Walking on the water

I feel the inspiration to repost this sermon I wrote on the subject of the miracle of the walking on the water in August 2014.

A vicar, an evangelist, and a Methodist minister were in a rowing boat in the middle of a pond fishing. None of them had caught anything all morning. 

Then the evangelist stands up and says he needs to go to the bathroom so he climbs out of the boat and walks on the water to shore. He comes back ten minutes later the same way.
  Then the minister decides he needs to go to too, so he climbs out of the boat and walks on the water to shore. He, too, comes back the same way ten minutes later.
      The vicar looks at both of them and decides that his faith is just as strong as his fishing friends and that he can walk on water, too. He stands up and excuses himself. As he steps out, he makes a big splash down into the water.
      The evangelist looks at the minister and says,"I suppose we should have told him where the rocks were."

The walking on water miracle is one which has caught the imagination of our society so much that it still makes its way into jokes, cartoons and stories. Yet like many of the miracles of Christ it is there for a purpose, to show us something deeper about the nature of Christ and even God’s call upon us as human beings. 

You may wonder about the miracles of Christ: Why certain miracles are written about in detail within the gospels and other miracles are consigned to the smallprint of “He healed all their diseases”. The reason is that the miracles, as well as being acts of Christ’s power in themselves,  are all signs which point to something deeper. So what might Christ be signaling through this miracle of the walking on the water. 

The first and most obvious thing is that He has power over the elements, in this case, the waves, and in this sense the miracle is linked to the calming of the storm in chapter 8 of Matthew’s gospel. Yet there is more to this sign. Jeffrey John reminds us that these signs are most easily understood in reference to the Old Testament stories and prophesies. They are to be read within a certain worldview. 

The sea within the Hebrew culture, was strongly associated with chaos and evil powers, Hebrew rabbis believed in a fiery and a watery hell. Yet this miracle is also referring to ancient texts which describe the power of the Almighty to walk on or through the waves. For example in Job 9 “Yahweh alone stretched out the heavens, and trampled the waves of the sea” or in Psalm 77 “your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters; yet your footsteps were unseen.” In many Old Testament passages, time and time again, the point is made that God alone can rule the waves and walk through the waters. Thus, the conclusion that we are inevitably drawn to make is that the sign here, is actually a sign of Christ’s divinity,  that Jesus is God, because only God can do these things. 

You may have wondered in this passage why Jesus seems to be about to pass the disciples by rather than go into the boat when his intention had been to talk towards them. Once again, Jeffrey John says the meaning behind this is symbolic. It references the old testament passages and miracles where God reveals himself in passing by his people or prophets. For example in Exodus 33 where Yahweh passes by Moses and discloses to him his glory and his name. 

And this is where things get deeper still - because the name that is disclosed to Moses, is Yahweh, I AM, and when Jesus speaks to his disciples in this passage what he actually says to them isn’t really the mundane words we have just heard. “Take heart, it is I” - rather the Greek (as our resident scholar Father John will confirm) has “Iesous legon tharseite ego eimi me phobeisthe”

which literally means - “Jesus saying ‘Be courageous I AM. Don't be frightened.”

Ego eimi: I AM. The eternal name of God is claimed here by Christ, just as it was in John’s gospel when they tried to stone Christ for blasphemy when he said “before Moses was I AM” 

But if it is the case that Jesus is claiming his divinity and the power of walking on water is given to God alone, what are we to make of Christ allowing Peter to step out of the boat and join him on the waves? 

For me, it seems to be a classic example of what Orthodox Christians call theosis. In Eastern Christian theology Christ became human not just to save humanity from death, but, even more amazingly, so that human beings can actually participate in the divine life. The concept is beautifully summed up in a prayer that is often silently prayed at the offertory as water is mixed with the wine. Once mixed it can never be unmixed just as Christ’s divine and human natures are eternally intertwined; and so the priest prays: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

This is the part of the miracle for me, that is utterly staggering. Perhaps so staggering that no wonder Peter sinks before the waves when he realizes the enormity of what he is doing. He is doing something that only the eternal Godhead can do and God himself has invited him to do so. 

Yet that is the invitation that is given, not just to Peter, but to all of us, every single one of us who are looking for God. We are invited to participate in the Divine Life. We have been given a Royal Invitation to feast around the table of the One who was present when time began and we, even you and me, are being called into a closeness, an intimacy with God which was utterly unimaginable before the coming of Christ.  

Yet the only way this seemingly blasphemous thing is possible is because of what Christ has done in coming to us. For we need to take courage and step out of the safe, secure boat when God calls us in order to experience this fully, and  we need not be afraid, because if we begin to sink we will find strong arms pulling us up out of the waves, the same strong arms that hold the universe,  and they will continue to grasp us tightly until we reach the eternal place of safety. And so, let us praise the Eternal God who has given us so great a gift , for even the wind and the waves obey him. Amen.