We are now about half way through the Pentecost Season in series A of our lectionary readings. You may remember we began series A last Advent and the dominant Gospel is the Gospel of Matthew. The reason I am reminding you is that I hope you have noticed that over the past few weeks we have been following along with the life of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew and that our text for this morning comes immediately after our text from last Sunday in which we watched as Jesus blessed five loaves and two fish and feed over five thousand people, and as I said, probably closer to fifteen thousand including men, women and children. Also, I would remind you that our liturgical color is green, the color of growth reminding us that it is during this Pentecost season that we are to grow in our Christian faith and life and we are doing that as we are learning more and more about Jesus, who He is and what He came to do. So, again, last week Jesus feed the five thousand and after this happened, after Jesus fed the crowd our text says, “Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds” (v. 22).
Last week we talked about the fact the Jesus shows Himself to be truly human and that He shows Himself to be truly divine, that is, truly God. In our text for today, Jesus continues to show Himself to us as both human and divine. We pick up from last week at verse twenty-three of our text, “23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray” (v. 23). Here again as we began our text from last week so we begin again this week. We see Jesus as truly human, truly a man. Jesus had been teaching and preaching all day long. He had been healing the people who needed healing. He had blessed the food and fed over five thousand and now He was tired. He needed some time to be alone. He was tired and He needed time to rest. And He needed time to be with His Father in prayer. Here again, like last week, what a wonderful example we have in Jesus. Jesus shows Himself to us as a human and He shows us that He has needs, needs of rest and reflection, needs of prayer, of comfort, consolation and strengthening. If Jesus has such needs, how much more do we have these same needs as well. We, too, are frail human beings, even more so than Jesus. How much more do we need rest, comfort, consolation, strengthening, as well as forgiveness of sins. We need to come to the Lord in prayer and to listen as He comes to us as we take the opportunity, as often as available, to make regular and diligent use of the means of grace, reading our Bibles, having personal and family devotions, coming to Divine Service and Bible class to hear and study the Word of the Lord, remembering our Baptism, confessing our sins and hearing those most beautiful words of absolution, that our sins are forgiven, and coming to the Lord’s Supper to be given forgiveness and to be strengthened in our faith.
But, again, like last week, so this week, Jesus also shows Himself to be true God. We pick up at the middle of verse twenty-four of our text, “When evening came, he was there alone, 24but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. 25And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid’” (v. 23b-27). In his account of this event, the Gospel writer Mark tells us that “When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them” (Mark 6:47-48a). I find it fascinating that Jesus could see the disciples some three to four miles away, so, even here we have another indication of the fact that Jesus is truly God.
And there is more. Not only does Jesus see the disciples way out in the middle of the lake, He also went out walking on water to where they were. Who else could walk on water, who else has such power over creation, except God Himself. Of course, when the disciples saw Jesus, they show their fear in their superstition that they thought it was a ghost and were even more frightened. And Jesus calms their fears.
Finally, Jesus shows Himself to be God in that He has power over all creation, over all nature. We skip to verse thirty-two, “32And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased” (v. 32). Once again, who else has complete control over all of nature? Only God. I would suppose that any good weatherman would tell you that the weather is unpredictable and more so, uncontrollable, but not to God. Jesus is truly God in flesh.
But let us get back to Peter’s part in this whole lesson. Peter, exemplifies us in this text. We go back to verse twenty-eight, “28And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ 29He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (v. 28-31). Now we know Peter, he is the disciples who often speaks, or asks without thinking. So it is with us in our own lives. How often do we find ourselves wishing for something, even asking for something from God, especially as we ask for things, without thinking of the end results. We ask for various things thinking we know what we need and even thinking we know what is best for us in our own lives. And as you may have heard the old saying, “Be careful what you pray for, because you might just get it.”
For Peter, he asked to be able to walk on the water and he got his wish, at least for a while. Jesus told Peter he could come out on the water and Peter got out of the boat and began walking toward Jesus. For a moment things were going well, then Peter realized that he was walking on water and people cannot walk on water and when he took his focus off of Jesus and instead began to focus on the wind and the waves, he began to sink. Here we have a beautiful example of how things go in our own lives. As long as we are focused on Christ we can make it though life, through the difficulties and storms of life. Unfortunately, too often, we focus on our problems, on our worries, cares and concerns, thinking that we can do something about it and then, when our focus is no longer on Christ, that is when trouble comes.
Now, there are those who hear this Bible account and suggest that the lesson we should learn is that while our life may bring times of storms and trouble, this account reminds us to put our focus on Jesus who will help us make it through. Although that may be a good lesson to learn from this account, I believe the most obvious lesson we learn is very much like the lesson from last week, that is that this account shows us that Jesus, along with being truly human is truly God. But even more, our lesson for today is really no different than what we had been hearing Jesus say in the parables of the past couple of weeks. This lesson is no different than the seed of the Word of God which is planted on the path, among the rocks, among the thorns, or when the weeds are planted along with the seeds. This lesson is no different than when the troubles of this world cause us to doubt, even to loss our faith, and to sink into the sea of unbelief. Our text for this morning reminds us once again that the root of our problems in life are always spiritual. If there is one thing we need the most, it is we need spiritual healing. We need forgiveness of sins. We need to be saved by Jesus, because, just like Peter, we cannot save ourselves.
So, just like Peter, as he began to sink he cried out to Jesus, so we too, as we begin to sink in the muck and misery of this life, we run to Jesus, who, unfortunately, is too often simply our spare tire God, the God we bring out only when we have begun to sink and have lost our way. Yet, we have a God who loves us so much that He is always ready to help us. As a matter of fact His desire is that we do come to Him, that we do cast our cares on Him, that we do “call upon [Him] in trouble, pray, praise and give thanks” as we learned in the explanation to the second commandment. Indeed, we keep God’s name holy by calling on Him in trouble.
Fortunately, all that happens is not for nothing. We read verse thirty-three, “33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” Because of these events, the walking on the water and the calming of the storm, the disciples believed in Jesus, that is they believe that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent from God, true God and true man, the Savior of the world. And we too believe in Jesus. Not only did the disciples believe, they also worshiped Jesus and likewise, we come every Sunday to Divine Service to worship Jesus.
So, once again, Jesus shows Himself to be truly human and truly God and so, once again we ask the question, “So what?” And the so what is this, it is important, for us, that Jesus is truly human. Jesus had to be human in order to be our substitute, that is, so that He could give His life for ours. Remember, God’s demand has always been and still is that we are to be perfect. Because we are conceived and born in sin, because we daily sin much, we cannot be perfect as God demands. So, Jesus was born as a human being in order to be perfect for us. Jesus obeyed all the laws of God perfectly for us because we cannot. Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament for us. By faith in Jesus, when God looks at us He does not see us as sinful human beings, but as perfect sons and daughters. Jesus lived a perfect life, never sinning even once and then He took our sins, all our sins, our sins of thought, word and deed, our sins of omission and commission. He took all our sins on Himself, exchanging our sins for His perfection. He took our sins and then He suffered the eternal death penalty of hell for us, in our place. We are sinful human beings. We are, each one of us, born, even conceived, in sin and we daily sin much adding to our sin. Left to ourselves, we would be destined to eternal death in hell. We needed someone who could be our substitute, and the someone we needed was someone who was like us, someone who was human, except without sin and that is who Jesus is and that is why it is important that He is truly human.
And Jesus is truly God. It is important, for us, that Jesus is truly God, because it is only as true God that He could be born perfect and holy, that is sinless. It is important that Jesus is true God, because only God has power over sin, death and the devil.
Earlier in his letter to the Romans Paul’s wish is that he could be cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers, but that will not and cannot happen. Paul cannot be our substitute, because he is a sinner just like you and me. No one else, only Jesus qualifies for that position, to be our substitute and our Savior, because only Jesus is perfect, holy and sinless. So, as Jesus told His disciples as they were fearful of their own lives while in the boat in the middle of the lake in a storm thinking they had seen a ghost, so as we are fearful of our own lives as we are in the middle of the storms of sin filled lives thinking the worst could happen to us, if we stay this way, in our sin. Jesus tells us, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” We need have no fear because Jesus has already rescued us. He has rescued us from all sin, from death, that is, eternal death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His Holy Precious Blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Therefore we can stand with the disciples, putting our faith in Jesus and worshiping Him saying, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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