boat with them. That must have made the darkness seem darker and the stormy waves seem rougher.

But regardless, the storm that they encountered, and the storms that we encounter, such as storms of illness, sudden and prolonged; the storm of the death—the death of a loved one—a child, a spouse, especially someone not expected to die; the storm of rejection—divorce, separation, abandonment; the storm of unjust criticism, of libel and slander; the storm of emotional assault of hatred and anger and bitterness and resentment; the storm of physical loss—loss of home, loss of job, loss of money, loss of security; a storm of an accident or some other event which may change the course of your life in an instant in time; the storm of a teenager or an adult child abandoning the faith once handed down to us in order to go out and live a notoriously sinful life.

So I want to ask you: Are you in the midst of a storm this evening? If so, you may be thinking to yourself, “Lord, what have I done to deserve this?” And it may be that you have done nothing to deserve this. The problem may be that you have thought, or have been wrongly taught, certainly not by Pastor, that life would be smooth sailing with Jesus in your life. But the problem is, that is just not true.

Perhaps you are thinking, “There must be something wrong with me, that perhaps God is disciplining me.” And the answer is, not necessarily. It may be so, but it is not always the case, and it was not the case here in this text.

You see, the storms of life come even when you are absolutely in the center of God’s will. It is possible to be completely obedient to the Lord and to still find yourself in the middle of the storm.

In the parallel texts of Mark 6 and Matthew 14, it is clear that the disciples were operating under the command of Jesus. In Matthew’s account it says Jesus made his disciples get into the boat. The word “made” means “constrained.” He compelled them. And that same word is used in Mark. So these disciples were doing just what Jesus had told them to do. They found themselves in the midst of the storm, not because they had disobeyed, but because they had actually obeyed. In a sense, they were in the right place at the right time, and still they found themselves buffeted by a dreadful storm, such that they seemed to be in danger of drowning.

Now this may seem hard to understand. After all, isn’t Jesus the one who is supposed to protect us from the storms of life? Doesn’t Matthew 10:29-31 assure us that not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father’s will, and that the very hairs of your head are all numbered, the understanding being that if God so loved little things, I am sure he will love you too?

But if you check the context of that verse, it is not a promise of freedom from trial. It is given by Jesus to comfort the disciples as he warned them about the cost of being his disciple. “Men will hand you over to local councils. Brother will betray brother to death. All men will hate you because of me. But remember, not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.” Far from assuring Jesus’ disciples of exemption from trials, these verses comfort them in the trials that will come.

So why would Jesus send them into the storm? The first reason is that Jesus sent them into the storm to protect them from temptation. If you look at John 6, verse 15, it says, “Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he departed again to the mountain by himself alone.” So the context is that the crowd is going to press Jesus into being king. It is not a temptation to Jesus. He knew what the others did not—that he was the Messiah, the King—but he knew his kingdom was not of the kind the Jews were looking for. He knew they were far more concerned about the tyranny of Rome than they were about the tyranny of sin. Jesus spoke continuously about his kingdom—the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. But he was later to say to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.”

Jesus also knew that the desire of the crowds would be a temptation to his disciples. Elsewhere we are told that they even argued over which of them would be the greatest in his kingdom. And here was the height of success. They had seen this huge crowd following their master. They had seen several miracles – of healing, and this multiplication of the food. They now saw people wanting to crown Jesus as king. But they were not mature enough to distinguish popularity from godly success. So Jesus sent them away while he dispersed the crowd and went up the mountain to pray.

The second reason Jesus probably sent them into the storm was to teach them more about trusting in him. This was not a storm of correction like that encountered by Jonah, but rather a storm of sanctification, even though the disciples had no way of knowing it, it was a divinely appointed vehicle to teach them more about who Jesus is and his power in their lives; that he is Lord over the storm and that he is Savior of his people.

This was not the first storm these disciples had been in. Sometime before they had been on the same lake and roughly perhaps the same spot, with Jesus asleep in the stern of the boat when a storm kicked up. That storm was so bad that they thought they were all going to drown. And in desperation they woke Jesus up and he immediately stilled the storm.

So they had some experience with Jesus’ divine power over nature. Here was another opportunity for them to trust him. But there was a twist: this time, Jesus wasn’t with them. They had left him back on the shore. And to make matters worse, they had the only boat. So it seemed that Jesus had no way to get there to help them.

That begs the question: What do you do when you are in the storm of life and it seems hopeless? Do you trust in Jesus, even though you cannot see him?

Now there was something in that boat that should have comforted them. Earlier that day, as we have said, they had witnessed this stupendous display of the Lord’s supernatural power in the feeding of the five thousand. There were twelve basketfuls of crumbs left over, and they were probably stored somewhere on that boat. And when the disciples looked at those twelve baskets, they should have realized that the God who provided for the needs of the multitude would not fail to provide for them in the midst of this storm.

However, we are told in Mark 2:52 that the disciples had not considered this miracle of the loaves because their hearts were hardened. How often are our hearts hardened? How often are we guilty of the same thing? We have blessed by the Lord in so many different ways. But when a new storm comes, we forget. James tells us that the purpose of these trials is to test and deepen our faith. In James 1:2–4 he writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”

What about you? Has God allowed you to undergo trials in order to protect you from some worse temptation? Is he allowing you to experience storms in order to strengthen your faith?

Jesus Sees and Cares

Jesus does see and he cares. First, note the darkness of the night and the absence of Jesus are powerfully linked together. It is possible to imagine that to the disciples, the fact that Jesus was not there seemed to indicate that he was unconcerned or perhaps totally unaware of their dilemma, their plight. Does Jesus know? Does he care? When we are in the midst of a crisis of one form or another, we sometimes mistakenly think that we are all alone, that no one, not even God, knows what is happening in our lives and how we are feeling.

But Jesus is God, and he sees. Storms don’t escape his attention. No, in fact, he ordained this particular storm, and he ordains the storms in your life. He does not forget his people for a moment. In Exodus 2:24 we read, “God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” Mark 6:48 tells us that when Jesus was sitting on the mountainside overlooking the Sea, he saw his disciples laboring frantically in the storm-tossed waters. He saw not only their physical battle with the elements, but he also saw their inner battle with fear, and he did not forget them. He was engaged in prayer, not just for himself, but also for them, that the heavenly Father would protect and save them, and I love that.

I don’t know what trouble you are in tonight. You may be in a very difficult spot right now. You may be facing temptations and trials that are seemingly too great to bear. You may find yourself in the perfect storm, feeling like your boat is going down. But, Christian, I have good news for you: Jesus sees you. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the man without sin, the omniscient God, knows all and sees all–nothing is hidden from his sight—and he sees you.

No contrary wind, no fire, no storm, no flood—no enemy can ever defeat you, if you are his child. His prayers are effectual.

And also he is not indifferent. He is not callous. He cares, and he will come to your aid. And he comes to the disciples in the deep night, walking on the waves. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God is with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

But Jesus, however, came in his own time. Up on the mountain, he could see the disciples toiling and rowing. Yet he delayed coming to them. He knew their thoughts. He knew they were wondering why he was not with them, and why he chose to allow this storm to batter them. But finally he came. Why did he delay?

Well, we cannot say for certain, but we have a similar situation in John 11. It is the story of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Lazarus was sick, and it says his sisters sent for Jesus. But Jesus delayed, and allowed Lazarus to die. And when he finally came, the sisters said, “Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, this would not have happened.” When the Lord delays coming to us, it is always for a greater purpose that could be worked out in our lives to strengthen our faith and to give God greater glory.

Jesus Comes and Saves

Jesus came to the disciples at the darkest point of that night. When they were exhausted and miserable and tired, wondering if they would survive or not, only then did Jesus come. But he came.

In 1 Corinthians 10:13 we read, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

When Jesus did come, he did not come in a way they expected. Walking on the water was not what they thought anyone could do. In this way, Jesus demonstrated his deity. He is the eternal God, the Lord over all creation. He had ordained the storm, and he could do what no man could do on his own: he could walk on water. When we are in the midst of the storm, that is a comforting thought. Isaiah 43:1–3 says, “But now this is what the LORD says—he who created you, Jacob, who formed you, Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, hey will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.’”

The disciples knew this intellectually. They had read it many times. They had heard it read in the synagogue. But real life is a whole other thing. Instead of welcoming Jesus’ appearance, they were frightened and they cried out in terror, “It is a ghost!”

Is that not our experience as well? These disciples were not ignorant. They knew they were out in deep water. They knew Jesus was not walking on some little land structure just right under the surface of the water. They knew he was not on land. No, they knew he was out there in the middle of the lake with them, that there was something going on that transcended human reason and experience. They could see Jesus doing the impossible.

What frightened them? Well, at first, they thought it was a ghost because they knew this was impossible. And when they realized it was Jesus, they were still frightened. They were frightened by the holiness of Jesus. The term “holy” conjures up images of pristine goodness and great glory.

But that falls far short of the real meaning of the word. Holiness refers to that quality of the absolute otherness of God. It is God’s alone. He is set apart, and he is distinct from his creation. Isaiah 6 tells us that when he saw the Lord, he heard the seraphim crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.” And Isaiah’s reaction to this was compelling: “Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.’”

The disciples realized that the One out there on that lake whose presence transcended human understanding, whose presence frightened them, was none other than Jesus. He had come to encourage and comfort them. And he did so by declaring, “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”

“It is I” can be taken two ways. On the one hand, the phrase can be understood simply to be saying, “It is I, the same Jesus with whom you have been traveling around Palestine, eating and sleeping and ministering. You have no cause to be afraid of me.” But the text read, “Ego eimi,” the same phrase used when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush: “I AM THAT I AM.” And Jesus is probably saying this to point to his deity, because what greater comfort is there than that Jesus is God, the God/man.

Peter responded by faith. Upon hearing Jesus’ voice, he says, “Lord, if it really is you, bid me come.” And Jesus says, “Come.” But how could Peter walk on water? As Pastor Mathew preached, we can only do so, and Peter could only do so, by faith in Jesus, who was already walking on the water. He alone has conquered the stormy seas and all our enemies, and in him we are able to overcome our enemies, resist the devil, watch him flee from us, and to walk on water.

But we should know who this Jesus is. We should know what he has done for us on the cross. It is he, this Jesus, the God/man, who came to suffer and die for the sins of his people, who would rise from the dead, who is now seated in heaven and is coming again. It is he who bids us, “Walk on the water.”

So we see this Galilean fisherman step out of the boat and, looking to Jesus, begins to walk on the water himself. This tells us that we can do that also in adversity. We can resist our enemies and they will flee from us. We need not think that the waters of the storms of life will drown us.

There is a One who is with us. He is our Creator. He is our Redeemer. He is our King. Focus on him and do not doubt.

When Peter did doubt, he began to sink. But he had the savvy to cry out, “Lord, save me!” He certainly knew the men in the boat could not do it. And Jesus immediately lifted him up and planted his feet back on the water, and together they walked to the boat. Jesus did not hold him up; he walked with him. And Jesus wants us to learn to walk on the waters by faith. Doubt will sink us, but the prayer of faith will lift us up. So Paul says, “I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me.” The issue is focusing on Jesus. The issue is thinking about Jesus. The issue is trusting in Jesus and abiding in his word.

The last sentence in this story that we are given in the parallel text in Matthew says that when Jesus got into the boat, the wind ceased and the disciples worshiped him, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” We read recently, “You shall have no other gods before me.” So in worshiping Jesus, they were worshiping him as the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Scriptures. Jesus is Lord and Savior. Jesus is God.

The powers of nature are subject to his control precisely because he is God. Job 38, beginning with verse 8 says, “Who shut up the sea behind the doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no further; here is where your proud waves halt.’” And then in Psalm 89:9 we read, “You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them.”

The Lord’s ways with us are so endlessly interesting. He could, of course, simply calmed the sea from up there on the mountainside, from the hillside far away. But he wanted his disciples to see and know that it was he who delivered them. He wanted there to be no ambiguity. He wanted to strengthen them in their faith in him, and he wanted them to remember in the years that would follow, in the days after he had ascended into heaven, when they would see him no more with their physical eyes, but that he would be present with them, no matter where they were, no matter what they were doing, no matter how much they were suffering for his name’s sake. How often do you think they must have sat there, thinking back at that night, that stormy night on the Sea of Galilee, when they would face imprisonment and beatings and other trials of various kinds.

They must have thought thoughts like what Von Schlegel wrote in his hymn: “Be still, my soul, your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past. Your hope, your confidence, let nothing shake, all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul; the waves and winds shall know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.”

Jesus always comes to his people when they are in the storms of life. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” He may not come when you would like him to come, but he will come when he is most needed. Knowing that Jesus is both God and man, that he is sovereign over the wind and the waves, that he will come in the darkest night of soul, that he can calm the storm with a single word, that he will come again. I am sure that sustained the disciples, and it should sustain us. And we should remind ourselves of it.

Our Response

In light of this, what do we learn and how should we respond? First, one thing is certain: we have faced and we are facing and we will face great storms in life. They will come on suddenly, unexpectedly, giving us no time for preparation. They often will trigger fear in our hearts. They certainly will emphasize our complete helplessness and leave us with nowhere to turn except to Jesus.

An old hymn asks the question, “Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, when the clouds unfold their wings of strife, when strong tides lift and cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain?”

These trials, while not enjoyed, serve a worthwhile purpose in our lives. You may know the Lord, but you will never know him deeply until he has come to you in one of the storms of life. It is the crisis of life that reveal the condition of our faith, that deepen it. When difficulties come, we can either choose to worry or work harder, trying to deliver ourselves. Or we can call out to God and ask him for his help.

Not all of the testings of our faith will be great. Some of our difficulties are small, even just annoying. But we can learn to trust Jesus in the small things so our faith will be strengthened in the bigger trials. We rejoice in our suffering, says Romans 5, because we know that our suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint because God has poured out his love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us.

Peter tells us that we may have been for a little while grieved by our trials in order that the genuineness of our faith, which is more precious than gold, may shine forth to the praise and honor and glory of Jesus Christ. We may not like trials, but we need to be tested, and trials will cast us in humble dependence upon Jesus. They are opportunities for us to demonstrate our faith to others. Our steadfastness in trials and trust in Jesus will declare to the pagans around us how great is our God, and it may cause some of them to want what we have.

The trials of life need not overwhelm us. Jesus does not deny the reality of the storm or its fierceness. He doesn’t say, “Well, the storm is not that bad.” But he does show that he is bigger than the storm.

God is bigger than any of your storms. And when he comes, all will be calm. You should be comforted by that fact, that our Savior, our Lord, is Lord of the waves and winds.

If you are a Christian, if you have trusted in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you have this wonderful promise in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” The next verse tells us that he is seeking to conform us to the likeness and image of his Son. Then it asks this wonderful rhetorical: “What, then, shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

But all of this is irrelevant if you are outside of Christ, if you have not trusted in him to save you, if you have never surrendered to him as your Lord. If you are a non-Christian, you have every reason to fear, both when you are in trouble and when you see Jesus walking on the water, passing your boat by, because he will say to you, “Be in terror! It is I, the Judge. Be afraid. I am Jesus, whom you have been rejecting and persecuting. Depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew you.”

But there is nothing more comforting to a Christian than this: “Take courage! It is I. I am with you. I am Jesus whom you love and serve. If you have received Christ, though the darkness be dark and the wind and the waves high, you can comfort yourself, knowing that you will soon be with Jesus on the shore.

Then we read in verse 21, “Then they were willing to take him into the boat. Then immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.” If God has done a work in your heart, and you are not sure you are in Christ, if you are afraid he may pass your boat by, cry out to him: “Lord Jesus, come. Still the storm in my life. Forgive me all my sins. Come into my boat.”

There is no other name under heaven and in earth by which you can be saved. Trust in him, and he will still the storm. Your fears of death and judgment will be stilled, and you will be occupied, not with the storm, but with Jesus.

So I ask you: Have you trusted in this Lord Jesus alone for your salvation? If you never have, I exhort you to do so this evening.

Heavenly Father, there are some here who think they are exempt from storms. But they are not. And they think that they can row through the storms on their own, and that they have no need of Christ. But I pray that you would, by your Spirit, impress upon them that this self-help will not work, but that it could condemn them, and that Jesus and Jesus alone is the answer, Jesus and Jesus alone is the Savior. May they turn to you tonight and be saved. For we pray this in his name. Amen.