Me Or My Lying Eyes

And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief. -- Matthew 13:58

I don’t have much time today, so I’ll talk about this briefly and maybe come back to it.  I think it is an important concept and worthy of thought. 

The purpose of a miracle is not simply to give someone the help that they need.  Obviously giving sight to the blind is of benefit to the blind man, but miraculous works are a part of the revelation.  As such, they call on those who witness them to both glorify God and receive what is being revealed about God through the miracle.  Ridderbos (whom I mentioned last week) says a miracle necessitates a decision. 

It’s just like the witness of Scripture or of nature.  We decide whether or not to accept what we see – not just as a fact, but as a witness of God’s Glory and Person.  We can even, like the people of Nazareth, make that decision up front.  We can close our minds to the possibility of receiving a revelation, and close ourselves off to the possibility of witnessing the miraculous. 

Yes, miracles are more likely to take place among the primitive and the ignorant.  The sophisticated take that as an indication that the more primitive are easily deceived when perhaps it is, instead, an indication that they haven’t closed their minds to God. By refusing to even allow for the possibility of the miraculous, I exalt my own opinions, beliefs, and preferences over the truth I could see if I would.

I think this also tells us something about the unforgivable sin which the Lord said was blaspheming the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was casting out demons, and the religious leadership argued that He was doing so by the power of Beelzebub.  Those who opposed Jesus refused to accept the witness of the miraculous right before their eyes.  Worse, they said that the Lord’s power was itself of demonic origins.  So, it makes sense that this sin would be unforgivable.  If I close my eyes to what the Holy Spirit is showing me or if I say that what is happening is not His work or revelation, how could I possibly be forgiven?  I’m rejecting the Cross and refusing to take the only path to forgiveness that exists.   

Read the Sign

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.  Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." -- John 6:26-27

I am still more than moderately fried, and today was supposed to be a vacation day.  I was going to get the bike out and cruise for a few hours.  That's not going to happen.  I might get off early enough to ride over to Lambert's and catch a biscuit.  I suppose that leaves me laboring "for the food that perishes".  Paul, though, said if I didn't work, I shouldn't eat, so there's that. 

I don't think Jesus is chastising anybody for honest work or for fielding a "throwed roll".  This passage follows John's account of the feeding of the five thousand, the fourth miraculous sign recorded in his Gospel.  The first sign was turning water into wine at Cana, the second was healing an official's son at Capernaum after He had returned to Cana, the third sign was healing the sick man at the pool of Bethesda.  Signs were given and miracles wrought not so much to convince those who refused to believe but to assure and encourage those who did.  A sign does not create faith; it is more like adding a catalyst.  Faith is activated when it sees a sign.

Those to whom Jesus spoke were not people who had faith in Him, whose faith had been quickened by seeing His power and authority impacting their material existence.  They were people who had eaten, filled their bellies, and started thinking that their days of having to work for a living were over.  They did not care who Jesus was.  They would have followed the devil himself just as quickly and devotedly if he had fed them.  It has happened before, is happening now, and will happen again.  Far too many people -- and many who sit on church pews, have their bellies as their god, living, so it seems, only to consume.  They try to fill their emptiness with everything from food and drink to all manner of material possessions to the life force of other people whom they would drain dry. 

Jesus offers only Himself.  He is the Authentic, the one sealed by the Father.  He will do things in our lives to demonstrate His presence, His love for us, His goodness and mercy.  None of these things, though, have ultimate meaning apart from Him.  What He gives us is His body, His blood, His life.  For our wandering spirit, its homelessness and loneliness and sense of isolation, He gives His body.  For our sin, shame, and guilt, He gives His blood.  For our death, He gives His life. 

Signals

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. – John 5:19

In response to a comment Rick made a couple of days ago, I said I have found that, though I theoretically believe the miraculous is possible, I don’t necessarily give it much thought on a practical basis.  Perhaps what I should have said is that I don’t depend on miracles most of the time.  Other people seem to have a different approach. 

Though I think the miraculous is really all around us, we cannot necessarily get a demonstration on demand.  Herod thought, as a ruler, he could command Jesus to perform some sign:  When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him (Luke 23:8).  I recall this scene depicted perhaps in Jesus Christ, Superstar with Herod saying something like, “Jesus prove that you’re no fool.   Walk across my swimming pool.”  Herod was disappointed. 

A lot of us are disappointed when our loved ones aren’t healed, when evil seems to triumph, when our lives fall apart in various ways despite our fervent prayers and our professions of trust and confidence in God.  Any time there is a tragedy of any sort it seems someone demands to know where God was. 

Football season is over, and I’m glad.  We can now move on to real sports like ice-dancing.  In football, the most important man on the field is usually the quarterback, the signal caller, the field general.  While a team can have the best, most accurate passer who ever lived, if there is no one to catch the pass, or if the receivers are inept, in the wrong place, playing as if they were wearing oven mitts, all the quarterback’s efforts are for naught.  You have to have a receiver who knows what the quarterback is going to do, who goes where he is supposed to go, runs his route, gets open and catches the ball. 

That’s where God is.  He’s calling the signals.  Sometimes He calls an audible on the line of scrimmage on fourth down.  He needs somebody out here to get open, somebody to run the route and make the catch.  There is the Giver, and there is the receiver. 

Jesus said, I only do what I see My Father doing.  I do not run around down here with no purpose or direction.  I’m not out of place or running up and down the sidelines waving and yelling.  I don’t need to do that.  I have been in the huddle.  I have heard the call.  I know what I’m supposed to do, and I do it.  Miracles happen.  There is a supernatural reception. 

So, I would say, first, I’m not going to ask for a miracle based on selfish motives.  This is not about me.  God will give me what He wants me to have.  But, if I see someone who is bound up and needs to be set free, I need to get in touch with my Father.  I need to get the play.  I know already the general idea that God is Good, and He will do good for all who are oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38).  But I need to find out how He wants to do it, what route He wants me to run. 

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

The purpose of the miraculous is liberation – liberation from spiritual, psychological, and physical bondage, spiritual poverty and blindness.  God blesses us in many ways, but only the supernatural can set us free.

 

Finally, I may not be the intended receiver.  I may just be called on to run my pattern to set someone else up, to open up the defense. 

I’ve told this story before, but it seems applicable.  A long time ago, I used to work with convicts in a prison, and I got along with most all of them pretty well.  It was a great opportunity to witness to people both by words and actions.  I was talking to one man who wanted to study theology and the Bible, not that uncommon a thing in prison.  A lot of people become penitent in the penitentiary.  He asked me if I knew any way to get him a couple of resources, a Bible dictionary and another book or two.  I told him I knew some people who would probably help and that I would contact them.  The next day, before I could call anyone, I was in the shower.  I don’t want to say “God spoke to me”.  What happened was that I suddenly knew something that I did not know before.  I knew that someone else was going to provide my prisoner friend with all the resources he needed.  The next time I saw him, that’s what I told him. 

As you might imagine, he thought I was just trying to get out of helping him.  I understood that, but I insisted that we had to let God do it His way.  A couple of days later, the prisoner came up to me, grinning and said, “You won’t believe what just happened.”  Someone had visited the prison chapel and brought in, not only the books the man had requested, but books he would never have thought of asking for.  That person was the intended receiver.  My job was to help set things up.

If you need a miracle, or more precisely, if someone you know needs to be released from oppression and bondage, see what your Father is doing. 

At the End of the World is a Well

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. – Genesis 21:19

The idea that what we as humans can know is all that exists is hardly worth dismissing.  The most materialistic of materialists might wax eloquent on the existence of the vast quantum world which we can experience only indirectly and speak of sensibly only through intricate mathematics.  We have been able to create new instruments and tools that extend  our human senses and inform us that the natural eye sees only a narrow range of the spectrum and that the natural ear responds to only a segment of the sound waves striking it continually. 

The verse above is taken from the story of Hagar and Ishmael.  After the birth of the promised heir, Isaac, his mother, Sarah, insisted that her servant Hagar and her son Ishmael, fathered by Abraham, be sent away.  Sarah perceived Ishmael as a threat to Isaac and potentially a negative influence upon his development.  Putting aside that it was Sarah’s idea to have a “proxy” son by her servant, she was probably right in demanding a separation.  We see later in Genesis how the jealousy of an older sibling toward a favored younger brother created difficulties on a couple of occasions. 

Driven into the wilderness with only a skin of water and some bread, Hagar and her fourteen-year-old son wander rather hopelessness without apparent direction until the water is gone.  Did she intend to try to return to her people in Egypt?  Did she have a destination in mind and lose her way?  Or was she so distraught by the uprooting of her life and her loss of purpose and status that she simply gave up?

 There were established settlements in that region.  There were trade and travel routes that could be followed where water could be obtained at regular intervals.  Hagar apparently sought out none of those roads.  Abraham did not provision Hagar and Ishmael in the way that he did with the intent that they would simply go away and die somewhere out of sight.  He loved Ishmael and had received a promise from the Lord on the boy’s behalf.  Being a wealthy and generous person, we can be assured that he gave the exiles enough to allow them to reach some other camp.  Perhaps he even directed them to the encampment of one of his friends or allies.  It was Hagar who squandered their resources. 

Her life was settled, so she thought.  Hagar was more than a servant in Abraham’s entourage, she was the birth-mother of the patriarch’s son.  I have no doubt that Hagar loved her son, but she also viewed him as her prize, the thing that distinguished her from everybody else.  It was Ishmael’s relationship to Abraham that heightened Hagar’s self-image and made her feel slightly elevated above the other servants.  She had pride and position.  When her status was lost, Hagar decided that her life was over.  She gave up and walked aimlessly into a deserted area until she and her son reached a point where they were about to die of thirst.  Unwilling to watch the death of her son, she left him in the shade of a bush and moved away.  Ishmael means “God hears”.  As the boy began to cry in need, the Lord heard him.  God roused Hagar and spoke to her, opening her eyes to the boy’s future.  It was not to end in agony as a pitiful feast for scavengers.  This child, too, was Abraham’s seed.  Despite not being the chosen line for the Seed of Abraham, Ishmael would still found a great nation, and, ultimately, a great adversary for the Chosen. 

We can take a spiritual lesson from Hagar’s trouble.  We can see that our lives have lost purpose and direction, and we have wandered until death was upon us.  We gave up, but something in us cried out to God, and He opened our eyes.  We saw our Well of Living Water, finding Christ and a renewed destiny. 

But we lose something if we “over spiritualize” the reality.  Was there a well there?  Yes.  Was there a well there before Hagar saw it?  We don’t know.  Perhaps in her extremity, Hagar missed seeing something that was plainly before her.  She would hardly be the first or the last.  The most reasonable explanation would be that Hagar knew there was a well in the area and was looking for it but had been unable to locate it.  After sitting in the shade for a bit and recovering, she was able to process the visual information correctly and figure out where she was. 

Reasonable, though, is not always true.  There is a reality that underlies what we normally see and experience.  When that reality breaks through, we are apt to call the event a miracle.  That which we need is ever before us.  We long for what is at hand, unless we have allowed our minds to be so perverted and twisted by lies that repentance has become for us impossible.  Hagar could have rejected the voice of God, denied it and died, but she was not far gone in self-absorption. 

I really do not think God minds all that much if we struggle to find a more “reasonable” explanation, if, in the end, we rise, go to the Well, and drink.  Reality can be pretty disturbing to humans who have grown so accustomed to this derived manifestation, which is, after all, God’s creation.  He is satisfied if, when we are in need, we remember, He hears. 

Mystics of many countries and many centuries have spoken of this memory; and the honest men and charlatans, who keep the magical traditions which will some day be studied as a part of folk-lore, base most that is of importance in their claims upon this memory. …  It is perhaps well that so few believe in it, for if many did many would go out of parliaments and universities and libraries and run into the wilderness to so waste the body, and to so hush the unquiet mind that, still living, they might pass the doors the dead pass daily; for who among the wise would trouble himself with making laws or in writing history or in weighing the earth if the things of eternity seemed ready to hand? 

        -  W. B. Yeats from “Magic” in Ideas of Good and Evil.

Higher Laws

The foundation of the Christian faith is that the basis of human life is redemptive, and on that basis, God performs His miracles. – Oswald Chambers from The Shadow of an Agony

For those who are perishing, the message of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is God’s power. – 1 Corinthians 1:18

I wonder if, at the time Chambers wrote those words somewhere around a hundred years ago, they met with more agreement than they would today. I suspect a great many people view that statement – provided they don’t pass right over it – as quaint and naïve, if not ridiculous. The question is raised: What is the basis of human life? Dawkins says it is the replication of selfish genes, which washes out free will and makes a mockery – not just of religion, as is intended, but of all human culture including science itself. If I’m going to be a puppet, I think it is better to be a marionette guided by a possibly loving higher being than to be a sock puppet of mindless, irrational genetic forces. Putting aside the Dawkins crowd, we might see a thinker with more respect for humanity give a different answer – something along the lines of “self-realization”, and it is self-realization that Chambers goes on to speak about in that passage.

Self-realization can mean different things to different people, but it is a convenient term for a pragmatic approach to life. We don’t know how we got here or why, but, hey, let’s make the most of it. The idea of self-realization can run from the truly spiritual to the criminally hedonistic. It echoes in innocuous and even positive phrases from “be all you can be” or “the pursuit of happiness” to more selfish ones like “get it while you can”, “you’ve got please yourself”, or that notorious anthem of the ‘60’s “if it feels good, do it”. In its highest form, self-realization is a pursuit of authenticity and contentment within the accepted moral and rational bounds of society. It makes for a good person, someone we’d like to have for a neighbor. Often the better class of practitioners will accept, either openly or tacitly, the tenets of Christianity or some related moral system. In fact, I have found that many people who think of themselves as Christians are practicing self-realization within the framework of the Ten Commandments or perhaps the Sermon on the Mount. They go to church. They give money to charity. They do good works, and so on.

No matter how good we are, if we never turn aside and take the time to understand that the central point of Christianity is the Cross and with it the redemption of man by God, we are bound to be disturbed by all that assails us in life. But if we will walk up that hill and stand at the foot of the Cross, gazing up at Christ as He hangs suspended between heaven and earth, between God and man, we can begin to understand what God thinks of redemption. At that point, there can be no question about the fact of His desire to rescue us and embrace us, even if the why of it remains elusive.

Paul says it himself – it is foolishness to the perishing. A vast universe, eons of time, billons of years of life and death and mud and blood, millions of species passing into oblivion, and it is all to bring us to an insignificant little knoll beside a dusty road on the edge of a squalid town in a backwater country. It is laughable. Yet the alternative is not just that Jesus died for nothing, but that man lives, in anything more than a purely physical way, for nothing. Either we are sons of God being redeemed from enslavement to the material and temporal, or we are self-deluded animals driven by forces we cannot control even if we should understand them.

…[B]ecause God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom… -- those who accept the redemptive basis of human life find that there has been an amazing pattern running through their lives. Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place, what made no sense suddenly fits in the picture. There was an accident that seemed to be a mere inconvenience but revealed a truth about myself. There was a chance meeting with an old friend that reinforced a good decision. There was a disaster that opened many hearts to God’s comforting presence. Some will question: Does God allow death and destruction merely to get people’s attention? Why doesn’t He just speak directly to us or give us a sign instead? Not attention, redemption.

This is one of my common themes, and though I am far too repetitive, it is one of those things I have to work through for some reason. I watch myself – and others sometimes – but mainly me – and when I can step back a little, I see God is answering my questions so loudly and clearly that I have trouble hearing it.

But I don’t want to get so far down my typical track that I forget the end of the sentence: …and on that basis, God performs His miracles. The miraculous serves the redemptive. I believe in miracles, but I do not believe that God ever violates the laws of the cosmos. It is that the law of redemption is higher than any other law, even in this world. Turning stones into bread at the devil’s behest is a conjurer’s trick, and Satan’s hand must be in it. But feeding a multitude by multiplying bread is the hand of God operating through the law of redemption.

”It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. …”

Possibles

For with God nothing shall be impossible – Luke 1:37

Miracles by definition do not happen on a regular basis. A miracle cannot be replicated by formula. It is not subject to study except in its aftermath. It can be determined to have happened, and, perhaps, in some cases, the chain of events or the mechanisms that led up to it can be known. Examined under a magnifying glass like a dead butterfly, there may be some who conclude that it was simply a most fortuitous coincidence. If Christmas means anything, though, it means that we still cultivate a sense of the miraculous. We still believe that the possibilities are endless and that, united with God in Christ, we are without limitations. We believe this in spite of the rude material intrusions of humanity’s all too common sense. The angel’s declaration of God's limitlessness came as a result of Mary’s blunt statement of the human condition.

In a way, the humanists and the materialists have usurped our hope for the impossible. The difference is that they believe in the limitless power of human will, human knowledge, and human government. Some believe that highly evolved primates can warp time and space to travel to distant galaxies, or that we might be visited by advanced entities that have discovered ways to move faster than light itself. Others believe that man can be transformed by education and communal cooperation – if only the right people are in charge. I am not opposed to their hope or antagonistic toward their goals and dreams, any more than I am opposed to my own Mitty-ish daydreams. I simply recognize them for what they are. Those who dismiss fairy tales are always more susceptible to the confidence man for it.

Man’s best efforts to control his own destiny, to build his tower of Babel eventually come to nothing, collapsing in confusion under the rains of God’s grace. The magicians of materialism are scattered to their huts, often still thinking that if only they had altered the incantation just here it would have worked. There is always, for the true believer, a next time. Though technology advances, it makes little difference in the way things end while the wielder of the wand remains unchanged.

Those are the ultimate magic words: With God. With God, it all changes. With God there is purpose and direction arising from the chaos. The impossible takes shape before our eyes and that which cannot be becomes that which must be. The archer looses his arrow at random without thought yet it finds the mark, slipping even between the joints of the armor to strike at the heart. At Christmas, we are reminded that all things are possible. God the very God took on human form and flesh, walking among us, walking with us, attesting by signs to the glorious possibilities of the impossible, until it was time to bear away the burden of sin and break down the wall that separated man from God.

Now the Spirit of God abides with us and dwells within us always.

At Christmas, there are angels among us – bright messengers of God -- proclaiming again that the Lord dwells with man. Again, the Spirit lives in human flesh, and nothing is impossible.

What Does It All Mean, Mr. Natural?

He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended by Him.

Then Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.” So He was not able to do any miracles there, except that He laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief. – Mark 6:1-6

Those folks from Nazareth have kin all over the world. Some of my ancestors might have come from there.

After all, I wonder, what do we expect?

What I don’t expect is for the commonplace to suddenly take on the transcendent and for the profane to become sacred. I don’t expect “Holy unto the LORD” to be inscribed on my milk cow’s bell. The mockers will often speak of Moses and his encounter with a talking plant, as though a talking animal were any less fantastic. At least the Scripture is clear in the case of the burning bush that it was not the vegetation speaking, but God Himself through it. With primates the source is less certain.

People just don’t like the common to get out of hand. As in the case of Jesus whom the Nazarenes thought they knew, we can be offended when someone or something around us takes on attributes of the divine. I don’t know if it so much that familiarity breeds contempt. It is more like we just stop looking at the things that are most familiar.

What intrigues me most about this passage, though, is that Jesus’ homies do not really question the wisdom of what He is saying or the miraculous power attributed to Him. They seem to acknowledge this, and, in fact, it is this very fact that offends them.

Who are YOU to have wisdom and divine power? The fact that God may be able to speak or operate in this world through some people is not the issue. It is when God begins to speak and operate through someone I know that I have a problem.

You don’t have to empty hospital rooms or break up funerals to cause offense – though I am pretty sure if you did the AMA, the AHA, and the National Association of Funeral Directors, not to mention the ACLU and CAIR, would be on your tail for practicing medicine without a license, unfair trade practices, violating the civil rights of the dead and making a mockery of Mohammed. Much less dramatic demonstrations cause more than enough offense, as the folks that voted for Proposition 8 in California found out. The fact that a person believes in Christ, thinks Global Warming is a scam, opposes Islamic fascism, same-sex marriage, socialism, or one of the left’s other causes du jour is quite sufficient.

Merely living a decent life is enough to make one offensive to many. After all, if there are people who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God that means it is possible. Some of us may be a little more comfortable thinking that holiness is a nice concept, but not very practical -- which brings me to the point that has been nagging me for the last few days. As 2 Peter 3:10 and 11 puts it:

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people should you be…[?]

Or, how should we then live?

You and I may not have the same set of questions. Mine go something like this:

Do I really believe that I am a child of God in Christ?

Do I really believe God is my Father and cares for me more than any earthly parent possible could? And the corollary to that – do I believe God cares more about my loved ones than I do?

Do I really believe this world is not all there is, and that life, therefore, has a purpose beyond the futility of animal existence?

Can God really be trusted?

Is God able to work His will in the lives of those who trust Him?

Is my obedience really more important than my comfort, my reputation, my status, and my possessions?

Those are a few of my questions, and, like I said, other people may have different ones. The bad thing is that after all these years my answers are still pretty weak and tentative, and sometime inconsistent. I guess the good thing is I do know the right answer.

Wherein I Set Sail for a Three Hour Tour

Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He dismissed the crowd. After He said good-bye to them, He went away to the mountain to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. He saw them battered as they rowed, because the wind was against them. Around three in the morning He came toward them walking on the sea and wanted to pass by them. When they saw Him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. Immediately He spoke to them and said, “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. They were completely astounded because they had not understood about the loaves. Instead, their hearts were hardened.
-- Mark 6:45-52

The hearts of the Disciples were hardened. They had, during the previous day, seen five thousand souls fed with two fish and five loaves. The significance of that miraculous provision had been lost on them. Despite the fact that they were following the Lord, seeing Him heal and deliver, hearing His teachings, and experiencing His presence, they were still missing the point that He was not merely godly, but God, that all things existed and functioned upon His Being. That He had laid aside His glory and submitted to the limitations of human flesh did not change who He was.

Jesus orders the Twelve into their boat and sends them out to cross the lake while He stays behind. This mirrors our situation as souls coming into the world. We are sent here by God, separated and distanced. As with those in that boat, the situation we find ourselves in is often dark and stormy. There is nothing solid upon which to rest. We are, apart from the Lord, groundless. Or so it seems to us.

“He saw them battered as they rowed, because the wind was against them.” Though we think we are alone, God is watching. He knows where we are and what we are facing. He sees our trials, and He allows us to struggle with the futility of existence. Yet He never loses sight of us in the deepest darkness or the most intense storm.

“Around three in the morning…” – I don’t know what it is about 3:00AM, but we all understand that as being a significant time. It is the deepest dark. The light has long gone from the west. Midnight seems an age behind. The third watch has ended. That membrane which separates the mundane from raw reality is at its thinnest point, and the powers of hell have found their opening. The storm is at its height.

And the Lord comes walking on the sea.

How, then, are we to understand this phrase: “…and wanted to pass by them”? Another translation reads: “…and He intended to pass by them”. I went to Wuest, who gives it this way: “And He was desiring to go to their side”. Jesus intended to walk close enough to the boat so that He could be seen, even in the darkness of the storm. He, of course, had no need of getting in the boat Himself, or for Himself. The crossing, storm or no storm, was not a problem for Him. He comes close to reassure us, to let us know that He is present, watching and in control.

Life is not the maelstrom it appears to the human trying to make headway on an unknown journey. The sea is not the deadly, volatile element into which we fear to sink, never to rise again. Waves are as solid as stepping stones to the Lord. Nevertheless, as with the Disciples, when God does show up in such an uncanny way, walking serenely on storm-driven breakers, He may be the ultimate terror. Storms, we judge, are natural. We are familiar with the dangers of the sea. But One walking where no man should be able to walk, this is beyond our understanding.

As we cry out in fear, we hear, above the roar of the threatening storm, a familiar Voice full of strength and peace and encouragement. We hear, “It is I. I AM here. Your struggles are over.” Unwilling to allow fear and uncertainty to torment us further, the Lord enters into our vessel. The storms cease. The eastern sky shows the first hint of dawn. We know our destination is near at hand, and we will reach it in peace.