Lifted Above the Waves

Matthew 14:22-33

Pastor Gary Buss

A man and woman were having dinner in a fine restaurant one evening. Their waitress, suddenly noticed that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, but the woman sat there unruffled and unconcerned, apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared. Worried that there might be something wrong, the waitress went over to the table and said to the woman, “Pardon me, ma’am, but I think your husband just slid under the table.” The woman calmly looked up at her and said, “No, he didn’t. He just walked in the door.”

Obviously that man was afraid of getting caught. And rightly so! Fear can be a very powerful emotion can’t it? Fear of our sins catching up with us, fear of guilt and its consequences – that kind of fear can often can rule our lives – not to mention the fear of pain and heartache, failure and loss, even the fear of death. We see a clearcut example of such paralyzing fear in our Gospel lesson for today – the story of Jesus walking on the water. We are told that Jesus had gone up into the hills to pray, while the disciples had gotten into a boat to row back to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. While they were out on the lake, they ran into a storm. And it must’ve been a pretty fierce one, too, because out text indicates that they had only made it about 3 miles out from shore, which would place them in the middle of the lake. Yet, it was already about 3:00 in the morning. In other words, they had been rowing hard for many hours, but had not made much headway, due to the mighty gale.

Even so, that did not daunt them. After all, they were seasoned fishermen. They had most likely been through such storms before. No, it was not the storm that bothered them, it’s what they saw in the storm that frightened them. As a matter of fact, they were more than just frightened. Our text says that they were terrified. And the word Matthew uses to describe their terror, is a word that means: ‘to stir up or agitate.’ In other words, their hearts were just as churned up and agitated as the waves that were roaring and crashing around them.

Have you ever felt that kind of gut-wrenching fear? Maybe it was fear for your life, because you were in a severe accident or about to undergo serious surgery. Maybe it was fear for you sanity, because you had lost someone or something so special to you that your life seemed to be totally shattered and you didn’t think you could go on. Or maybe it was fear for your family, because they were in some dread danger. Well, that’s the kind of terror that the disciples were experiencing. For they thought they saw on the stormy sea, not the devil himself, but something just as bad. They thought they saw a ghost, an evil spirit, no doubt intent on doing them harm.

However, that word ghost is a bit misleading. The Greek word in our text is actually the word for a phantasm. Now a phantasm is something which is not realy there. You only think you see it. It’s an apparition, a hallucination, a vision that doesn’t really exist! And that’s exactly what the disciples saw – a phantasm. There was no ghost. It didn’t exist. For as we know, in reality it was the Lord Jesus coming out to rescue them. While He was praying in the hills, no doubt praying for their safety, He saw them in their distress and came in the quickest manner possible to deliver them from their troubles!

My friends, what an important lesson that holds for you and me. Tell me, what personal fears are there that haunt you? What skeletons are dangling in your closet? Is it fear of defeat? Anxiety over some unpleasant task or crisis you must go through? Terror over God’s wrath, feeling that He has turned His back on you and you’ve lost His favor? Well, whatever your fears are, aren’t they the same as the disicples? Aren’t our fears really phantasms? Things which don’t truly exist? Ghosts in the night, that vanish in the light of day?

According to Scripture, that’s exactly what our fears are like. The dangers and troubles are real enough, but fear is often a tool of the enemy that breeds mistrust, doubt and a lack of confidence in God. Our fears make us worry and fret. So perhaps we ought to name that dirty thing for what it is – namely, sin. Yes, fear and worry and anxiety are sins against God, for by them we exhibit a lack of faith in His almighty saving power. It’s as if we say to Him: “God, you are not good and great and gracious enough to take care of me!” That’s what the disciples said by their terror. And that’s what you and I say, whenever we give in to our fears.

Nevertheless, the mercy of God is so overwhelming that Jesus came to them anyway. He came to them boldly striding upon the waves, trodding them under His feet. He came to bolster their courage and calm their trembling hearts. And my friends, He does the same for you and me. He comes to us in spite of our sin. When we are beset by the storms of life, when the waves of despair crash down on us and the breakers of defeat threaten to engulf us, Jesus comes walking towards with His arms of love outstretched, walking on the waves of our fear, smashing them down beneath His feet, crushing their power beneath His almighty steps. And He says that same thing to us that He said to His disciples: “Take heart; is is I. Do not be afraid!” In fact, what He literally said was: “I AM!” He is the Great I Am, who has conquered all our enemies – sin and Satan, hell and the grave – so that we do not need to fear.

And how does He do that? Very simply, Jesus comes walking towards us in the pages of Holy Scripture. For as we daily read and study His Word, He gives us the reassurance of our forgiveness and salvation. In the Word and Sacraments He gives us the fruits of what He accomplished on the cross – pardon, absolution and eternal life. For when Jesus hung on the accursed tree, He took away the terror of our sin and shame, even those skeletons dangling in our closet, those past misdeeds we’ve done, and He hung them up there with Him and destroyed them for good. By the Holy blood He spilt He removed those terrors of conscience, which falsely tell us that God has turned His back on us and we’ve lost His favor. He banished them forever. In the Means of Grace He comes to make our anxious thoughts, our sin and guilt disappear, to scatter like a fading mist, to vanish like a phantasm, like a ghost in the night that fades with the morning light. Likewise, He comes to us in the Sacrament of His body and blood to cleanse away our iniquities and give us a fresh start, replacing our fear and anxiety with His courage and confidence. For as St. John put it so beautifully in 1 John 4:18, “PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT ALL FEAR.” Yes, the perfect love of Jesus cast out all our sin and guilt and doubt, and lifts us up above the waves of our fear.

We might think of it this way: St. Francis de Sales, when he lived out in the country, noticed an unusual custom of the people who lived there. He often saw a farm girl going across the farmyard to draw water at the well. And every time she did so, St. Francis noticed that before she lifted that brimming pail to her shoulders, she always placed a piece of wood in it. Curious about this, one day St. Francis asked her why she did so. The girl matter-of-factly replied: “Why everyone knows that. To keep the water from spilling, to keep it steady.” Afterwards, St. Francis told the story to one of his parishioners and added: “So, when your heart is distressed and agitated, put the cross in the center to keep it steady!”

That is wonderful counsel for worried, wave-tossed Christians. When your life is buffeted by the storms of trouble, take hold of the Cross of Christ in the Word and Sacraments, and it will steady you. And if you begin to sink beneath the waves of sin and guilt, look to the Master, and He will reach forth His saving hand to lift you up. Such was the case with Simon Peter in our text. For a brief moment, he was emboldened enough to walk upon the water. Sadly, his courage was also mixed with doubt. In fact, our text literally says that he was double-minded. In other words, he tried to focus his attention on two things at once. He tried to look at Jesus, but he also tried to look at the situation around him, and that’s when he failed. For when he took his eyes off the Lord and started concentrating on the waves, that’s when he began to sink.

My friends, that too, is a crucial lesson for you and me. The only way to keep from sinking down into the waves of fear and doubt is to constantly fix our eyes on Jesus. We cannot look at the world and the Lord simultaneously. It can’t be done. Instead, we need to focus our thoughts on Christ alone by studying His word diligently, worshipping in His sanctuary weekly, renewing our Baptism daily, and feasting on His Supper regularly. That is how we can be lifted above the waves.

Rev. Randy Bolt of Trinity Lutheran Church in Pueblo, says that once, when he was going on a trip, he checked around the house to make sure everything we closed up tight. During his inspection, he found a rabbit trapped down in the window well outside his son’s room. That rabbit was hopping for all he was worth to try and get out of the hole, but he could only jump so high, and the well was about four feet deep. Pastor Bolt had read somewhere, that if you put a box down, the rabbit would think of it like a cave and go in it for safety, and you could pull it out. So he tried that, but the poor bunny scrunched up against the window pain. He figured he was going to have to get down in there with it. So he jumped down and tried to scoop the rabbit up in the box. But it just hunkered up even farther into the corner. Finally he realized he was going to have to touch it. He knew of course that they can carry rabies and other diseases, and he didn’t have a pair of gloves on. But he didn’t really want climb back out and go through the trouble of looking for some. So he decided to risk it. He picked the bunny up as gently as he could, and as he held it tenderly he could feel it trembling and shaking mightily. So he placed it on the ground and he thought it would take off. But it just sat there. At first he thought maybe it hurt itself, when it fell into the well. But then he realized that it was still paralyzed with fear. So he smacked the ground next to it, and it took off like a shot. When it knew that it was free, it did what rabbits do best – it ran for all its worth!

Dear friends, what a beautiful picture of what Jesus did for you and me. When we had fallen in the hole of sin, trapped by our own guilt and shame, Jesus got down in there with us. He wasn’t afraid to get His hands dirty – dirty with our own sins and iniquities. He not only risked the infection, He actually was infected with our transgressions to take them all away. Then He tenderly picked us up and set us gloriously free from all our sins, and doubts and anxieties, so that we no longer have to be paralyzed by fear. Like that rabbit we can run and jump and shout for joy. We can do what He created us to do best – to thank Him with our lips of praise and lives of service in His kingdom. May God grant it to us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.