25-17. The Walking on the Sea

17. The Walking on the Sea Mat 14:22-33; Mark 6:45-52; John 6:14-21 The three Evangelists who narrate this miracle alike place it in immediate sequence to the feeding of the five thousand, and on the evening of the same day. The two first relate, that when all were fed, and the Lord was now about to dismiss the multitude, “straightway He constrained Ms disciples to get into the ship.” Why He should have found it necessary to “constrain” them, they do not say. Some vaguely suggest a general unwillingness on the part of the disciples to be separated, even for a season, from their beloved Lord.^[1] But the true key to the phrase is obtained, when we compare the parallel record of St. John. There we learn that the multitude desired to take Jesus by force and make Him a king; and that He only avoided this, by departing into a mountain Himself alone. The disciples could not have helped being aware of the shape which the popular enthusiasm was taking; and this was exactly to their mind; this was precisely what they had long hoped would arrive, so that they must have been most reluctant to quit their Master at the moment of his approaching exaltation. Thus, however, it must be, and while He dismisses the people, they must “go to the other side before unto Bethsaida.” There is no contradiction here between St. Mark’s “Bethsaida,” and St. John’s statement that they “went over the sea towards Capernaum;” since this Bethsaida, not identical with that just before mentioned by St. Luke (ix. 10), and for distinction called Bethsaida Julias, but the city of Philip and Andrew and Peter (John 1:44), lay on the western side of the lake, in the same direction as, and near to, Capernaum. St. Matthew, and St. Mark with him, makes two evenings to this day,—one which had already commenced before the preparations for the feeding of the multitude had begun (ver. 15), the other, now when the disciples had entered into the ship, and commenced their voyage (ver. 23). And this was an ordinary way of speaking among the Jews,, the first-evening being very much our afternoon (see Luk 9:12,. where the “evening” of Matthew and Mark is described as the season “when the day began to wear away”); the second evening^[2] being the twilight, or from six o’clock to twilight; on which absolute darkness followed. It was the first evening, or afternoon, when the preparations for feeding the five thousand commenced; the second, when the disciples took ship.

“And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray; and when even was come, He was there alone.” From thence, with the watchful eye of love, “He saw them toiling in rowing” (cf. Exo 3:7; Psa 56:8); for in their Lord’s absence they were able; to make no effectual progress: “the wind was contrary,” and the sea rough: their sails, of course, could profit them nothing. It was now “the fourth watch of the night,” near morning therefore, and notwithstanding all their efforts they had not accomplished more than “five and twenty or thirty furlongs,” scarcely, that is, more than half of their way, the lake being forty or forty-five furlongs in breadth. Probably they were ever finding themselves more unable to proceed, the danger probably was ever increasing, when suddenly they see their Lord “walking on the sea,” ^[3] and already close to their bark. It was his purpose in all the events of this night, as Chrysostom well brings out, to train his disciples to higher things than hitherto they had learned. That first storm (Mat 8:24) was by day, this was by night. Then He was present in the ship with them; if it came to the worst, they knew that they might rouse Him; while the mere sense of his presence must have given them the sense of a comparative security. But they must learn to walk by faith and not by sight; He will not have them as the ivy, needing always an outward support, but as hardy forest-trees, which can brave a blast; and this time He puts them forth into the danger alone, even as some loving mother-bird thrusts her fledglings from the nest, that they may find their own wings and learn to use them. And the happy issue of all shall awaken in them an abiding confidence in his ever-ready help; for as his walking on the sea must have been altogether unimagined and unimaginable by them, they may have easily despaired of that help reaching them; but He, when He has tried them to the uttermost, “in the fourth watch of the night,” appears beside them; thus teaching them for all their after life, in all coming storms of temptation, that He is near them; that however He may not be seen always by their bodily eyes, however they may appear cut off from his assistance, yet is He indeed a very present help in the needful time of trouble. Nor ought we, I think, to fail to recognize the symbolic character which this whole transaction wears. As that bark upon those stormy billows, such is oftentimes the Church, tossed to and fro on the waves of the troublesome world. It seems as though it had not its Lord with it, such little way does it make; so baffled is it and tormented by opposing winds and waves. But his eye is on it still; He is in the mountain apart praying; ever living, an ascended Saviour, to make intercession for his people. And when at length the extremity of the need has arrived, He is suddenly with it, and that in marvellous ways past finding out; and then all that before was so laborious is easy, and the toiling rowers are anon at the haven where they would be.^[4]

“And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit;^[5] and they cried out for fear.” It is often so. Let Him only come to his people in some unwonted manner, as He has not been used to come in time past, in the shape of some affliction, in the way of some cross, and they know Him not. Their Lord, and charged with blessings for them, He yet seems to them as some terrible phantom of the night. They too cry out for fear. The disciples perhaps on this occasion might have pleaded that there was that in his approach to their bark, which would not allow them to recognize Him for what He was. He “would have passed them by.”^[6] How could they suppose that this was their Lord, hastening to the help of his own? The circumstance perplexed them for a moment; it has perplexed others lastingly. Those who are on the watch to discover inner inconsistencies in the Gospels have asked, “Why appear to pass them by and to escape them, when the only aim of his coming was to re-assure and to aid them? when He so little really meant to do this, that no sooner was He recognized and detained by their cries, than He ascended into the ship where they were ?” Doubtless this, as each other dealing of God with his people, is hard to be understood of those to whom the entire life of faith is altogether strange. He will seem to pass them by, seem to forsake them, so evoking their prayer and their cry, that He would not pass them by, that He would not forsake them.^[7] Not otherwise, walking with his two disciples to Emmaus, after his resurrection, “He made as though He would have gone further” (Luk 24:28), thus drawing out from them the entreaty that He would abide. It is evermore thus; we have here no exceptional dealing, but one finding its analogies everywhere in the Scripture and in the Christian life. What part does Christ sustain here different from that which in the parable of the Unjust Judge (Luk 18:2), or the churlish Friend (Luk 11:5), He ascribes to God? or different from that which He Himself sustained when He came not to the help of the sisters of Bethany in what seemed the utmost extremity of their need (John 11:6)? And are not all the complaints of the faithful in the Psalms, that God hides his face, that He gives them into the hands of their enemies, that He is absent from them so long, confessions that He does so deal with his servants, that by delaying and seeming to pass them by, He quickens their faith, and calls out their prayers that He would come to them soon, and abide with them always? And now, as one by that cry of distress detained and arrested, He at once scatters and rebukes their fears: “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” Whereupon follows that characteristic rejoinder of Peter, which, with its consequences, St. Matthew alone records: “Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water” That “if” must not be interpreted as implying a doubt whether it was the Lord or not. A Thomas, indeed, may have required to have Jesus with him in the ship, ere he would fully believe that it was no phantom, but his very Lord; but Peter’s fault would be of another kind. His words mean rather: “Since it is Thou, command me to come unto Thee; “for he feels rightly that Christ’s command must go before his coming. And, doubtless, it was the promptness and forwardness of love which made him ask for this command, which made him desire to be where his Lord was (John 21:7). Perhaps, too, he would compensate for that exclamation of terror in which he had joined with the rest, by an heroic act of courage and affiance. And yet there was a fault in all this, as the issue proved, which made the whole incident a rehearsal of the greater presumption, and the more serious fall which was in store for the too confident disciple (Mat 26:33; Mat 26:70). In that “Bid me,” the fault lay. He will outdo and outdare the other disciples; will signalize himself by a mightier testimony of faith than any of them would venture to render. It is but in another shape, “Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.”

Let us observe, and with reverence admire, the wisdom and love of the Lord’s answer. Another, having enough of spiritual insight to detect the fault which lurked in Peter’s proposal, by a coarser treatment might have marred all, and lost for him the lessons it so much behoved him to receive. Had the Lord, for example, commanded him to remain where he was, He would at the same time have checked the outbreaks of his fervent spirit, which, when purified from the carnal which clung to them, were to carry him so far, and caused him to miss the instruction which through his partial failure he obtained. But with more gracious and discriminating wisdom the great Master of souls, who yet, knowing what the event must prove, pledges not Himself for the issue of his coming. Peter had said, “Bid me;” there is no “I bid,” in the Lord’s reply. Peter had said, “come unto Thee;” the “unto Me” disappears from the Lord’s answer; which is only “Come;” “Come, that is, if thou wilt; make the experiment, if thou desirest.” It is a merely permissive “Come;” like Joab’s “Run” to Ahimaaz (2Sa 18:22). In that “Come,” an assurance is, indeed, involved that Peter should not be wholly swallowed up by the waves, but no pledge for the successful issue of the feat; which all, in the very faithfulness of the Lord, would have been involved, had his words been the entire echo of his disciple’s. What the issue should be, depended upon Peter himself,—whether he should keep the beginning of his confidence firm unto the end. And He who knew what was in man, knew that he would not; that this was not the pure courage of faith; that what of carnal overboldness there was in it would infallibly be exchanged, when the stress of the trial came, for fear and unbelief.

It was even so. “When Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus” This for a while; so long as he looked to his Lord and to Him only, he also was able to walk upon the unsteady surface of the sea, to tread upon the waters, which for him also were not waves. But when he took counsel of flesh and blood, when he saw something else besides Jesus, when, because “he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” He who had thought to make a show before all the other disciples of a courage which transcended theirs, must now in the presence of them all confess his terror, and reveal the weakness, as he had thought to display the strength, of his faith. In this moment of peril his swimmer’s art (John 21:7) profits him nothing; for there is no mingling of nature and grace in this way. “He who has entered the wonder-world of grace must not suppose that he may withdraw from it at any moment that he will, and betake himself to his old resources of nature. He has foregone these, and must carry through what he has begun, or fail at his peril. But Peter has to do with One who will not let him greatly fall. His experience shall be that of the Psalmist: “When I said, My foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. “^[8] His “Lord, save me,” is answered at once. “Immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him.” And then how gracious the rebuke! “Oh thou of little faith!” not “Oh thou of none 1” and “wherefore didst thou doubt?.” not “wherefore didst thou come?” not checking, as He then would have done, the future impulses of his servant’s boldness, but rather encouraging them, showing him how he could do all things through Christ strengthening him, and that his fault lay, not in having undertaken too much, but in having too little relied upon the strength that would have upheld him in his undertaking.^[9] And not until by that sustaining hand He has restored confidence to the fearful one, and made him feel that he can indeed tread under foot those waves of the unquiet sea, does He speak even this word of a gentle rebuke. The courage of the disciple has already returned, so that the Master speaks of his doubt as of something which is already past: “Wherefore didst thou doubt? Before the doubt arose in thy heart, thou didst walk on these waves, and now that thy faith has returned, thou dost walk on them again; thou seest that it is not impossible, that it lies but in thy faithful will; that all things are possible to him that believeth.”

We must look at this episode of the miracle as itself also symbolic. Peter is here the example of all the faithful of all times, in the seasons of their unfaithfulness and fear. So long as they are strong in faith, they are able to tread under foot all the most turbulent agitations of an unquiet world; but when they are afraid, when, instead of “looking unto Jesus,” they look at the stormy winds and waters, then these prevail against them, and they begin to sink, and were it not for Christ’s sustaining hand, which is stretched out in answer to their cry, they would be wholly overwhelmed and swallowed up.^[10]

“And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased” Those on the watch for disagreements between one Evangelist and another are pleased here to discover such, between St. Matthew and St. Mark on one side, and St. John on the other. If we are to believe the former, the Lord did now with his disciple go up into the ship; if, on the contrary, we accept the authority of St. John, we must then suppose that the disciples were willing to receive Him; but did not so in fact, the ship being rapidly, and, as would seem, with miraculous swiftness, brought to the land. The whole question turns on the words which we translate, and I have no doubt rightly as regards the circumstance which actually took place, “they willingly received Him into the ship.” It is quite true they would be more literally rendered, “they were willing to receive Him into the ship;” but with the implicit understanding that what they were willing to do, they actually did. Those who a little before were terrified and dreaded his approach, as though it had been a spirit, were now willing to receive Him into the ship with them, and did so receive Him; and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.”

St. Mark, as is so often his wont, does not fail to describe to us how this and all which they had witnessed called forth the infinite astonishment of his disciples: “they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered;” while from St. Matthew we learn that the impression was not confined to them alone; but “they that were in the ship,” others who were sailing with them,^[11] caught a momentary glimpse of the greatness of Him in whose presence they stood; and “came and worshipped Him, saying, Of a truth Thou art the Son of God” (cf. John 1:49). They felt more or less clearly that here was One who must stand in wonderful relation with Him of whom it is written, “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known” (Psa 77:19); “Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters” (Hab 3:15); “Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8^[12]

It is a docetic^[13] view of the person of Christ, which conceives of his body as permanently exempt from the law of gravity, and in this way explains the miracle; a hard and mechanical view, which places the seat of the miracle in the waters rendered solid under his feet. Rather was it the will of Christ, which bore Him triumphantly above those waters; even as it was the will of Peter, that will, indeed, made in the highest degree active and potential by faith on the Son of God, which should in like manner have enabled him to walk on the great deep, and, though with partial and transient failure, did so enable him. It has been already observed that the miracle, according to its true idea, is not the violation, nor yet the suspension of law, but the incoming of a higher law, as of a spiritual in the midst of natural laws, and the momentary assertion, for that higher law, of the predominance which it was intended to have, and but for man’s fall it would always have had, over the lower; and with this a prophetic anticipation of the abiding prevalence which it shall one day recover. Exactly thus was there here a sign of the lordship of man’s will; when that will is in absolute harmony with God’s will, over external nature. In regard of this very law of gravitation, a feeble, and for the most part unconsciously possessed, remnant of his power survives to man in the well-attested fact that his body is lighter when he is awake than sleeping;^[14] a fact which every nurse who has carried a child would be able to attest. From this we conclude that the human consciousness, as an inner centre, works as an opposing force to the attraction of the earth and the centripetal force of gravity, however unable now to overbear it.^[15]

Footnotes

[1] As Jerome, and Chrysostom: Τὸ ἠνάγκασεν δὲ εἶπεν‚ τὴν πολλὴν προσεδρίαν δεικνὺς τῶν μαθητῶν.

[2] Ὀψία δευτέρα.

[3] Many have supposed that Lucian (Ver. Hist. ii. 4), in his account of the cork-footed race (ϕελλόποδες), whom in his voyage he past ἐπὶ τοῦ πελάγους διαθέοντας, intended a scoff against tills miracle. I doubt whether so expert a scoffer, if he had meant this, would not have done it better; still the hint which he gives (1, 2), that something lies under these absurd and extravagant travellers’ tales which he has strung together, that they contain every one allusions to the fables and portents of poets and historians and philosophers, makes it not altogether improbable; and in the Philopseudes, where there seem to me far more evident side-glances at the miracles of the Gospel,—as for instance, a miraculously-healed man taking up his bed (11), the expulsion of the evil spirit from a demoniac (16), reminding one singularly of that recorded Mark 9:14-29; this also of walking on the water recurs (13), among the incredible things proposed for the wise man’s belief. The Golden City of the Blest, with its diamond walls, its floors of ivory, and its vines bearing fruit every month (Ver. Hist. ii. 11-13), may very well be written in rivalry and in ridicule of the description of the New Jerusalem, Kev. xxi. 19; xxii. 2; as the story of the great multitude of men comfortably housed for some years in the belly of a whale (Ib. i. 30-42) may be intended to be an outdoing of the history of Jonah and his three days’ abode in a like place. This we know was an especial object of the flouts of the heathen; see Augustine, Ep. cii. qu. 6; and Josephus (Antt. ix. 10, § 2), aiming to make his works acceptable to the educated heathen, gets over it with a λόγος—”as some say.” On the point of view under which Lucian contemplated Christianity there is an Essay by Krebs, De Malitioso Luciani Consilio, do. in his Opusc. Acad. p. 308; and see Tzschirner, Fall des Heidenthums, p. 320; and the Theott. Studien u. Kritiken, 1851, pp. 826-902.

[4] Thus Bede: Labor discipulorum in remigando et contrarius eis ventus labores sanctae Ecclesiae varios designat, quae inter undas seculi adversantis et immundorum flatus spirituum ad quietem patriae coelestis, quasi ad fidam litoris stationem, pervenire conatur. Ubi bene dicitur, quia navis erat in medio mari et ipse solus in terra; quia nonnunquam Ecclesia tantis Gentilium pressuris non solum afflicta, sed et foedata est, ut, si fieri posset, Redemptor ipsius earn prorsus deseruisse ad tempus videretur.....Videt [tamen] Dominus laborantes. in mari”, quamvis ipse positus in terrâ; quia etsi ad horam differre videatur auxilium tribulatis impendere, nihilominus eos, ne in tribulationibus deficiant, suae respectu pietatis corroborat, et aliquando etiam manifesto adjutorio, victis adversitatibus, quasi calcatis sedatisque fluctuum voluminibus, liberat. Cf. Augustine, Serm. lxxv. So too Anselm (Horn, iii.): Nam quia insurgunt fluctus, potest ista navicula turbari, sed quia Christus orat, non potest mergi..

[5] Φάντασμα=ϕάσμα νυκτερινόν (Job 20:8).

[6] Calvin: Pii audito ejus nomine, quod illis est certum et divini amoris et suae salutis pignus, quasi a morte in vitam excitati animos colligunt, et quasi serenum coelum hilares conspiciunt, quieti in terra, resident, et omnium malorum victores ejus presidium omnibus perieulis opponunt.

[7] Augustine (De Cons. Evang. ii. 47): Quomodo ergo eos volebat praeterire, quos paventes ita confirmat, nisi quia ilia voluntas praetereundi ad eliciendum ilium clamorem valebat, cui subveniri oportebat? Corn, a Lapide: Volebat praeterire eos, quasi eos non curans, nec ad eos pertinens, sed alio pergens, ut in eis metum et clamorem excitaret.

[8] Augustine very beautifully brings together those words of the Psalmist and this incident, making them mutually to illustrate one another (Enarr. in Fs. xciii. 18).

[9] Bengel: Non reprehenditur quod exierit e navi, sed quod non manserit in firmitate fidei.

[10] Augustine (Enarr. in Psa 39:6): Calca mare, ne mergaris in mari. And again (Serm. lxxxvi. 6): Attendite seculum quasi mare, ventus valid us et magna tempestas. Unicuique sua cupiditas, tempestas est. Amas Deum, ambulas super mare: sub pedibus tuis est seculi tumor. Amas seculum, absorbebit te. Amatores suos vorare novit, non portare. Sed cum fluctuat cupiditate cor tuum, ut vincas tuam cupiditatem, invoca Christi divinitatem.... Et si motus est pes tuus, si titubas, si aliqua non superas, si mergi incipis, die, Domine, pereo, libera me. Die, Domine, pereo, ne pereas. Solus enim a morte earn is liberat te, qui mortuus est in carne pro te. And again: Titubatio ista, fratres, quasi mors fidei fuit. Sed ubi exclamavit, fides iterum resurrexit. Non ambularet, nisi crederet, sed nec mergeretur, nisi dubitaret. In Petro itaque communis omnium nostrum consideranda conditio, ut si nos in aliquo tentationum ventus conatur subvertere, vel unda submergere, clamemus ad Christum. Cf. Be Cant. Novo, 2.

[11] Jerome: Nautae atque vectores.

[12] Ὁ περιπατῶν‚ ὡς ἐπ᾽ ἐδάϕους‚ ἐπὶ θαλάσσης. Eusebius (Dem. Evang. ix. 12) finds a special fulfilment of these words of Job in this miracle, as also in these waves the symbol of a mightier and wilder sea, even that of sin and death, which Christ trod under his feet when He, in a far higher sense than that in which the words were first spoken,
....metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari;
and he quotes Psa 74:13-14 : “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength, Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters; Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest them to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness;” and Job 38:16-17, where the Almighty says to man: “Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee, and hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?” that is, “Hast thou done this, as I have done?”).

[13] The Cathari, a Gnostic sect of the Middle Ages, actually appealed to this miracle in confirmation of their errors concerning the body of Christ, as a heavenly, and not a truly human, body (Neander, Kirch. Gesch. vol. v. p. 1126).

[14] It was noticed long ago by Pliny, H. N. vii. 18.

[15] Prudentius (Apotheosis, 655) has some sounding lines upon this miracle:
Ipse super fluidas plantis nitentibus undas
Ambulat, ac presso firmat vestigia fluctu;
Increpat ipse notos, et flatibus otia mandat...
Ninguidus agnoscit Boreas atque imbrifer Eurus
Nimborum dominum, tempestatumque potenteni,
Excitamque hyemem verrunt ridente sereno.