Today’s Gospel lesson begins immediately following the conclusion of last week’s lesson, where we considered the miraculous feeding of the thousands of people with just five small loaves of bread and two small fish. After the crowds have been fed and the scraps picked up in the 12 baskets, Jesus immediately commands the disciples to get into their boat and go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus then goes alone to the mountain to pray, which is what He originally intended to do before the crowds followed him to the wilderness. And then … well, as far as many people are concerned, the story becomes downright unbelievable.
Combining the similar accounts of Matthew, Mark and John, we read that the disciples had been rowing against a stiff headwind, and after many hours of labor they were still no more than three or four miles from shore. They should have reached their destination hours ago, but after all that backbreaking labor they were no more than halfway there. It was now the fourth watch of the night, which by our reckoning puts it somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m. You can understand how tired the disciples must have been – they would have been awake now for close to an entire day, and they had been straining with the oars for perhaps as many as eight hours. Matthew doesn’t say that it was storming, but he does say that the wind was blowing like crazy against the disciples and their little boat. They probably were more than just tired – they had to be physically and mentally exhausted. And then they see – or think they see – Jesus walking toward them on the waves, on the water. Remember that many of the disciples were professional fishermen, and they had spent their life working in and on the waters of the Sea of Galilee. But they were always either in the water or in a boat. No one could walk on the water. No one.
You would think that by now the disciples would have understood that Jesus can do what normal people cannot do. Normal people could not heal people or drive out demons by a word or a touch, but Jesus had already done those things over and over again. Normal people could not bring a dead person back to life, but Jesus had already brought a young girl back to life. Normal people could not feed thousands of hungry people with a few fish and loaves of bread – but Jesus had done that just hours before. The disciples had been present for these miracles. The disciples had been personally and actively involved in the miracle of distributing the food to the thousands. On another occasion when the disciples and Jesus were caught in the middle of the Sea of Galilee during a terrible storm, Jesus calmed the winds and the waves – He calmed the terrible storm – with a simple command. Normal people couldn’t do that, but Jesus could. Jesus did. They saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears what Jesus did. But when they see Jesus walking on the water, they show no faith that Jesus has come to them. They think they are seeing a ghost, and Matthew tells us that “they cried out in fear.”
After all, no one can walk on water – right? That’s what the world tells us. And unfortunately, a lot of theologians will tell you the same thing. Virtually since the night that Jesus walked out on those waves, people have been trying to explain how Jesus didn’t really walk on water as Scripture tells us that he did. Almost 500 years ago John Calvin – whose many theological writings are still studied and embraced by many Protestant church bodies – taught that Jesus somehow changed the water so that both He and Peter could walk on it. Others suggest that since the disciples were so tired, they were just having hallucinations. Some say that Jesus was walking on sandbars or that He was walking along the shoreline and it only looked like He was walking on the waves or perhaps He was walking on ice floes formed by a freakishly cold weather front. Some say that Matthew’s words have been miscopied or mistranslated, and what he really meant to write was that Jesus was walking in the water rather than on the water. Many, especially those who believe nothing else in Scripture, reject the whole account, saying that early Christians made it up it a lame effort to try to make it look like Jesus was all-powerful.
When I was mentioning all of the things that normal people cannot do – but which Jesus could and did do – I gave you an incomplete list. All of the miracles that Jesus performed were most certainly acts that we normal people can never do. We can’t heal people as Jesus did, we can’t feed thousands of people as Jesus did, we can’t walk on water as Jesus did. But most importantly, we can’t save people as Jesus did. We can’t give our lives for the sins of the world – in fact, we can’t on our own do anything to make things right with God for our own sins. But Jesus did and Jesus does. The Son of God did and does.
The problem is that no matter how much the disciples saw, they repeatedly showed a very distinct lack of faith. They didn’t have faith that Jesus could feed the thousands with the bread and fish until they saw it happen. And now when they saw Jesus walking on the water, they had no faith that it truly was Him, even after he says to them: “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
Those words of comfort and assurance weren’t enough. Listen to what Peter says; “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Did you catch the doubt there? “Lord, if it is you.” What Peter is saying is that he doesn’t believe that it is Jesus walking toward them – but if you are not a ghost, then prove it to me, Jesus, and command me to walk on the water, too. I suspect that Peter was a little surprised when Jesus did just what he asks – “Come,” Jesus said – and Peter does step out onto the water and does start walking to Jesus. But his faith in Christ’s command doesn’t last very long. He turns his attention from Jesus to the wind and the waves. He looks away from Jesus and he becomes afraid. He begins to sink. And he cries: “Lord, save me.”
Jesus does save him. Jesus grabs his hand and pulls him up and leads him to the safety of the boat. And Jesus asks Peter this question: “Littlefaith, why did you doubt?” For that brief moment on the waves of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus allowed Peter to do what no ordinary man can do – He allowed him to walk on water – but whatever faith Peter had in Jesus when he stepped out of the boat soon dissipated. He had plenty of faith that he could sink to the bottom of the sea and drown, but whatever faith he had in Jesus and His promises was overwhelmed by his fears.
It’s easy for us to sit here this morning and think that Peter was pretty stupid for not having faith in Jesus on that dark and windy night. But the fact of the matter is that Jesus looks at us and calls us by the same name that he called Peter that night: littlefaith. Ask yourself these questions: could your faith be stronger? Probably so. Are there times that you doubt your faith and wonder if it really is as strong as it should be? Probably so. And can you do anything about it? The answer is an emphatic “no.”
Just like Peter, we were born sinners, and sinners we will remain until we die. You have been brought to faith in Christ – and we thank God for that! – but you didn’t give yourself that faith. You didn’t create it, and you can’t make it any stronger. But that’s OK. Because even littlefaith is a miracle of God, worked in us through the Holy Spirit. Even littlefaith is a saving faith. God doesn’t sit in heaven with some type of faith chart, putting check marks by each of our names – she’s OK because her faith is strong, but he’s in trouble because his faith is on the weak side. It is not the strength of your faith that saves you. You are saved by the strength of the One who does the saving. When Peter began to sink in the waves, there was nothing he could do on his own to save his life. But Jesus was there. Jesus reached out his hand. Jesus brought him to the boat. Jesus saved the one he called littlefaith.
Martin Luther once said that in those moments of despair, when we are overcome by the trials we face and feel that our faith has become too weak for God to take notice of us, then “God is present most closely when He seems to be farthest away.” When Peter started to sink, he cried out to Jesus: “Lord, save me.” In the Hebrew language, the phrase “Lord, save me” consists of one word – the word “hosanna.” In a few minutes you are going to be singing “hosanna” – “Lord, save me” just as we do every Sunday in the singing of the Sanctus. In the Sanctus we sing this phrase not once but twice: “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest.” Lord, save me. Lord, save me. Lord, save me.”
And He does. He reaches out with those nail-scared hands and grabs hold of you. He pulls you to the wound in His side where the spear of the soldier was driven into His body. He wraps you in the warmth of His arms. He feeds you with His life-giving body and His life-giving blood. He assures you that your littlefaith is more than sufficient for His love.
The name “Peter” is derived from the Greek word “Πέτρος” – which in its simplest translation means “rock.” It seems more than a little ironic that Peter the “rock” began to sink like a rock when he took his eyes off Jesus to focus on his fears rather than focus on his faith. But even though Peter whom Jesus called “littlefaith” lost his faith that he could walk on water as Jesus commanded him to do, his “littlefaith” still knew to call out to Jesus to save him.
Much later in life Peter, the littlefaith, the rock, wrote these words that are recorded in the first chapter of his first epistle. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
“Lord, save me,” Peter cried. “Hosanna,” we cry. We are weak, Lord. We need your saving touch. Save us even in our littlefaith. And Jesus does.
Return to Pastor page
