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This sermon is dedicated to two very dear young friends of mine, who know who they are.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were
terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But
immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be
afraid.”
Prayer:
Dear Lord Jesus, send us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well, and to
all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
Our Gospel
reading today tells us about one of the most well-known events in the life of
Jesus, when he walked on water. Now,
even though this passage is so well-known, it is an event which many people
doubt to have actually happened. Even though this event is seen as the most
amazing demonstration of Jesus’ power, many people even in the church don’t
believe it. Today in our sermon, we’re going to assume that it happened,
exactly as the evangelist Matthew tells us. We’re not going to assume that
miracles don’t really happen, or that Jesus was just any ordinary human being
who obviously couldn’t do things like that! In our sermon today, we’re not
going to take this passage in a sceptical way, but take it as it is, in all of
its majesty and glory. This is the way we always take the bible, and we leave
it to the Holy Spirit to create faith in us to believe in it, despite any protests
of our human reason.
So let’s come
to the beginning of our passage for today. We read: Immediately he made the disciples get
into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the
crowds. Our reading
today continues straight after Jesus fed the 5000, which we read about last
week. In all the Gospels, the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus walking on the
water go together. They happened right after each other, and they are
connected.
Many years
earlier, Moses—like Jesus—had fed the Israelites in a miraculous way,
when God had rained down manna for them to eat. Moses also prophesied that, sometime
in the future, the LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me
from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. When Jesus fed the 5000, we see
Jesus behaving very much like Moses, feeding the people with bread from heaven.
Jesus feeds the people with five loaves and two fish in a miraculous way.
But then in
our reading today, we also see Jesus performing a greater miracle than Moses.
Moses had split the waters of the Red Sea, so that the people of Israel could
walk through it, and be rescued from Pharaoh. In our reading today, Jesus does
not split the sea and walk through it on dry land, but he walks right
on top of the sea.
There’s a
wonderful hymn, that says: God moves in a mysterious way / His wonders to
perform; / He plants His footsteps in the sea, / And rides upon the storm.
Let’s come
back to our text. We read: After [Jesus] had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the
mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. It’s a wonderful mystery that
Jesus prays. If Jesus is true God, why does he pray, we think? What does Jesus
need to pray for? We are infinitely in much more need than him, and yet Jesus
prays infinitely more than we pray, or can pray, or will ever
pray!
But, remember
the first words of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father. In the Catholic Church, they even
call the Lord’s Prayer, “The Our-Father”. Now why does Jesus teach us to pray “Our
Father” and not “my Father”? The reason is that whenever we pray,
whether we are praying with other Christians or in a quiet place by ourselves,
we are always only praying together with Jesus. We never pray by ourselves
– we only pray together with Him. He is always praying for
us, and when we pray, we’re just joining in with his prayers which are
going on all the time. Hebrews 9 says that Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. We get a wonderful picture
of this in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus depicts himself like a
wonderful friend who picks us up off the side of the road, bleeding and
wounded, who then takes us to an inn, and gives the innkeeper some money and
says: Take
care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back. In the same way, Jesus brings us
to our heavenly Father, bruised and beaten by sin and the devil, and he pays
for all our sin with his blood which he shed on the cross. But then what does
he do? He continually prays to his Father for us, just like the Samaritan says
to the innkeeper: Take care of him. And so it happens—Jesus prays for you, and our
heavenly Father continually takes care of you.
But now,
let’s look at the next part of our reading. We read: When evening came,
[Jesus] was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the
land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth
watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.
This is the
amazing miracle of our reading. Jesus, by the way, is not some kind of new-age
mystic here, who went to Asia before he was baptised to learn how to meditate,
and is sitting like some guru on the top of the mountain, but is having an out-of-body
experience floating around on the sea. That kind of behaviour is occult,
and is forbidden in Scripture. I mention this, because I have met people in our
society today who try to do things like this. I can’t warn you against this
stuff strongly enough! Anyway, that’s not what the text says. The text
does not say that Jesus floated around on the sea, but it says: He came to them. He actually came to them,
body and soul, true God and true man. And how did he come to them? It says: walking on the
sea. It was his human
feet that were planted on the top of the waves.
Now,
here we learn something about Jesus. In the Creed, we confess that he was
conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. We believe that
Jesus had God the Father as his true Father, and the Virgin Mary as his true
mother. He is both true God and a true man. He is not 50% man, and 50% God, but
100% man and 100% God, 100% of the time. Since his conception, nobody in
history ever then meets a Jesus who was only a man, and nobody ever then meets
a Jesus who was only God. Jesus never switches off his divinity for a minute,
and he never switches off his humanity for a second. After his conception, He
is always God and man in one person, at every moment in his life, and even
still today. So, who was in the Virgin Mary’s womb? Not just a human embryo—but
the God who made heaven and earth. Who shed his blood on the cross? Not just a
weak man—but the God “who flung stars into space”, as our well-known song says.
Whose clothes lit up the night sky at the Transfiguration? Not simply Jesus as
God, but his human flesh and his human face shone with all of
that brightness. Who is sitting at the right hand of God? Not simply Jesus as God,
but his human flesh, with all his flesh and skin and blood, glorified
and transfigured with divine majesty.
Jesus
is a bit like a burning coal. His humanity is a bit like a coal, but the
divinity is like fire or heat. When a coal is burning, it glows red, so that
the fire (or heat) and the black coal are always together, and work
together. We also might think of branding cattle. If you use a piece of
cold iron, you would just poke the cow. If you use a blow-torch, you would end
up with roast beef! But to make a brand on the cow, you use a red-hot piece of
iron, so that it pokes and burns at the same time.
In the
same way, Jesus is like that poker. He always acts as true God and true man at
the same time, just as the poker burns and pokes to brand and stamp the cattle.
So when Jesus walks on the water, it is his real, flesh-and-blood, human
foot that is walking there. And at the same time, if he were not also true
God, he would not be able to use his human foot to walk on the
water.
This
is such a useful teaching, and has all kinds of applications. For example, St
John says that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If Jesus
were not a real human being, he would have no blood! If he were
not truly God, his blood would not be able to cleanse us. Think
also of the Lord’s Supper. If Jesus were not a real human being, he would have no
body and no blood to give us to eat and drink. But if Jesus were not true
God, it wouldn’t be possible for his body and blood to be given in the
Lord’s Supper to Christians all throughout the world at the same time. And, his
body and blood would not be given and shed for us for the forgiveness of
sins.
Now
back to our text. It says: When the disciples saw him walking on the sea,
they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.
Jesus
had walked out to them in the fourth watch of the night. This means
sometime between 3am and 6am. The disciples had had a long night of hard
slog, trying to keep strong as they endured this terrible wind, and saw the
waves tossing back and forth. They must have been at the end of their
strength. Maybe they even started to think they were seeing things.
They say: It is a ghost!
The
word “ghost” here refers to the way in which we normally use the word: to refer
to an apparition of someone who has come back from the dead. We live in a time
where many people believe that such things are just a lot of silly nonsense,
and many times this is true. But also, as Christianity has declined in our
culture, and people have stopped coming to church, you may be surprised just how
many people live in fear of things like this. It is not uncommon for
pastors to be invited to pray for a house that people think is haunted. It is
not uncommon for people to say that their dead relative came to them and spoke
to them.
Now,
we might think this is all a load of nonsense, and sometimes it is. But there
is something true in what people say—there really is another spiritual
world. We confess this in the Creed—God is the maker of all things, visible
and invisible. He made human beings, and he also created angels, some
of whom have fallen into sin, like us, which we call “demons”.
There really is a life after this life, and once people have
died, they have not ceased to exist or are obliterated.
But
there are some people who think that it is quite a natural thing to have
paranormal activity in their homes. It’s not a natural thing—it often
means that there has been some trouble there, or some rebellion
against God. And in these cases, the house should be blessed. In our
books of rites, our church has a special ceremony for the blessing of a
house for this purpose.
Now, the
disciples in our reading respond in the most natural way: They cried out in
fear. Now, isn’t it a strange thing that Jesus himself is mistaken
for a ghost! On Easter Day, Mary Magdalene doesn’t recognise him either,
and mistakes him for a gardener. When we don’t recognise Jesus, or know
him, it is easy to mistake him for something that he is not. But also,
in our reading, there’s a sense in which Jesus allows his disciples to
make this mistake because he wants to sympathise with them. They are already
scared, and it is a scary thing to be on a boat in the middle of a
storm, and Jesus knows this! But Jesus comes to them on a scary night
in a scary way so that he can then comfort them with his own
voice.
Jesus
says: Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.
This
is not a ghost. This is Jesus. Luther writes in his Small Catechism: I
believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and
also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. And what a comfort this
is!
First
of all, Jesus says: Take heart. It’s as if he says: Take courage, cheer
up. But he doesn’t mean “cheer up”, like someone who wants to make light
of our situation. He says, “cheer up” knowing full well what the
disciples have been through, and wants to encourage them in all their
exhaustion.
He
then says: It is I. Actually, in Greek, the words are “I am”, but
this doesn’t translate into English very well here. But where have we
heard the words “I am” before? These are the words with which God
revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush. God said to Moses: I
AM WHO I AM… Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to
you.’ And so with these words, Jesus comforts them that it is not a ghost,
but Him. At the same time, He reveals that he is also true God,
the same God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush.
Jesus
said: Do not be afraid. If Jesus were a ghost, they would have every
reason to be afraid—but since it is Him, all the fear in the whole
wide world melts away at the sound of his voice and at the sight
of his face.
Actually,
there are some people who call themselves Christians today who deny that
Jesus rose from the dead. They think that the disciples couldn’t cope
with the fact that Jesus died, and so in order to be able to deal with their
grief, they said that he rose again, as if they were in denial. These people believe that the Holy Spirit is basically the ghost
of Jesus. But a ghost is a dead spirit. And we do not worship
the dead, like the ancient Egyptians, or the Tibetans, or any other ancestor
worshippers all throughout the world or throughout history. We worship a real,
living Jesus, whose feet walked on the sea, and whose same feet
were planted on the ground on Easter Day before he walked out of the tomb. And
the Holy Spirit is not the dead spirit of the dead Jesus,
but the living Spirit of the living Jesus, the Lord and Giver of life.
After rising from the dead, Jesus made a special point of eating fish in the
presence of his disciples and said: See my hands and my feet, that it is I
myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you
see that I have.
Let’s
look for a little bit at the part of our reading that talks about Peter, who
walks out to Jesus on the sea. He says: “Lord, if it is you, command
me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat
and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was
afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately
reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little
faith, why did you doubt?”
Isn’t
it strange that Jesus should say: O you of little faith! Peter sure had more
faith than any of us to think to walk on the water to Jesus!
This
passage is often used to say that if only we keep our eyes fixed on
Jesus, we won’t sink beneath the troubles of our life. It’s only when
Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and looks at the waves, that he
sinks. But we always sink! Peter sinks because that’s what we sinful
humans do: we don’t always have our eyes on Jesus. Peter doesn’t
raise himself back up again by looking back at Jesus. It’s Jesus who
raises Peter up with his outstretched hand. We are always people
of little faith, not great faith; we are the weak ones, and Jesus is the
strong one. You might think that your faith is weak—good for you!
Jesus is not weak, he is strong, and so trust in him in
all your weakness, because he is strong for you. Jesus said to
Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in
weakness. And Paul says: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of
my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
And in
the last part of our reading, we read: When they got in the boat, the wind
ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of
God.” They worship him, not because they are idol-worshippers, who
are worshipping just another man, or who are worshipping a ghost or
evil spirit, but they are worshipping him because he is true man and
true God in one person. He is not just Mary’s Son, but he
is God the Father’s Son. This is what the wise men from the east did
when they saw the baby Jesus: they presented their gifts and worshipped
him.
And so
today, we do the same thing—we come into the presence of the risen Lord
Jesus, who casts away all of our fear, and we worship him, true God
and true man in one person, together with his Father and the Holy Spirit, as
true worshippers who worship him in spirit and in truth. Amen.
Dear
Lord Jesus, speak your word to us today so that we may take heart, and
recognise you for who you are, and not be afraid. Amen.
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