Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-april-1-2025
John 6:16-21
Jesus Walks on the Water
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17 where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. 18 A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. 19 When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified.20 But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” 21 Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
This is one of the best-known stories from the life of Jesus – it’s one of the stories from the gospels that’s found its way into our common language. If we want to say someone is widely admired – maybe even too widely admired – we say people think that person “walks on water.”
At the end of yesterday’s Reflection, which told the story of Jesus feeding five thousand people with five small barley loaves and two small fish, people who had witnessed this miraculous feeding were hoping to force Jesus to become a worldly king. Their intention was generally patriotic in nature — they hoped Jesus would restore the glory of their nation’s golden age. Today’s reading, on the other hand, shows Jesus demonstrating the glory of God the father. And in the course of this story, he once again identifies himself with what was regarded as the name of God.
Also in yesterday’s Reflection, we reviewed our understanding that the miracles Jesus performed are intended to be signs or ‘previews’ of the kingdom of God. Taken together, the miracles of Jesus paint a picture of a heavenly kingdom in which those who have suffered in this world will be provided for and made whole. The crippled will walk, the hungry will be fed, the blind will receive their sight, and even the dead will be raised to new life. That’s why we say that the miracles of Jesus are signs of the Kingdom.
But this story of Jesus walking on water seems a little different. It definitely seems like a miracle, even though nobody gets healed or fed or raised from the dead. Walking on water obviously seems like a miraculous act — it’s not something any of us can do. Still, it’s not immediately obvious how walking on water is connected to the kingdom of God. As far as I know it’s never been suggested that in the Kingdom of heaven we’ll all be walking around on water. So how are we to understand this story is a ‘sign’ of the kingdom?
Maybe the place to start is with the ancient Hebrew attitude toward the sea. They thought about the sea in a different way from us. There were some Israelite ocean-going merchants and sailors, but the Hebrews were not generally a sea-going people. The Sea of Galilee, where Peter and the others were fishermen, is actually an inland lake. And maybe not surprisingly for people who were not generally seafarers, they regarded the sea with some reservation.
When the ancient Hebrews thought about the ocean, they thought of it as a realm of danger, of waves and storms. In their minds the sea was a place of chaos where the normal order God had established didn’t really apply the way it did on dry land. When the ancient Hebrews walked along the shore, they noticed that strange and scary creatures washed up there. And between the scary creatures and the waves and storms, it all seemed like chaos to them. In fact, if you look at the description of the heavenly kingdom at the end of the Revelation, it literally says, “there will be no sea there.” In other words, they thought that in God’s kingdom, there will be no place for the waves and storms and general chaos of the sea.
When you keep that in mind, it seems to me that maybe the intended point of this story is that in walking on the water, Jesus was giving a sign of God’s power over the wind and the waves. Maybe this story is a sign that God has the power to impose order – to impose his peace – over the forces of nature.
In the story, the disciples are terrified by the ordeal they’re going through out on the water. But then Jesus speaks a word of reassurance to them. And that word of reassurance is even more significant than our NIV Bible makes it seem. That’s because it’s in speaking that word of reassurance that Jesus once again identifies himself with the very name of God.
In our NIV Bible, the text quotes Jesus as saying, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” But the New Testament scholars point out that the original Greek text is better translated as “I am; don’t be afraid.” So this is one of the several places in the Gospel of John where Jesus refers to himself using the phrase “I AM” – which is understood to be the ancient name of God given to Moses at the burning bush. So, as he did in his conversation with a Samaritan woman at the well outside of the village of Sychar, Jesus seems to be using the name of God to identify himself as God in human form.
That would certainly seem like a word of reassurance as Jesus approached the boat on the water. The presence of God with the disciples meant they didn’t need to be afraid. And we’re told that once Jesus was in the boat with them, they were immediately able to return safely to shore.
As you might be aware, in the history of Christian art, the church has often been represented by a boat. That’s always struck me as an especially appropriate symbol for the church. We sometimes feel like we’re struggling through stormy waters, rowing as hard as we can but not getting anywhere. So maybe that’s what this story is meant to be a sign of – the power of God to bring us through every storm.
When God is with us, there is no need to be afraid. When we are genuinely open to the presence of God among us, genuinely willing to take him into our boat, when we give up on relying on our own efforts to get where we want to go, then the struggles and challenges of our life together become much more manageable. Then we find ourselves able to deal with every challenge – even with storms and chaos – without fear.
So maybe that’s what this story provides a sign of — the glory of God revealed when he comes to us in our moments of storm and crisis.
Let’s pray. Lord, you know that we do sometimes feel like we’re struggling to get anywhere in the midst of storms that threaten us. In those times, help us to remember what Jesus did on that night, and renew us in our trust in you. In his name we pray. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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