At a point of special relief and joy, Blanche DuBois, a character in Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, exclaims, “Sometimes there’s God, so quickly.”  Maybe we’ve each had a moment like that.  Maybe, also, we’ve all had a time, a season, when it felt as if God was very far away and very silent, and disturbingly inactive.

The disciples had been through this before: on the lake in a storm.  Jesus had spoken, and the wind stilled, the waves subsided, and they all wondered what kind of a man could do such things (Mt 8:23-27).  They were thankful but mainly bewildered.  Jesus bewildered them, as he still does so many.  That time, Jesus had been in the boat, with them.  He had been asleep, asleep as the waves heaved and the wind raged.  Jesus is not in the boat with them, this time.

He had shooed them all into the boat to send them along, while he remained behind, to share parting words and parting blessings with that crowd of five thousand and more (14:22).  They all had experienced the power and love of Jesus that day in a way none of them could deny, though some of them probably did, later.  Then Jesus is alone, with his thoughts, his feelings, and his resolve.  He goes up a high hill to pray (14:23).

How I would love to behold Jesus in prayer!  His disciples did, many times.  There, Jesus communes with his Father in that secret place in his heart.  You know what such praying is like, and I do, too.  Jesus isn’t afraid; he isn’t worried, and he isn’t happy.  He is distressed by this world, by what people do to one another, and by what we fail to do for one another, let alone what we fail to do for God.  How people twist things this way and that to get things to their liking: truth?  What is truth?  Love?  What is love?  Faith?  What is faith, and what is hope?  For what do we hope?  Did Jesus hope?  Did he hope that people would listen?  Did he hope that his Father in heaven would change hearts, change minds?  Or did Jesus already know who was saved and who would refuse salvation at all costs?  How full, the prayers Jesus prayed in the secret place in his heart!

The storm Jesus may have felt inside has its counterpart in the storm brewing over the Sea of Galilee.  It’s dark, nighttime.  Whether from moonlight or lightning, the boat with the disciples in it is visible on the lake from the hill where Jesus is praying, communing with his Father.  Matthew, who had particularly vivid memories of that night, records that the boat was “buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it” (14:24).  Against them.  Opposed.

What’s against us?  What’s against you?  In these times, we might ask what isn’t against us!  The boat hardly makes any progress in that stormy darkness, and our lives, and our discipleship can feel just like that.  Where’s the progress?  How can we make any, when the wind is against us, whether the wind of the Spirit of the Age or perhaps, even, the wind across the waters of God’s own Spirit, that Spirit we grieve at least as often as we please.  What about our society, or our culture, pleases God?  Neither aims to please God, let alone model obedience to His Word.  His word is whatever people want it to be; more and more want it to be nothing.  Is God against us?  Against you and me, no: Jesus Christ is God’s guarantee that He is for us, saving us, transforming us.  Against godlessness, yes; God is certainly against godlessness.

The seas of godlessness are rough seas.  God’s displeasure with godlessness is rough, and we are in a time that careens off towards godlessness with ever greater speed, ever greater force.  We feel the force of it, just like those disciples in that little boat on that big lake under that big, dark, stormy sky.  They’re in it all through that long night, a rough night, a night none of them ever forgot, that none of them ever wanted to go through again.

Will the light bring any relief, any hope?  What relief is there, in the darkness?  Perhaps some of them looked, achingly, desperately, for the morning star, that promise of the new day’s coming light.  The clouds made it difficult to see.  And where was Jesus?  Where was Jesus when you needed him?  Yes, beloved, where?  They trusted him, had sworn loyalty to him, and where was he, now?  These seasoned sailors felt helpless, powerless.  They couldn’t get out of the storm.  They would have to ride it out, in that little boat on that big, rough lake.  Perhaps at moments they could even see the shoreline, but they couldn’t get to it—there’s a heart-crushing realization, if ever there was one.

Dejected, distressed, worn out, sick, weak—they cling to what they can in the boat, hour upon hour—long hours of a long night.  Then, finally, something else, something new, a new disaster, the confirmation of all their fear: a ghost on the water, beckoning to them, come to bring them down to the dead (14:26).  They’ve grown accustomed to fear, over that hard night, such that fear is all they seem to know, all they see, all they think, all they feel.  When we’re afraid, it’s hard to think clearly, almost as hard as when we’re angry.  It’s easy to begin to feel paralyzed, unable to act, unable to see the way out.  They don’t see Jesus.  They see death, and their hearts die within them.  All their deepest fears, their controlling fears, have just been confirmed.  And where was Jesus?

He is the one who came to them, because they could not go to him.  He is the one who sent them onto the lake in the boat . . . into the coming storm.  He is the one who sent them on ahead, without him.  He comes to them.  When was it that he came to you?  What did he say?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe you only had the sense, the grateful, blessed sense, that God is our strong salvation.  Maybe, somehow, you began to remember or remind yourself not to dwell on fear, threat, and danger.  Maybe, somehow, you began to remember the promises of God, and, remembering, found rest for your soul.

Immediately, in the moment they cry out in their terrified agony, convinced they were all dead men, in that very moment, Jesus calls to them, “Take courage!” (14:27).  Courage.  Take courage, certainly, but where do we take it from?  From where does courage come?  May I just suggest to you that we take it from God, who comes to us in Jesus Christ, comes not as judge and executioner but as our friend and savior.  He comes to save.  Take courage from Jesus.  Unless you think Jesus had no courage to offer.  Many seem to think he has nothing to offer them, nothing they want.

What is this courage?  The word comes from French for heart: take heart. The French comes from Latin, which has many words for courage: courage must have been an especially valuable virtue to the Romans.  The gist of those many words is this: to be of good spirit, of good cheer, to be of a good mind.  When we have this, we can engage the world, think and act rather than collapse.  When we stop thinking, when we stop acting, fear wins.  If fear wins, death wins.  The paralysis of fear is akin to the motionlessness of death, and how motionless, the dead!

But listen—Jesus is saying, always saying, I am here.  I am near.  I am coming to you.  He comes as our friend.  He comes to save.

Then Peter does something very strange, very Peter-like.  He doesn’t wait for Jesus to come to them.  Peter wants to go to Jesus immediately.  Of course he does!  When we see Jesus, we want to go to him, but what about when we can’t see him?  Do we walk by sight?  Peter wants to be with Jesus so badly that he’s willing to try to go to him over the water, on the water, despite the water.  He knows he can only do it if Jesus gives him the power, the ability.  He doesn’t just jump into the storm-heaved waves.  “Tell me to come to you on the water” (14:28).  Be my security.  Be my firm foundation, my solid rock.  At the Word of Jesus.

Does Jesus say, “No!  Stop!  You fool!”?  Jesus says “Come” (14:29).  He’s been saying that all along.  He comes to us saying come to me.  The boat won’t save the disciples, whatever you take the boat to be.  Peter’s sailing and swimming skills won’t save him, nor his self-confidence.  How can Peter walk on the water, though?  Jesus?  Jesus I get—he’s the Son of God.  He can walk on water.  He can walk on air if he wants to.  But how does Peter do it?  Jesus seems to give the answer: it’s faith.  Not faith in the boat.  Not faith in one’s skill or ability or wisdom or good sense or basic decency or generic compassion or self-righteousness.  The storm is real.  Peter’s own dead weight is real.  And Jesus is real, and near, and encouraging Peter to come to him on the water, over the water.  The only way Peter can or could is by faith, which by grace enables us to do what we couldn’t imagine, couldn’t believe, before we had faith.  Faith changes how we look.  Faith changes what we see.

Everything in Peter shouts, screams, rages, weeps, collapses with doubt.  Doubt!  Fear is stronger!  Death is stronger!  Just look!  Just feel!  Yet there is also that in Peter—from where?  from whom?  how?  why?—also that in him that says Faith.  Hope.  Love.  That still, small voice that is yet louder than all that storm, that voice more powerful still than all that force.

Sometimes, we experience that faith in shocking ways.  Sometimes, there’s God, so quickly.  Peter walks on the water, toward Jesus, who holds his arms open for him.  “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and started to sink” (14:30).  Jesus was right there, but Peter looked away.  He saw all that the wind was doing.  It felt like it was tearing apart the world.  How could anyone survive it?  How could anyone have any confidence, any hope, blown and bashed in the surge and the gust?  And he was afraid.  So are we.  Look inside your heart.  See the fear, there.  Peter didn’t look inside, though that’s where the fear was, really, not out there, but in here.  He was afraid and began to sink; have you ever had that sinking feeling?

Then, Peter does the very thing he, and we, ought to have been doing all along.  He cries out to Jesus, “Lord, save me!” (14:30), and what happens?  Immediately.  Immediately, as though Jesus had only been waiting for that cry, he reaches out his hands, and we are saved, safe.  “You of little faith [. . .] why did you doubt?” (14:31).  What could Peter answer?  Lord, I believe; help me in my unbelief!  It’s as though Jesus were saying, if you know I am with you, what is there, to be afraid of?  And we, weak and aghast, say, “Plenty!”  The storm!  the waves!  The wind!  The worst!  Beloved, as we are in Jesus Christ, what do we have to be afraid of?  Consider this.  Christ has taken hold of us.  We are safe in his grip, the grip of grace.  Know you are held in the hands of the Father, the arms of the Son.  O, the comfort of that blessed thought!  When we take comfort in the sure and constant presence of Christ, when we take shelter in his embrace, what our fear had magnified is diminished, and our hearts are freed to magnify God.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.