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Grace, mercy, and peace from God, our Father, and His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
It’s here. School is finally here. It’s upon us. And it’s interesting, when I talk to the children and to the young adults that are now in high school, I ask them, “Are you ready?” Some will say, “Yes, I’m ready, I can’t wait!” but the majority of them say, “Well, not so.” But it’s here. The school is ready for the kids, but more so, I want to thank all of the teachers, all the staff, and all the faculty for all the preparation for this first day of school. They have worked hard, they have decorated the rooms, and they have worked in communication with all that needs to be done. They’ve set their curriculum for the year, they have bought their books, and they now have their daily planners. Everything that they hope to achieve through this whole school year, day by day by day, their goals and their objectives.
During that time of each day, through that process, they will expose the children’s weaknesses. It might be class participation; it might be observing them doing projects; it might even be quizzes or exams, but they will expose the students’ weaknesses. They do this not because they don’t like them. They don’t do this because they want to make their lives miserable. They do this because they love them and they want the best for them and to prepare them with the foundations to move on to the next grade, and eventually through high school, graduation, and other educational avenues. So they will, at that point, reveal in those days and through those processes the right way. As they show the weaknesses, they will show the correct way.
So today, as we look in the text, the disciples had been with Jesus about halfway through their three-year schooling process: the teaching, the preaching, the miracles, even to the point where Jesus sent them out on a short-term missionary trip where they would actually go with His authority to do those exact things. In some ways, they were coming along, but in other ways, they were still not getting it.
And then the gospel lesson. Jesus provides another exam that we see today. It was needed. Why? Because just the text before this, where Jesus was with His disciples and saw this mass of people—5,000 men, women, and children plus—He said, “Okay, how are we going to feed them?” They’re looking at their pockets, they’re looking in their bags, they’re looking around, and they say, “Send them away.” Wrong answer. Jesus already sees that they’re looking in the wrong place. They were looking at themselves; they were looking at their own means instead of looking to Him, the provider of all things.
Jesus said, “Bring to me the five loaves and the two fish.” He blesses them, gives them to the disciples, and then they feed the mass that had gathered. And, for a lesson for them, they come back, the Scriptures tell us, with twelve basketfuls of leftovers, one for each disciple. So He sends them away, as we see in the text. He sends them away in the boat, and the Master Teacher Himself is setting the stage. He is preparing the experiment. He is getting all the logistics ready for the next exam.
So timing is important. Number one, He sends them off in a boat. Number two, He dismisses the crowd, a large crowd that would take time. Number three, He goes up onto a mountain, He prays to His Father. Now, during this time they were in the boat, the Scripture says they were far away from the land. Another Gospel says about three or four miles out, which would be approximately about halfway across the lake. The text tells us the times were difficult for them; they were making progress, but it was slow. As the wind and the wave continued to buck them, the text says it was about the fourth hour. Jesus had waited—the fourth hour is between three and six o’clock in the morning. He sent the people away. Evening came. He goes up to the mountain. He prays, and then He walks out to the disciples at this time.
When He approaches them, we see that they’re terrified. They’re shocked. They saw Him, a human in form, walking on water. No boat. Understandable. No man can do this. No one can possibly walk on water. So here’s the test. Jesus was there, and He says, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.” Here’s the test. Calm down. It is I. In Greek, “ego emi,” which means “I.” I am. This is familiar to you because you’ve heard it in the Old Testament when God was talking to Moses through the burning bush when he asked, “Who are you?” and God said, “I am who I am.” And then they hear the words, “Don’t be afraid.” Told again and again by God and His messengers, and now God Himself in their presence. Jesus’ words and voice and His presence before them: Jesus is more than a man. Jesus is God, and He has come to them in person.
So we would say that’s enough, right? It’s going to be okay. God is with us. Oh, Peter! Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And we’ve heard that before: “If you are the Son of God, turn these rocks into bread, or step off the pinnacle of the temple, or worship me.” The words, “If.” The Lord Jesus rejected the devil, but He would receive Peter when he says, “Come.” So Peter gets out of the boat, walks on the water, and he draws to Jesus.
But here we see Peter showing himself. He is exposing his weakness. Here he is; he’s looking at the wind and the wave that is before him, and he starts to sink because he thinks to himself, “I’m not supposed to be able to do this.” He takes his eyes off the object of his faith, his Lord Jesus, and he begins to sink, exposing Peter’s weaknesses. But here we see something about Peter that he’s now learning more and more as he is with Jesus, because immediately he cries out, “Lord, save me.” And this is a cry of faith. Peter can’t save himself. He turns to the Lord, “Lord, save me.”
As Peter grows in that understanding of who Jesus is, Peter will also come to understand that he can’t save himself from sin, death, and the power of the devil. The cry of faith, “Jesus, save me.” The same hand that does not allow him to go under water is there when Peter cannot go to Jesus. Jesus comes to Peter and reaches out and saves him. And those same hands will reach out, spread out, and allow Himself to be nailed to a cross—not because of anything that He has done, but it’s what Peter has done. It’s what you have done. It’s what I have done. Because the law exposes us in our weakness that we cannot save ourselves. So we cry out in faith, “Jesus, save us.”
The same hands that will reach out and show the disciples in that locked room the nail marks in His hands after His resurrection, for them, for you, and for me. Little faith, big faith, in-between faith, faith cries out to Jesus, “Save me.” The bad times, the good times, the in-between times, we cry out to Jesus. What is your cry?
We did it this morning in the Kyrie. We cry out because we are exposed: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” Immediately afterwards, it is revealed, and we also break out in the glory in excelsis, thanking God for all that He does for us. In His presence, you and I are forgiven by His grace. You and I have been adopted, we have been redeemed, we have been atoned for, we have been transferred from the kingdom of the devil into the kingdom of God. We’ve been made from spiritually dead to spiritually alive, not by what we have done, but by what He has done and does for us.
The disciples were growing. Because we see when Jesus and Peter immediately get into the boat, they all fall down and they worship Him. They say, “Truly, You are the Son of God.” Growing in faith. Matthew 8, a couple of chapters before, when Jesus was with them in another boat in another storm. Jesus was sleeping. The water and the wind were blowing. The water was coming in. The disciples were concerned about the boat sinking. They go over and they tell Jesus, “Save us.” Jesus gets up and He says, “Oh, you of little faith.” And then He calms the wind and the water. At that point, the disciples marveled, “What sort of man is this, that the wind and the sea obey him?” But in our text today, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”
In closing, I would like to conclude with a portion of verses from an epistle because it is about you and me and what God has given to us. This is not just a one-time encounter, but the Lord is with us through the good times and through the bad times. There will be times in our lives that will be tests. The Lord desires for us, as He continues to teach us as the Master Teacher, to not look to ourselves but to look to Him and to say, “Lord, save us.”
These are a couple of verses that the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica in the second letter. It is for Thanksgiving. And it reads as he speaks to the church: “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness in faith and all the persecution and all the afflictions that you are enduring, brothers and sisters in Christ.”
The Lord is with us, and there will be those days in our lives that will be trials, tribulations, and struggles. But the Lord was with us, and there will be times that we don’t understand what’s going on or why it’s going on. But understand that the love of Jesus, God’s Son, is for you, and nothing can separate that from you and the love of Christ He promises. Amen.
The peace which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
