Walking on Water

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

[Matthew 18.22-33]

Here we have another one of those Bible stories that everyone knows: Jesus walking on the water.

But how well do we really know this story?

As I read through this passage during the week a number of questions occurred to me:

Why did Jesus send the disciples away? He didn’t usually do that, he took Peter, James and John with him when he went on the mountain before the transfiguration, he even took them with him when he went to pray in the garden of Gethsemane, but now he sends them away.

Why did the disciples think that Jesus was a ghost? Okay, they were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, people didn’t usually come wandering up to boats. But what does it say about these big manly fishermen and tax collectors that they thought ‘ghost’ and were terrified.

Why does Peter get rebuked for lacking faith? Yes, he took his eye off the ball, yes he started to sink; but he was the only one who was brave enough to get out of the boat in the first place.  Why don’t we read Jesus saying, “and you lot needn’t laugh, sitting there in your nice comfy fishing boat, you come out here and see what it’s like.”

Why does the wind stop as soon as Jesus gets into the boat?

All these questions have been swimming around in my brain, and I’ve managed to get some answers to them that I think are pretty sound.  But there’s a bigger question, if the other questions are the trees, this question is the wood.

Did it really happen? Did Jesus really walk on water?

Does anyone want to be brave enough to put their hand in the air and say that they believe it did?

I have tended to be what is called a liberal Christian, that’s someone who believes in God, but needs to make the stuff in the Bible fit with ‘real life’, I look for lessons that make rational sense. It’s probably because I have a background in the social sciences, in psychology.

So with this story I would say, well, the human body is denser than water, therefore you can’t possibly stay on top of the water. So this probably didn’t happen as it’s written, there must be some kind of lesson here that’s buried in the story, like a parable.

That makes more sense, it’s more compatible with science, with the world as we know it. And it makes me feel more comfortable.

Incidentally, some scholars have argued that he probably walked ‘by’ the water, on the shore. But that makes absolutely no sense. What was Peter doing if that’s the case? Is he standing in the boat, sees Jesus on the shore and tries to walk on the water to Jesus? Or is he on the shore too, but starts sinking into the beach?  Either way it’s a stupid argument.

But suggesting that these stories are poetic rather than real is the start of a slippery slope. So Jesus didn’t walk on water. Did he turn water into wine? Did he raise Lazarus from the dead? Did he heal lepers and paralytics?  If science prevents him from having power over water, then surely it prevents him having power over death. So did Jesus really rise from the dead?

For what it’s worth, I’ve come to recognise that my need for things to make sense before I can accept them is just that: it’s my need.  And if I can’t accept these things, that doesn’t make them not true. That is me putting myself, my understanding, above God.

Today’s reading from Romans sums things up pretty well. In it, Paul is arguing that there are two kinds of righteousness, two ways for people to try and get right with God.  One is to obey the law, and do everything that Deuteronomy and Leviticus say to do, the other is to have faith.

The legal way puts the responsibility on you to do the right thing. The faith way gives it all to God. Well I know which I prefer. So verses 9-10 give us the instructions:

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.  

That’s the basic rule of salvation and justification, and all it takes is faith.  Which by the way we are given instructions on that too, just two verses after this reading ends Paul says:

Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

If we want to be made right with God we must read the word of God regularly, not just once a week; we have to get to know God intimately through the Bible, and we absolutely must give up on putting the law above God, whether it’s the Deuteronomic-Levitical law, or the law of physics.

I’ve been getting today’s big question all wrong.  I’ve been asking the world-based question:

How could a 15 stone carpenter from Nazareth walk on water? I have no idea.

I should’ve been asking the faith-based question:

Could a 15 stone carpenter from Nazareth walk on water? If he’s God, yes.