Matthew 14:22–33

²²Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

²³And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

²⁴but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.

²⁵And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.

²⁶But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" and they cried out in fear.

²⁷But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid."

²⁸And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."

²⁹He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.

³⁰But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."

³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

³²And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

Immediately after Jesus fed over 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread in a desert place he sent his disciples back to where they had come from across the Sea of Galilee. Night was falling and Jesus was still looking for a chance to be alone to pray. The disciples took off in the boat and Jesus went off by himself. But as the disciples were crossing the lake, a wind-storm came up against them, preventing them from going forward, tossing the boat back and forth, waves coming over the top of the boat to the point that they were afraid of drowning; and Jesus was back on a desert mountain praying.

Sometime between three and six in the morning, still battling the waves and trying to keep afloat, the disciples saw something on the water off in the distance. It was moving toward them. At first they could not distinguish what it was. It was dark like a shadow. Could it have been another boat? It was coming closer. Finally they could make out the form of it. It appeared to be a man. But it was walking on the water amidst the gale winds and life threatening waves. It must have been a specter of some sort; a phantom; a ghost; a spirit. It was coming closer. Fear gripped their hearts. They cried out.

Then it spoke. "Don't be afraid! It is I." I who? That is the point of this story. Who is it? Did the disciples recognize him? Do you recognize him? It may seem obvious to us, "Oh, that's Jesus!" we might say, but who really is Jesus? That is what Peter and the disciples would soon discover. That is what Jesus meant to convey to them by this unusual way of coming to them. This excursion which began with the feeding of the 5000 and now has expanded into Jesus walking on water was all meant to teach them and us who Jesus really is.

We all think we know. We can all rattle off the answers we learned in confirmation instruction. We can repeat the memory verses that tell us that Jesus is the Son of God; that he died for our sins; that he is with us always. We have the head knowledge. But faith is not mere head knowledge. As Lutherans we are well aware that faith is different from knowledge of the facts. If faith was mere knowledge, we would not baptize infants and small children. Faith is not faith in some abstract concept like forgiveness or justification. Faith is faith in a person, the Son of God. Faith is a relationship with that person. Faith is a relationship with God through Christ. Faith is to experience God in the person of Jesus Christ. Faith is not just knowing about Jesus or forgiveness and grace, it is experiencing God's forgiveness and grace in Jesus. Faith is experiencing God's Salvation. Faith is a personal relationship with Christ, not mere knowledge of the facts about his life. And experiencing Jesus first hand is what was about to happen to Peter and the disciples that stormy night in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. They were about to experience who Christ really was.

Today we are prone to trivialize God. We try to bring God down to our level. We see him as a buddy, a friend who is a nice guy that will help us out when we need help. We see him as a kind, loving grandfather who overlooks it when we are bad and always has a piece of candy for us. We trivialize him in modern worship styles that lack awe and reverence. We trivialize him with worship music that is shallow and flippant treating God as if he were just a friend instead of the transcendent Lord and ruler of the universe. We trivialize God when we reduce worship to mere emotions and felt needs. We trivialize him by reducing him to a warm feeling of love, or joy, or happiness inside ourselves. And the problem is that a trivial god is a small god, a weak god. A trivial god is nothing more than an extension of our own selves and a projection of our own image.

But that dark night Peter experienced Christ in a far different way. "Lord, is that you?" he cried out. All of a sudden he experienced Jesus as he really was. He experienced Jesus walking on the water in the midst of the wind and the waves. He experienced the Jesus as Lord and Master of the elements; Lord and Master of the wind; Lord and Master of the water; the Jesus who could walk on water as if it were dry ground. He saw the Jesus who, before he came as a human being, split open the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross on dry ground. Yes, the Jesus Peter experienced in the waters of the Sea is the Jesus who saved Noah through the waters of the flood. This is the same Jesus we experience in the waters of baptism. Yes, there on that desert plain where Jesus turned a desert into a banquet and fed thousands of people, Peter experienced the Jesus who fed the Hebrew nation with manna and quail for forty years in the desert wilderness. This is the same Jesus we experience in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. That night Peter experienced the Jesus who is the Son of God, who is Lord and Master of the wind and the rain. The Jesus who with the Father and the Holy Spirit created the universe and who today sits at the right hand of the Father and rules over all peoples and all nations. Peter experienced that awesome, transcendent, almighty God who is Lord and Ruler of all things visible and invisible.

And Peter responded in absolute and complete faith. Upon the command of Jesus, Peter jumped out of the boat and walked over to Jesus on that stormy, turbulent water. With neither a doubt or a question, Peter obeyed the command of Jesus. Peter focused on Jesus, and the storms that raged around him became a blurr. He obeyed without hesitation. Here Peter is an example of the faith that we all wish we had. A faith that obeys Christ with decisiveness. A faith that when Jesus says "jump," it jumps. No matter how dismal the situation looks to our eyes, no matter how impossible a task it is, faith that has experienced Christ responds in obedience to his command. Because such a faith knows that Jesus is Lord of our life; Lord of our circumstances; Lord of the universe. And we experience that Jesus most closely and most fully at our baptism.

But in spite of that momentary burst of faith, Peter very quickly becomes an archetype of what we all are: fallen, sinful human beings. It seems as if we have moments when faith gushes out, but quickly we look around at our circumstances, problems, the turmoil going on in our life, or in our family, or our church, and very quickly our faith lapses. Suddenly, instead of seeing Jesus controlling the wind and the waves of our lives, we see the wind and the waves by themselves and Jesus blurs out of our awareness. We see the agony and despair, the hurts, the pains, the offenses of others. We see our sicknesses and troubles; our diseases and pains. We see only our financial woes or our strife and conflicts. We see our sin and our weaknesses; our addictions; our dependence; our feelings of inadequacy; our failures. And just as the wind and the waves overwhelmed Peter on that lake, so our problems, fears, inadequacies and sins overwhelm us. And just like Peter, we start sinking into the waters about to drown in the mire of our sin and disbelief.

In fact, Jesus allowed Peter to sink. Just like he sometimes allows us to sink. Because only by sinking into the stormy waters could Peter realize his true peril. Only by sinking did Peter understand that he was completely dependent on Jesus for his life. Only by sinking did Peter have to humble himself and give up his self-reliance. All pride, self-sufficiency, and trusting in self which is idolatry, were wiped completely away when he started to sink. Just like us. It is only when Jesus allows us to start sinking that we are humbled. When we sink into the mire of our own sin, when we sink into the stormy waters of life, only then is pride, self-sufficiency, and self-trust which is idolatry get washed away. Only then do we see ourselves for what we really are—fallen sinners, unrighteous, unworthy and deserving of nothing other than God's anger and wrath.

At that moment as Jesus let him sink into the sea, Peter experienced the very same Son of God who opened the heavens and drowned the whole earth in the day of Noah to annihilate the world on account of their sin and disobedience. At that moment Peter experienced the Jesus who on account of his lack of faith allowed him to sink into the dark, stormy waters of death. That is what Peter deserved because he was a mere mortal sinner. Just like Peter, we too experience the Jesus who is the holy and righteous judge of all men and who will judge all men and declare to those on his left hand, "Depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." When the Law of God is proclaimed, we sink into the stormy waters of our guilt, our weakness and our hopelessness.

Jesus let Peter sink into the water and get a taste of his wrath and judgment in order to draw him to repentance. Jesus proclaims to us the condemnation of the law in order that we might repent and turn to him. Peter cried out, "Lord, save me." There is no better cry in the world. There is no greater faith than this, when from the midst of despair we cry out in agony, "Lord, save me." This is the highest worship of God; to cry out, "Lord, save me." There in that sea, Peter experienced the same Jesus that Jonah cried out to in his distress; out of the belly of Sheol; from the depths of the sea. As Peter experienced Jesus in the waters of the sea, so we experience Jesus in the waters of baptism and cry out to him from the depths of our despair and the turbulent sea of our sin, "Lord, save me."

And there in the water of our baptism, Jesus reaches out his hand and takes hold of us and pulls us up and puts us in the boat just as he did to Peter in the water of the sea. As Peter experienced Jesus in the water of the sea, so we experience Jesus in the waters of baptism; we experience him pulling us up out of our sin and death into righteousness and life and into the safety and security of the church. There we experience that righteousness which Jesus himself purchased for us with his very own blood. For that same Jesus allowed himself to sink to the depths of Sheol on a wooden cross in our place. Because Jesus sank into the depths of hell for Peter, he pulled Peter out. Because Jesus sank into the depths of eternal punishment for our sins, he pulls us out. There, in the waters of baptism we experience the Jesus who died on the cross and gave his life for us in order to ransom us from sin and death and give us life everlasting. There in the bread and wine of Communion we experience the Jesus who is the bread of life; whose body was hung on a cross and his blood poured out for our salvation when we eat that body and drink that blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.

Do you want to experience Jesus? Here in word and sacrament we too experience Jesus as Peter did. In the absolution of our sins; in the hearing of the Gospel, in the water of baptism and the bread and wine of Communion we experience the real Jesus. The Jesus who is Lord and Master of all things. The Jesus who washes away our sins and gives us eternal life. The Jesus who is God. The God who saves his people. The God who rules over our lives and circumstances and who reaches out and takes us by the hand to save us.

"O, you of little faith, why do you doubt?" Jesus asks us just as he asked Peter. Jesus is the God who rules the wind and the waves; he is the God who saves. Our highest worship is to call out to him from the darkness of our sinful life, "Lord, save us." When Jesus got into the boat the wind and waters were calmed. The disciples again experienced the awesome and absolute power and majesty of Jesus over all creation. They bent their knees to worship in reverence, in fear and in awe. For this Jesus who they experienced and worshipped is God. This Jesus who we worship in reverence, in fear and in awe is God; the God of the universe, Lord and Master of all, our Savior who pulls us out of the depths of despair when we cry out to him in faith, "Lord, save us."

Amen.