Matthew 14:22. And at once he
made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he
sent the crowds away. 23. After sending the crowds away he went up into the
hills by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24. while the
boat, by now some furlongs from land, was hard pressed by rough waves, for there
was a head-wind. 25. In the fourth watch of the night he came towards them,
walking on the sea, 26. and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they
were terrified. "It is a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. 27. But at
once Yahshua called out to them, saying, "Courage! It's me! Don't be afraid." 28.
It was Peter who answered. "Lord," he said, "if it is you, tell me to come to
you across the water." 29. Yahshua said, "Come." Then Peter got out of the boat
and started walking towards Yahshua across the water, 30. but then noticing the
wind, he took fright and began to sink. "Lord," he cried, "save me!" 31.
Yahshua
put out his hand at once and held him. "You have so little faith," he said, "why
did you doubt?" 32. And as they got into the boat the wind dropped. 33. The men
in the boat bowed down before him and said, "Truly, you are the Son of
Elohim."
The Shadow
I had a very
unusual experience when I was a teenager.
Several of us friends heard that there was a hooligan prowling in a particularly
dark neighborhood where one of the boys lived.
This person appeared only in the evening to terrify children. The assaults continued on for some time
without anyone catching the perpetrator.
One fellow who lived in that neighborhood double dog dared the rest of
us to help him track down this pervert and capture him. How foolish we were to take the dare! We camped out on the edge of a swamp where
the prowler had been seen. It was a
reckless and dangerous decision. Of
course, our parents knew nothing of our plan to be heroes.
It wasn’t long
before a shadowy figure peered out of the thick vegetation. We all saw “it” clearly by the illumination
of our flashlights from a distance of about ten feet. What we saw wasn’t what we expected. The ‘thing’ was only about three feet tall
and was shrouded in what appeared to be a black cloak. There was no detail to it; it was like a
standing shadow -- like a tiny man in black.
It darted out of the vegetation and hopped behind an apple tree, poking
its head out every few seconds to keep watch on us. We kept our lights trained on it. Our bravest gang members moved toward it,
keeping it pinned behind the tree with thrown apples. When we got within six feet of the tree, the
thing darted right by us and disappeared into the swamp.
A few boys were
exhilarated, but three boys went home crying, terrified. I stayed behind, hoping to help solve the
mystery. We got into our sleeping bags
and covered our heads. Not long after
there was a commotion and the sound of footsteps moving through. I peeked my head out of the bag to find this
little black shadow person standing right there, bent over me, looking at me
with glowing slits for eyes. Filled with
panic and wondering what I had gotten myself into, I swung a short piece of
pipe out from my sleeping bag and made solid contact with the thing as I cried
for help. The other boys responded
immediately and we all watched the thing hobble back into the swamp. We didn’t see it again. Twice was plenty. On a dare, we put ourselves in a dangerous
position but were fortunate to have encountered only a strange enigma rather
than a dangerous criminal.
It’s a Ghost!
So, to a degree, I
can relate to a what the disciples saw that grim, dark, stormy night on the Sea
of Galilee -- a black-shrouded demon levitating above the mist and foam of the
waves, hovering closer and closer, threatening, menacing, horrifying. The boys in the boat are terrified –“It’s a
ghost,” they cry in dread desperation.
There’s no place to run and hide except beneath the deadly waves of the
sea. When Yahshua realizes that his boys
see him as a monster, he identifies himself with a loud cry through the
howling wind – “Take courage; don’t be afraid!
It is I.” How could they not be
afraid, considering the dismal setting and the specter of the ghost-man before
them? How many water-walkers had they
seen in their young lives? Such ability
to tread water was here-to-fore unknown.
Debunking Miracles
Miracles that
suspend the course of nature are unbelievable.
For the most part, the miracles of Yahshua may be explained away as
natural occurrences or coincidences.
It’s been said that when he healed sick people, he was practicing the
placebo effect, using hypnotic suggestion or tapping into people’s natural
ability to heal themselves, which he called ‘faith.’ Some see the feeding of the five thousand
with a few loaves and fish as the perfectly natural result of human charity;
when the young boy showed his generosity in sharing his loaves and fishes, the
others in the crowd were so touched that they too brought out the food they’d
hidden, creating enough to feed everyone.
Even when on the sea, the stilling of the storm might have been but a
timely coincidence – Yahshua commands it to stop and it just stops, right on
schedule. You or I might happen upon the
same timing if we tried it.
But debunking the
miracle of walking on water requires a very creative mind. Water walking is just utterly impossible. But one skeptic has a solution. He suggests that the boat was leaking oil and
Yahshua simply walked out on the oil slick!
I for one believe
that if Yahshua is who he claims to be, the Son of Man from Heaven, and if he has
the power to lay down his life and take it up again, then modifying a few laws
of terrestrial physics isn’t beyond his power.
If there are reputable witnesses to the miraculous works of Yahshua, and
it appears that there are many, and since his deeds are well documented, then I
have no reason not to believe that he could work miracles. Personally, there could be no greater
miracle, no matter how profound it might seem to be, even if a mountain were
moved into the sea, than the miracle that he’s performed in my own life and
among those whom I love in church and family.
Personal miracles experienced in the past as a result of our asking for
his favor are the signs that draw us into greater trust for the future. Nothing is impossible with Elohim / Elohim
through his faithful Son. I believe in
miracles for I believe in Elohim.
The Impetuous Peter
The impetuous Peter
believes in miracles, too. He challenges
Yahshua’ admonition to be at peace. “If
it’s you, Master, dare me to hop out!”
Now the name Peter means “stone.”
When a stone is cast into the sea, does it float? No.
Old Stony would sink straight to the bottom and drown if he should
venture out into that mess. He probably
expects Yahshua to say, “Stay put!” But he
misjudges the Master. Yahshua never fails
to accept a challenge, no matter how difficult.
“Come on out then!” he replies. Now Peter has to put up – he makes the
hop over the gunwale and, keeping his eyes on Yahshua, begins to duplicate the
miracle of water walking.
Like a child
showing off, he cries to his buddies: “Here I am! Look at me now!” But the Scripture says a strong gale came up
and about knocked him over. He took his
eyes off Yahshua for just a moment to get his bearing, and when he did, he
suddenly realized the foolishness of his commitment – that above him were thunderings
and lightenings and beneath him were deadly, ice cold waves and sea monsters to
feast on his carcass. The moment his
vision strayed from the Master, circumstances and speculations, dangers and
deadly fears, engulf him. He begins to
sink. As the freeze envelopes his body,
the fear of death starts to overcome him and several notions flashed into his
mind.
First, through the
panic comes the voice of reason, chastising him for being such a brazen fool to
have stepped out of the boat in the first place. “You idiot.
Your impulsiveness has cost you your life.” Following fast upon that, the devil of doubt
shouts even more loudly than the awful noise of the storm, “Miracles no longer
happen, you dope. You’re mine now!”
In desperation and
going down fast, he thinks of his spiritual father, Jonah, who cried from the
belly of the fish:
You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the
seas, and the flood surrounds me; all your waves and billows pass over me. The waters close in; the deep engulfs me;
weeds wrap around my head. Selah!" (Jonah 2:1-9)
Finally, in what he fancies to be his final moment, his life
flashes before his eyes, but no peace can he find in the images. He’s a goner and he knows it.
New Conclusions and Old Confessions
What conclusion may
we draw from this story? I’ve often
heard that we should step out of the boat; that is, we should be willing
to take a serious risk in order to move our lives closer to the life of the
Lord. Have you heard this moral? Or that we ought to be more than willing –
enthusiastic even – about moving from the natural realm to the spiritual realm,
even to the miraculous. That’s a good
message. Step into the water.
There’s never
anything wrong with stepping out in faith; in fact, we should definitely move
forward in our trust of Yahshua every day.
We should definitely put at risk our unElohimly beliefs and baseless doubts
in favor of taking that step upward in confidence. However, if we are bound to step out
in faith, then the faith must not be blind. Blind faith is not faith at all, but pride
and folly. Let me suggest a different
moral for our story that might be a little more in keeping with the context of
the passage.
Let me confess my
sins. I’ve made some mistakes in my
life. Haven’t you? We’re free to make all kinds of mistakes. We’re free, free, free! In my impulsiveness, at times I’ve challenged
the Master, gotten ahead of his plan or strayed from it entirely thinking I was
doing the right thing. Sometimes I
didn’t even consider his way, only my way.
Sometimes I lied to myself, pretending that I was doing the Lord’s will
when, really, I knew it was my will all along. Sometimes I have said that the Lord told me
to do something that he really didn’t – I just used him as a scapegoat. Like Peter, I have, in some manner, blindly
challenged Yahshua with my own freedom to do as I please – “Yahshua, I dare you to
dare me to hop out of the boat!” What
else would Yahshua reply but “Come on, then”?
Are we not free to do something stupid?
There have been times
in my recklessness that my eyes have been off of Him and on the
situations and circumstances whirling around me; times I’ve stepped out of the
boat without looking or even thinking of where I was going. Sometimes my carelessness lost me friends,
relationships or church members; a few times exercising blind faith nearly cost
me my life or the life of someone I loved.
Freedom to do what I choose coupled with blind faith is a marriage of
disaster!
I make my confession
because I’m not the only one in this room who has, in stubbornness, done the
wrong thing or the stupid thing or the reckless thing willfully or
thoughtlessly – like hopping out of a boat at night in the middle of a
storm. Is such a badge of courage or an
act of tempting Elohim? Undoubtedly, some
of the days of our lives have been spent in the “belly of the fish” because of
our own designs and impulsive doings.
Like Jonah, we have made our own desires our Elohims, testing the Almighty,
and ending up in some horrible pit of depression or anxiety or phobia or
compromising situation, “weeds wrapped around our heads.” Have you ever done something stupid that
landed you in a place you didn’t want to be?
Did Yahshua reprimand you when you double-dog dared him? No. He
probably said, “Just go right ahead and try!”
And then down the slippery slope you slid.
Yah Shua!
It was in this very kind of watery depth in which Peter came to his
senses. Or should I say, in which his
fear could no longer be contained.
Keeping faith in his own ability would put him in over his head. Other men and women might have sunk right on
down, not knowing what powerful name to call on before it was too late. Yet fortunately, Peter is still a child in
the eyes of the Master and he trusts the Master even more than he trusts
himself. With all the breath left to
him, he gurgles the one name that could save, “Yah shua! Yahshua!” (which means, “L-rd [Yah]
save!”)! In the nick of time, Peter again
looks to Yahshua only, and Yahshua in turn is suddenly there to reach
out his strong right arm to save. “Oh,
such small faith! You were sinking like
a stone. That’s the very reason I named
you ‘Peter.’ Why did you doubt me? Why?”
When they get back into the boat there is absolutely no question of what
happened. Indeed, there was not one
skeptic there, puzzling out how Yahshua accomplished his latest miracle. Not one debunker in the crowd. They worshipped him and they knew that
this miracle could in no way be faked or duplicated. “For sure,” they cried in unison, “you are
the son of Yahweh!” But Peter was even
more convinced than the rest because it was he who was rescued from his
folly. It was his hand that was in the
grasp of the Master of Physics. It was
his soaking face that the Master explored in those moments of rescue. His pride drowned that day but his faith in
Yahshua was preserved.
Calling Upon the Name
Let me suggest that, since this occurrence, thousands who have found
themselves entangled in impossible or deadly situations have realized their
folly and called upon the name of Yahshua, finding salvation and rescue in the
very nick of time. I confessed that I’d
been blind to his will many times in the past, exercising my free agency right
into the clutches of danger, depression or oppression, yet he has saved me each
and every time I came to the end of my rope and took hold of his. Since love lifted me, I’m pleased to
hear testimony of those who dare to share their own stories of both folly and
rescue. It’s an exciting way of building
our faith in and knowledge of the ways in which Yahshua works -- hearing the
powerful stories of those whom he has salvaged.
Truly, he is the “Son of Yahweh,” and he walks with me and talks with me
and tells me I am his own. You and
me! We are so blessed in our lives to
have met the Master, to know him, to be able to utter his name in worship and
fear, and to be known by him and have our names written in his book of
life.
I said we are blessed to know him.
It might not have been so. Peter
would have eventually hopped out of the boat whether he knew Yahshua or not. We might never have known him or known to
call upon him in our hour of need.
We could have been like those who, finding themselves in deadly jeopardy,
shout the name “Yahshua” as a curse or as a harried prayer to one never known in
person. We could have been like the
heathen – completely left to our own devises or puppeteered through life by
dark, unclean forces. But we have known
him, have supped with him and befriended him, and he has protected us even when
we leaped without looking. We are a
fortunate people. We are members of his
body and servants in his household. He
is the miracle-worker and he cares for us.
But I can’t speak for all.
Perhaps you know his name best because you use it as a curse. Perhaps you don’t know him at all and can’t
claim your line in his book of life.
Maybe you’re not sure you can count on him when you finally go down –
and it’s 100% certain that you will
go down. Well, today’s the day to change that. Remember, the boat belonged to Peter, and it
was into Peter’s boat that the Master was invited. Why don’t you invite him into your boat today
while it’s still your time of visitation?
No one knows for certain what tomorrow will bring except that our
freedom to be blind will surely take us where we don’t want to go. We must enlist the help of the one who knows
the end from the beginning. Call on him
now and he will certainly come and take your hand in his strong right arm. Invite him to your boat, especially if
your boat is sinking. I double dog
dare you!
Jackson
Snyder
August 8, 2002
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