A Walk on the Water
Beloved People of God,
We live in anxious times. It can feel overwhelming, like battering breakers on a shattering ship. We live with seasick stomachs as the storm tries to sweep us off our feet. Last week, prayerfully holding the tensions of our national and international uncertainty, driving our teens around felt the perfect time to sing our current unease. Stopped at the light, I pulled up Robert Lamm’s poignant song, Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? because, although written in the late 1960s, it asks the same questions we anxiously pose today.
Friend, it can feel like our world is crashing in on us, tossing us mercilessly without end. What we experience existentially is what the disciples felt literally on the sea of Galilee (John 6.18). Desperately rowing against the wind, they were doing everything in their power to reach the distant shore. They were anxious and alone. Then, to make matters worse, while bailing for dear life, swamped by the breaking waves, a figure appeared walking on the water! Their gut-churning dread became heart-stopping terror…until Jesus spoke. He called out to them over the storm, “I AM, fear not,” (6.20). John tells us, when Jesus said those four words, the disciples were more than ready for Him to step into their boat. His presence was what they needed the most!
By walking on the water, Jesus was telling His anxious disciples that He knows what time it is, that He really cares. In His messianic signs He was revealing to them His divinity as God among us. He is the One who walks on the waves and rules over the raging seas (Job 9.8-11; Ps 89.9). He is the Great I AM who knows we are blinded by our anxieties. He knows how our fears form cataracts of doubt and insecurity. And so, He speaks to us. He calls to us, proclaiming His nature. He tells us to abandon fear as we listen to His voice.
Marianne Meye Thompson believes, “God’s people are not to fear because God is and will be with them,” and we witness this in this miraculous sign. Beloved, what storm of emotional anxiety and soul disquiet, do you need to give to Jesus today as He walks on the water?
For Christ the King,
Brett