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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notably twice in today’s Gospel Reading, people who were afraid called out, and immediately Jesus answered. The first time was when the disciples, having seen Jesus walking on the sea, became terrified, saying that He was a ghost, and cried out in fear. Immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying Who He was and not to be afraid. The second time was when Peter, having seen the strong wind, was afraid, and, having begun to sink, cried out. Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and took hold of Peter and spoke to him. You and I are not in precisely the same situations as the disciples as a group or Peter individually, but, when we are afraid and cry out, immediately Jesus responds, in both Word and Deed. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that “We cry out in fear, and immediately Jesus answers us”.
With our post-Pentecost faith, worked by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word and Deeds, we may not be surprised and awed by Jesus’s walking on the sea, but the disciples were surprised and awed by Jesus’s walking on the sea (Rouland, CPR 30:3, p.35). After all, they had left Him on land hours earlier, and, even though the Old Testament in a number of places, including today’s Old Testament Reading (Job 38:4-18), speaks of God’s walking on the sea (Job 9:8; Psalm 77:19; Isaiah 43:16), and even though Jesus arguably had just demonstrated that He was God by miraculously feeding more than five-thousand people (Matthew 14:13-21), the disciples wrongly concluded that Jesus was a supernatural ghost, rather than rightly concluding that He was supernatural God in human flesh, coming to them as He implicitly said that He would come, when He made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him while He dismissed the crowds.
We may not be able to appreciate fully the disciples’ reactions to Jesus’s walking on the sea, but nevertheless we should be able to relate to their sin in what happened as He was walking on the sea. For, like the disciples we are sinful by nature, and our sinful nature leads us to commit actual sins. Like the disciples, too often we do not recognize Jesus when He is supernaturally present in our midst, instead imagining Him to be someone else, who is coming opposed to us instead of believing that He is Who says He is and is coming for us (Luther, Annotations, Matthew 14:23-25, AE 67:229‑231). Too often we put Jesus to the test, not taking Him at His self‑identifying Word, but ordering Him to fulfill some supernatural demand for us before we obey His commands or believe His promises. Too often, we trust the realities that our eyes see more than we trust His enabling Word that our ears hear, letting the afflictions we experience lead us to doubt Who He is and His power working for our good (Luther, Annotations, Matthew 14:28-29, AE 67:231-232; confer Luther, Postil Sermon for Trinity 21, John 4:46-54, AE 79:229). On account of those and all of our other sins, we should fear not a ghost or sinking in the sea, but we should fear our being separated from God for eternity in hell.
To be sure, the Gospel Reading’s early-morning darkness and wind-driven waves bring to mind the chaos before Creation (Genesis 1:2, 6-10) and the judgment of the Flood (Genesis 7:1-24), but Jesus’s power over the waters also bring to mind the deliverance of the Flood (1 Peter 3:20) and the judgment and deliverance of the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-29), and the crossings of the Jordan River conducted by both Joshua and Elijah (Joshua 4:23; 2 Kings 2:8; confer Goppelt, TDNT 8:319). For us God does not want judgment, but God wants deliverance, and so He calls and thereby enables us to repent of our sinful nature and all of our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our not recognizing Him present in our midst, our putting Him to the test, and our trusting what our eyes see over His Word that our ears hear. God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 18:1-16; antiphon: v.46), we call upon the Lord, and we are saved from our enemies; He sent from on high and took us, and He drew us out of many waters. In other words, “We cry out in fear, and immediately Jesus answers us”.
Jesus truly is the Son of God in human flesh, as those in the boat worshiped Him as, at the end of today’s Gospel Reading. God the Father had publicly announced Jesus’s identity when Jesus was baptized and immediately went up from the water, with the Father’s voice’s speaking from heaven and the Holy Spirit’s descending like a dove (Matthew 3:16‑17). The devil arguably disputed Jesus’s identity when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Jesus’s walking on the sea in today’s Gospel Reading demonstrated His identity, with His Divine omnipotence operating through His human flesh (Pieper, II:244). Peter later confessed Jesus’s identity (Matthew 16:13-17), before Jesus called him “Satan” for rejecting the necessity of Jesus’s death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21-23). Jesus Himself at His trial confessed and was sentenced for His identity as the Son of God (Matthew 26:63-66), and Jesus was heckled for His identity by those who passed by the cross, the Jewish leaders, and those who were crucified with Him (Matthew 27:39-44). Yet, Jesus was crucified for us, suffering in our place, the separation from God that we deserved. This Gospel is preached so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and, that by believing, you may have life in His Name (John 20:31). Jesus is the Son of God and so—out of His great love, mercy, and grace—He saves us. “We cry out in fear, and immediately Jesus answers us”. He answers us as He answered the disciples in the Gospel Reading, that is, through His Word and Deeds.
Jesus’s Word is read and preached to groups such as this one, and His Deeds of Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar apply that Word to us individually, with water, touch, and bread and wine. As with the disciples in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus is supernaturally physically present to help us in all of these ways. In Holy Baptism, Jesus connects us to His death and resurrection; in Holy Absolution, Jesus through our pastors forgives the sins that we know and feel in our hearts; and, in the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus with His Body and Blood strengthens and preserves us in body and soul to life everlasting. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 10:5-17), the righteousness based on faith finds the Word near, in mouth and heart.
Interestingly, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus “made” His disciples go from His feeding them, to the afflictions of the waves on the sea, from which He then delivered them. We may see therein a little parable about Christian faith in the face of afflictions, but the point of any such parable is not our strength or will or courage, but the point of any such parable is Who Christ is, what He does, and how He does it (confer Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 14:22-36, pp.512‑513). Because He is the Son of God, Who has died and risen for us, and forgives us by His Word and Deeds, we can take heart and not be afraid in the face of our afflictions. We worship Him by confessing both Who He is and who we are in relationship to Him, seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins, in the ways that He is supernaturally present to forgive us. Even in such worship (confer Matthew 28:17), at times we may doubt, like Peter, but even our little faith still cries out, “Lord, save me!” The Lord’s nail-scarred feet are firmly on top of the water, and He immediately reaches out His nail‑scarred hand and takes hold of us (confer Rouland, CPR 30:3, p.36).
“We cry out in fear, and immediately Jesus answers us”. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther once noted, “Christ does not put off or abandon the one who calls but immediately comes to his [or her] aid in that very moment. … Christ demonstrates Himself to be a helper at the right time (Psalm 9 [:9]).” (Luther, Annotations, Matthew 14:30-31, AE 67:232.) We may question how “immediately” Jesus’s answer may be revealed to us, but, as we, with daily repentance and faith, live in His forgiveness of sins, we are sure that our afflictions will cease in God’s way and time. Over the course of today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus’s disciples went from being far away and separated from Him to being near and worshipping Him (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 14:22-24, p.760), and, over the course of our lifetimes, we also go from being far away and separated to being near and worshipping. Ultimately, our being in both the Lord’s even nearer presence and in the worship of heaven no doubt will leave us surprised and awed for all eternity (confer Rouland, CPR 30:3, p.35)!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +