This is the sea where Peter took a faltering step toward Jesuson the water. This story, following the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, tells how Jesus sent the disciples by ship back to the "other side" of the Sea of Galilee (the western side) while he remained behind, alone, to pray. Neither does Johns recounting of the occurrence in his book (John 6:15-21).We are told, however, in Matthew, about Peter stepping out of the boat and walking on water!You and I both know that Peter is an ordinary person. Therefore, in John 6, Jesus is revealed as the One who brings about the . The story is recounted in Matthew 14 and illustrated in this Gustave Dore print. 3:14), which is frequently rendered as Lord, just as it is in Exodus 14:13, which is the same translation as in Exodus 3:14. Yes, he walked on water, stilled the wind, healed and restored. I wont be offended by any reasoned answer, but you can plead the 5th Weathering the storm with Jesus: As soon as Jesus entered into the boat, the storm subsided completely. Peter exposes mans inability to command the natural elements of the world, while Jesus shows Himself victorious over fear, death, and the created world. Lord, please save me! he shouted aloud. As if by magic, Jesus multiplies bread to supply as much as they desired (John 6:11) to the crowds, just as God had provided bread from heaven to feed His people with as much as any man could eat (Exodus 16:4). Jesus is compassionate towards those under His care as He reaches out His powerful hand of salvation. What made you lose your nerve like that?" And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. : essays on Christology, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jesus_walking_on_water&oldid=1133982716, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 12:30. In fact, He builds on the parallel, ascending a mountain alone (John 6:15) as Moses had before Him (Ex. Hades or Sheol was seen as the place of the dead with three areas or compartments: (1) the abyss or tartarus, the place of confinement for those demons who sinned in the days of Noah; (2) torments, the place of suffering for . Every sermon I heard about Jesus walking on water as a child centered on Gods capacity to calm the storms in our life, which I found to be true.Following seminary, I grew to despise such readings, believing that they were missing the real meaning of the text altogether.Yet in reality, Jesus is the One who is able to calm the storms of our life exactly because He is the One who has freed us from the bonds of sin and death and the torments of hell.To put it another way, if we can put our faith in Jesus to resolve our most difficult difficulties, as He has done through the cross and the resurrection, then how much more can we put our faith in Him to face the more minor tribulations of life?In other words, Christ has the ability to and occasionally does intervene in our troubles in the same manner as He did when He rescued His disciples from the sea (John 6:21).When that occurs, there is nothing left to do but express gratitude to God for yet another act of kindness and grace on our behalf. The very rules of physics that allow our planet to float and spinas well as to be at precisely the proper distance from the sun to provide us with light and warmthwere established by you! But as a matter of fact, Jesus is the One who can calm the storms of our lives precisely because He is the One who liberates us from sin, death, and hell. 977 views, 27 likes, 24 loves, 0 comments, 4 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from The Baguio Cathedral of Our Lady of the Atonement: 4:00 PM - LIVE NOW. Then he jumped into the water. The allusion to the apostle Peter walking on water is not present in the gospels of Mark and John, on the other hand. In order for us to see Jesus as the greater Moses, John has previously said both expressly (John 1:1617) and implicitly (Moses could only pull water from the rock, but Jesus could draw wine from the rock, as evidenced by Exodus 17:17 and John 2:112). [1] The fact that the John account also lacks this detail suggests that this account of "St. Peter's venture"[6] is a redactional addition by Matthew. We dont have to guess what it is, which is a relief.Because, while all four Gospel authors mention the feeding of the five thousand, only John tells us when this miracle occurred, i.e., around the time of Passover (John 6:4).And this is his key to understanding the significance of all that follows. The people on the lake, however, thought he was a ghost when they saw him wandering about on the water.They screamed because they had all seen him and were afraid of him.Immediately, he addressed them and encouraged them, saying, Take courage! 34 And when they had crossed over, they came to the land, unto Gennesaret. Like us, Peter is plagued with the depravity of human nature. In the beginning, he tried to walk on the water, but he became terrified and began to sink. !) 14:22 And straightway he constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side, till he should send the multitudes away. However, He still could not keep his fear at bay in order to stay afloat. 19 When therefore they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat: and they were afraid. The hymn It Is Well with My Soul by Horatio Spafford begins, Whatever Satan buffet / though tribulations approach, / Let this blest certainty control: / That Christ has respect for my helpless position / And has bled his own blood for my soul. Edward Motes poem My Hope is Built on Nothing Less says, When darkness obscures his lovely face / I rest on his unchanging grace. Peter jumped out of the boat and began walking on the water toward Jesus, but the moment he took his eyes offof Jesus, Peter saw nothing but the wind and waves, and he started to sink. as events with deep symbolic resonance. the sea into dry land to part the waters of the Red Sea. Jesus is still with us in the storm, reminding us of what Hes done, strengthening us for the trials we face, and encouraging us not to forget that our biggest problems have already been solved. There must be a rational (read: natural) explanation. The connections are so strong that the crowds recognize Jesus as the promised prophet like Moses (John 6:14; see Deut. Luke C23 V46, "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.". Meaning of Jesus Walking on Water. (Moses could only draw water from the rock, while Jesus could draw wine from the rock, the stone jars; see Ex. 51 And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves; 52 for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened. Philippians 2: Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. debate, where people kept asking a Protestant minister who was also a TE Yet, whereas Moses returned from the mountain with the law, Jesus returns with nothing but Himself. All of this has no bearing on my view of the mechanism of creation. 5:21; Heb. What did Jesus mean when He said, Peace, be still. What do you think? 14:3436; Mark 6:5356). appears to treat the events described both as real historical events and 8:18; 2 Cor. Theism not deism. Come, he instructed.As a result, Peter stepped out of the boat and walked across the water to reach Jesus.His fear increased, though, as he noticed the wind. Help them to understand that you built everything for usso that we might have a place to call home for the rest of our lives.But, even more importantly, you designed our existence so that we may join you in a loving relationship for the rest of our lives, beginning right now.In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen.This devotional is taken from the book 60 Days for Jesus, Volume 1, and it is titled Get your hands on a copy right now! Make it possible for these wonderful readers to believe in your brilliance! A tremendous fortress is our God / a bulwark that never fails, / Our helper He amid the flood / of deadly miseries that prevail (Martin Luthers A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, a hymn to Gods steadfastness). Not for convenience but as part of his mission. But Christianity is not a deist faith; it is a theist faith. However, like with the last lake-miracle (Matthew 8:23-27), the disciples are in a precarious situation and are afraid when they see Jesus approaching them. In Mark 6:45, Jesus instructed them to travel to Bethsaida, which is roughly seven miles south of Tabgha, despite the fact that the winds were blowing them south to Gennesa. "What is scary, and I can't say for sure if this is connected or if it's just a . 9 Although I can see him as he passes me, I am unable to recognize him when he passes me. Following the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus Christ dispatched his disciples ahead of him in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee to the other side.Later that night, the disciples came upon a storm that made them feel uneasy and threatened them with death.Their dread quickly changed to horror as they saw Jesus strolling toward them across the surface of the water, and they began to believe that they were seeing the appearance of a ghost. To show His disciples that the very thing they feared, the raging, seething sea, was merely a set of steps for Him to come to them. The gospels, on the other hand, may be safely dated far earlier.This is something Ive talked about elsewhere on the site.Essentially, the Acts of the Apostles is completed while St Paul is still alive, which is a significant accomplishment.Prior to his execution in 65 AD, he wrote this letter.If Luke wrote Acts of the Apostles as a sequel to his gospel, Lukes gospel must have been written in the early 1960s or late 1950s, based on the dates of the gospels.If Luke used Marks gospel and a proto-Matthew as sources (a proto-Matthew is a hypothetical earlier Hebrew-Aramaic collection of Jesus stories and sayings), then Mark must have been composed in the mid-50s and proto-Matthew must have been composed in the early fifties, or even as early as 45 AD, according to some scholars. [9] Alan Robinson sees the pericope as important in establishing the belief in the early Church that the disciples viewed Jesus as the Son of God. He walks across the water on sandals while claiming to be the very creator of the sea that He is standing on. It is true that the disciples were scared because their hearts had been hardened as a result of their failure to comprehend the loaves. Learn Religions. Even so, Philips doubts about Jesus ability to feed five thousand come after Christs miraculous provision of wine for a wedding feast (John 2:111). As evidence of His divinity, He demonstrated it to His disciples, who replied with a confession of confidence in Jesus as God: And as soon as they got into the boat, the wind stopped. And they in the boat prostrated themselves before him, proclaiming, Truly, you are the Son of God. (Matthew 14:3233; Mark 10:3233).Keep your eyes and ears fixed on Jesus, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey, and you will be OK.Let us fix our gaze only on Jesus, who was the source of our faith and who will bring it to completion (Hebrews 12:2).Photograph courtesy of iStock/Getty Images Plus/MajaArgakijeva. In order to demonstrate to his disciples that he is more than a miraculous worker or charismatic leader, k on water? Fairchild, Mary. 16:4). Initially Jesus collects the Apostles on a boat and sends them away alone, to go alone to the mountain to pray, but promising to meet them on the other side of the "sea"; the apostles have difficulty in reaching the other shore, but Jesus appears and everything ends well. 7:1819). Jesus walking on water is one of the most well-known stories in the New Testament. He wasnt being pulled on skis by a boat. In Matthew, Jesus isnt just calling out to them to bring their attention to the fact that He is present. The Bible recorded only one instance when Jesus walked on water. Jesus both saved Peter from his sins and moved him to share His faith with others. In addition to being Jesus closest buddy, John was also known as the disciple whom Jesus loves. Many things he observed and documented that the others did not were picked up on by him.What do you think youre seeing here?After the people witnessed the sign Jesus performed, they started to speculate, Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world, as if Jesus were the promised Messiah. He contends that these methods of exegesis rely on factual interpretations and fail to capture the full meaning of the text based on its structure. 28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee upon the waters. It is common in parts of our society to dismiss the power of God, to reduce theism (belief in a personal interactive God) to deism (belief in a God who got everything started). In the Gospels, Jesus walks on water in Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52, and John 6:16-21, as well as other places. (Matthew 14:33). But why? [23] Furthermore, the motif of walking on water was associated with kings like Xerxes or Alexander, but also rejected and satirized as humanly impossible and as proverbial for the arrogance of the rulers by Menander, Dio Chrysostom or in 2 Maccabees 5:21. Doug Ponder is pastor of teaching and discipleship at Remnant Church in Richmond, Va., and a content editor for the International Mission Board. Likewise, Micah tells us that the sea is the place where God sends sin to be judged, forgiven, and forgotten forever (Mic. 4-5). What miracles did Jesus perform? Because the Bible only mentions 5,000 males, and not women or children, I believe there are more than 5,000. [9], This event is also seen as a divine fulfillment of words of Job, Who alone spreadeth out the heavens and walketh upon the waves of the sea, Job (9:8). [15], Scholars such as Ulrich Luz and separately Dale Allison view the pericope as instrumental in asserting the divinity of Jesus among early Christians. Several hours later in the night, the disciples encountered a storm that frightened them. What were the miracles of Jesus? 18 And the sea was rising by reason of a great wind that blew. 46:2; 65:7). However, although Moses came from the mountain with the law, Jesus returns from the cross with nothing more than Himself. As Christians we believe that Jesus was born with a mission and a purpose as the very embodiment of Israels God, our God. [20], Some scholars have held the view that while this event took place, it was not miraculous: Albert Schweitzer, for example, suggested that the disciples saw Jesus walking on the shore, but were confused by high wind and darkness; some scholars who accept this "misperception thesis" argue that Mark originally wrote that Jesus walked on the seashore rather than on the sea, and that John had a more accurate version. In particular, the narrative part of the story seems to fall into the apocalyptic genre, meaning by this term a genre characterized by an accentuated symbolism and light-shadow contrasts. 15:19). However, when he saw the tremendous wind and the waves, he became afraid and began to sink into the water. His voice rang out to the Lord even though he was terrified, knowing that Jesus was the only one who could assist him. My daughter stepped off into a still lake and immediately began to sink, but Jesus took off from the shore into high waves and gusting winds. It's easy for us to see other cultures or communities doing this; it's difficult to see ourselves doing it. As Peter later writes to the persecuted church in 1 Peter 2:9: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for . Is it True for Christians That 'Once Saved, Always Saved'? [11] Dwight Pentecost and John Danilson state that this miracle was deliberately designed by Jesus to instruct his apostles and increase their faith. [12] David Cook and Craig Evans note that "of little faith" is a somewhat common expression in Matthew (e.g. It is first connected with darkness and chaos (Gen.1:2). As he began to descend, his last words were, Lord, save me. O you of little faith, why did you doubt? Jesus said as he put out his hand and grabbed him by the shoulders.And as soon as they got onto the boat, the wind stopped blowing.And they in the boat prostrated themselves before him, proclaiming, Truly, you are the Son of God (Matthew 14:20-33).Following in the footsteps of Mark, Matthew describes Jesus instructions and the situation as though it were newsworthy.Matthew, on the other hand, is the only one that chronicles Peters reaction to the circumstance and their eventual affirmation of Jesus divinity. The same Peter that sunk in fear, and later denied Jesus three times (Matthew 26:31-35), is the same Peter that started the church in Jerusalem (Acts 2:14-42). New Living Translation During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. O'Connor's dazzling first novel tells the hilarious and disturbing tale of Hazel Motes, a young Georgia man whose obsession with God leads him to run from God as fast as he can, only to crash head-on into the wall of Jesus and religion. phrase walked on the water was used, the minister corrected people Following their successful feeding of a large number of people, Jesus and His 12 disciples walked up a mountain for some one-on-one devotional time with the Father. Although I have often interacted here with posts on other blogs, I have not generally paid a great deal of attention to the comments on those other blogs. The New Testament Bible story of when J esus walks on water is one of the most widely told narratives and critical miracles of Jesus. To show His disciples that the very thing they feared, the raging, seething sea, was merely a set of steps for Him to come to them.Often we fear the difficult experiences of life such as illness, loss of loved ones, and financial hardships only to discover that these experiences can bring Jesus closer to us.But we have to ask, why did they not recognize Jesus?The answer is they were not looking for Him. Miracles, Peace, Strength, When Jesus glanced out across the lake, he noticed that it was extremely windy, as if a storm had swept in. John alone specifies they were headed "toward Capernaum". 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