In that moment, when Jesus is walking on the water towards his disciples, he does so towards people who know all about the water, who know all about the wind and the waves. He strolls towards people who know all about drowning, who know that a boat is just a mobile island, and is the only thing standing between you and a watery grave. Now, we all know that you can't walk on water, you can't drive on it, you can't really move all that well on the surface of it outside of a boat, but if we know that, imagine how much better than you the disciples knew it. These were men who made a living on the water, they lived and died on the waves. These are men who spent every day out on the water, and they sure knew all about what it would be like to be caught in a storm, and they probably knew what it would be like to be in a storm so bad that they might sink. They knew all about this, and were well versed enough in it to be less than secure about what might happen if a storm got too rough. If the boat sinks, it's likely lights out for you.
So when they see Jesus walking on the waves, this is a moment for them. It's a moment for them for sure, something that you can't possibly conceive of is happening, where men who make a living on the water, who make a living on the waves, who exist as people who are absolutely fully versed in what it is to live and die on the water, when they see Jesus walking on the water, they are perturbed ,bothered, terrified because what they see is something impossible. That is, faced with water, and someone walking on the water, they know what water is and what it does with people who try to swim in it, therefore Jesus himself must not be human. That's the conclusion that they reached, and one that we would too. After all, which is more likely, that someone can walk on the water, or that ghosts are real and one might be strolling towards you? For most reasonable people, the idea that it's the ghost is more likely, because the water is real.
The water is real. It sure is. For us, water governs everything, more than we think it does. Sure, you know that you have to drink water every day, maximum like three days without drinking and you'll die, that kind of thing. But it's more than that, because the average person uses far more water than that. We use water for drinking, washing, fracking, cleaning, bathing, sanitation, and everything inbetween. But it isn't just that, of course, because we are people whose lives are still ruled by tides caused by the moon, who think about food in terms of calories (a unit of food energy enough to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree) and who think about temperature in terms of degrees celcius (based on when water freezes and when it boils). Water rules everything, rules every day, without water nothing is possible. We know what water is, and we know how real it is. It is desperately, dangerously real, it makes up the majority of our planet's surface, it makes up the majority of every human body, too little is fatal and too much is fatal, it's a matter of survival every day that there is. Water is fundamental to every day, and you know how real it is.
So when the disciples see Jesus strolling on the waves, their reaction is to assume that it is a ghost, it is a spectre, it is something non-corporeal, because humans can't walk on water, obviously. But Jesus makes it clear, saying to them 'take heart, it is I.' Peter, bold as ever, says to Jesus, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you.' Jesus tells him to do, and Peter hops out of the boat, and begins to walk on the surface of the water towards Jesus.
Now, you all know the story, and you know what happens next. You all know what happens next, which is that Peter looks down, sees the waves, sees the wind, and begins to sink. And as he begins to sink, he calls out for help to Jesus Christ, the other person walking on the water. Why does he sink? Well, you know why he sinks, it's sort of obvious. It's clearly obvious why he sinks, it's the same reason that you or I would sink too. Jesus tells him to walk on the water, Jesus, the one who can command the wind and the waves, the one who walked on water himself, commanded Peter to walk on the water, and Jesus had, by his actions, showed that it was possible to do it. And even after all that, Peter's faith was shaken, because faith in the word of God, faith in the word of Christ was less secure than his knowledge of water. For Peter, as for many of us, the water is real, the words are only words.
Jesus, in his magnanimity, as he pulls Peter out of the water says to him 'oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?' Oh you of little faith, why are you so much more secure in the water than in the words? Why, when you think about God and his majesty, are you so much more interested in the water than the words? And this question can be asked of any of us these days too. For us, we stand in our world full of real storms, real things that are happening around us. And often, the car crash, the cancer diagnosis, the funeral, the breakup, the poverty, all that seems to us to be more real than the word of God. We know what God has said, we know that he has promoted to us that he is in control of all things, that he formed the world, that he will give us a future and a hope, that he will give paradise to all who believe in him, and yet, and yet, our faith is weak. The words of Jesus ring awfully hollow to us when faced with the storms that he asked us to walk on.
And you know what? Jesus knows all about that. He is well aware of that issue. He knows what is in the heart of men, you know. And because he knows that, he took it upon himself to work within the limits that you have given. In other words, in the Christian faith, Jesus says to us, 'if you're so focused on how real the water is, why don't I use the reality of the water for confidence instead.' Why do we have baptism, after all? For the forgiveness of sins, the generation of faith, the adoption of us into the family of our father, all that. And we know that hearing the word builds faith, that the absolution forgives sins, Jesus told us all of that in his holy word. So what does baptism do? It gives us, you and me, as well as Peter, the certainty that we need as people who need a real thing to see, to touch, to taste, to wrap our hands as well as our mind around, we need that because our faith is frail and weak. Because we have a weak faith, because we are timid and cowardly, because the water seems way more real than the words, Jesus decided to combine the two.
If you know your catechism, and you probably should, when it talks about Baptism, it does so by asking the question 'how can ordinary water do such things?' and the response is 'It is not water alone, but water in conjunction with the word of God' Yes, the combination of those two things. The two things, the one that is real, that presses in around us every day, the one that is unmistakable, that governs how we think, how we behave, how we live our lives, and the other that is the divine, ethereal word of God, mystic and magnificent, and Jesus, knowing our weaknesses, decided to combine them together. He did so because we have weak faith, because we doubt, because we are inclined to doubt, to disbelieve, to have a hardness in our heart that finds the real stuff of this world to be more compelling than the word of God. And that's why he gave us the sacraments, to give us something real to taste, to see, to hold, to touch, to be embraced and covered with, in order that you and I, along with Peter, whose faith is weak, who trust in what we can see and touch, can be told by Christ our Lord 'you know that water that you know is real? The water that when it is poured on you or you are immersed in it you get wet? That water is the means through which I chose to bless you, that your weak faith that needs physical things might be satisfied, as my pledge of salvation finds its certainty in your eyes in that.'
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