Matthew 14:22-33 - Stranger on the Sea of Galilee

Time for a staring contest. On the count of 3, you’re going to have to try and out stare me. First one to blink loses. Ready? 3, 2, 1, GO!

Did you win? Somehow I doubt it. I’m pretty good at these staring contest things.

It can be hard to keep our eyes focused on one thing, though, can’t it? Has your mom ever asked you to watch her purse while she goes to the bathroom? Or maybe you’ve seen this really amazing caterpillar that you don’t want to lose sight of.

But then you turn away for a second. You think you hear someone calling your name or you look down at the funny picture on your tablet. And all of a sudden, WHAM, that thing you were supposed to keep your eyes on has disappeared!

Now hopefully it’s the caterpillar that’s disappeared and not your mom’s purse, but the point still stands. Trying to keep our eyes on one thing is really hard. We get distracted. Other things to see or do come up. We realize what we’re doing is impossible.

Okay, that last one might not happen too often. But that’s exactly what happened in our story for today! You’ll hopefully remember that last week we heard about when Peter first started to follow Jesus. There was some teaching on a boat and later a huge amount of fish!

Well, there’s a lot of stories about Peter that involve boats, water, and fishing, and this is another one of them. You see, Peter and the rest of the disciples – those are the people that Jesus asked to follow Him – had been doing their usual thing, listening to Jesus preach to a whole bunch of people. Then there was a moment where everybody’s minds were blown when Jesus made food miraculously appear to feed 20 000 people (check out that story here if you want to know more). You know, the usual!

Anyways, the disciples were pretty wiped out at this point, and I’m sure the last thing they wanted to do was to take a boat ride across the sea. But that’s exactly what Jesus asked them to do. Jesus went off on His own to pray for a while, and He sent the disciples to the other side of the lake to meet Him there.

Now this wasn’t totally out of the ordinary for Jesus, and the disciples were probably still so stunned from that miraculous feast that they didn’t think too much of Jesus’ request. Or the dark clouds on the other side of the sea. They just hopped in and did what Jesus asked. He usually seemed to know what was best.

And so, they rowed out to sea. The disciples took shifts, going back and forth between sleeping and rowing. But when they got about halfway out into the Sea of Galilee, they realized that maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Those storm clouds were moving closer, the wind was picking up, and the waves were starting to get bigger! It was getting harder and harder for them to row.

The disciples who were currently on rowing duty quickly woke up the rest. They partly wanted help, but they also didn’t want the boat flipping over while their friends were still asleep! So here you’ve got twelve men frantically trying to keep the boat level, rowing with all their might, and praying that God would help them reach the other side safely.

Nobody was really thinking about Jesus at that moment. He was safe on shore. But one or two of them might have wondered why in the world Jesus had sent them out into the middle of this storm. He was usually pretty good at dealing with the weather…

But that’s when it happened. One of the disciples – we don’t know which one, but I’m going to go with Thomas – dropped his oar and cried out in fright. “What’s that thing!?!” he stammered, pointing at a strange looking figure in the distance.

The disciples who weren’t desperately trying to stop the boat from flipping over looked to see where Thomas was pointing. They couldn’t see much. The waves were too big, and the wind kept blowing water in their faces. But finally, one of them saw what Thomas was pointing at. It looked kind of like a person.

“It’s a ghost!” Thomas was crying now, and he desperately tried to force the rowers to turn the boat around and get them out of there. Not like they could do much about it now! With the waves as intense as they were, they could barely stay above water, let alone control which way the boat was going!

But Thomas freaking out about ghosts certainly didn’t help. Some of the disciples started to panic. The rowers stopped working together and started to just row in fright. Thomas backed into the corner of the boat, trying to get as far away from the ghost as possible.

All of this happened in a matter of seconds. But before the disciples could do anything to actually hurt themselves or go crashing into the water, the “ghost” called out, “Be brave! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Matthew 14:27, NIrV).

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not actually sure that this would make me feel less afraid. Here’s this stranger on the Sea of Galilee, just casually walking on water in the middle of a storm. And his way of calming people down is saying, “Don’t worry, it’s me!” The guy doesn’t even give a name! How is that supposed to be comforting?

But I guess the difference is that this wasn’t just some random stranger. It wasn’t even a ghost! This was Jesus, the guy who had personally chosen each of these disciples, who had provided miraculous feasts, and who had sent the disciples into this storm in the first place. They knew Jesus’ voice well, so when they heard, “It is I,” I’m sure that helped calm some fears. They were still probably terrified of the storm, and confused out of their minds over how Jesus could possibly be standing on water, but just knowing that Jesus was there helped them feel safer.

But just when you think this story couldn’t get any weirder or more intense, it does. Our good buddy Peter (who’s been awfully quiet so far this story) decides to speak up. And he says something pretty incredible.

“If that’s really you Lord,” Peter said,” then tell me to come out to you on the water.”

What? Not “Get in here Jesus” or “Thank goodness you’re here” or “How are you doing that?” No. Instead of asking questions, Peter asks Jesus if he can join Him in walking on water.

I’m sure that made Jesus smile. One thing you’ll learn about Peter is that he doesn’t always ask what we think would be the logical question. And yeah, sometimes he says stuff without thinking. But sometimes, like in this story, he shows just how much he trusts Jesus. Peter was so certain that Jesus could help and save him that Peter was ready to step out of a boat and try to walk on water. So Jesus told Peter to come. And immediately, Peter got out of the boat.

Now again, we don’t know exactly what this would have looked like, but we can take a guess. Peter put his oar down and then moved to the edge of the boat. The other disciples were probably yelling at him like he was crazy and trying to stop him from going, but Peter just kept looking at Jesus and shaking them off.

He lifted his left leg over the boat, maybe paused for a split second, and then lowered his foot towards the sea. But rather than having his shoes fill with water, Peter stepped onto something that felt solid. Waves. He smiled widely and then shifted his weight onto that foot. Still gripping the side of the boat, he then lifted his other leg over the side. He didn’t fall in the water. Finally, Peter let go of the boat and stood up. The water beneath him stayed firm. And Jesus gave Peter a massive grin.

I can’t imagine what that must have felt like. To be standing on water! I tried to walk on water for a camp lesson once and it didn’t end well. I fell right into the pool and got soaked. But Peter – he got to do the impossible. And it’s all because he kept his focus on Jesus instead of the water around him.

At least, that’s how it started. I’m sure Peter got a few steps away from the boat, smiling the whole way, but then suddenly it started to rain a little bit. And a wave slightly bigger than normal came up between him and Jesus.

That’s when it hit Peter… Wait, this is impossible! What am I doing?!?! I’m going to die out here! And instead of focusing on Jesus, Peter started to focus on the wind and the waves. And immediately, he started sinking into the water.

Some people think that Peter slowly sunk into the water here, like he was in quicksand. But I don’t think that’s how it worked. I think the second Peter stopped focusing on Jesus and forgot his faith, the water under him immediately gave way and Peter went splashing down. And in the middle of falling, all he could do was cry out, “Lord, save me!”

But that’s what’s so amazing about Jesus! He doesn’t let us stay under the water for half a minute so that we’ll learn a lesson. No! The Bible tells us that Jesus was there immediately reaching down to catch Peter!

And as Jesus stood there on the water, holding His now soaking wet disciple, all Jesus said was, “Your faith is so small, Peter! Why did you doubt me?” (Matthew 14:31).

I often wonder what Jesus was thinking when He said this. Was He mad at Peter? Disappointed? Was He actually happy that Peter had had the faith to step out of the boat but was now wishing Peter had kept it? Like I said before, Peter had moments of amazing faith. And this was one of them! But even the people who seem like the best Christians in the world have moments where they get distracted. Moments where they doubt.

That’s normal guys. And honestly, those moments aren’t bad in themselves. But Peter’s story of walking on water teaches us something important about what we should do when times get tough. God doesn’t want us focusing on our problems, like Peter focused on the wind and waves. Instead, when things get really hard, he wants us to focus on Jesus! Keep your eyes on Jesus, even in the storms of life!

This won’t always be easy. Life is full of things that distract us, and the most difficult moments in life are often the moments we turn our focus away from God. But when we keep our eyes on Him, like Peter did, we’ll get to see and do amazing things. We might not get to walk on water, but we’ll see people’s lives get changed for the better as they come to believe in Jesus.

And if you do lose sight of Him for a moment, don’t worry. God won’t give up on you. Just like with Peter, Jesus will be right there to catch you when you start to fall! All you need to do is ask for His help. 

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That's all for today. We'll be continuing with Peter for the next few weeks, so make sure you come back for that. And just a reminder that last week's Second Sunday Switch-Up is actually going to be posted this Sunday. Hope you'll check that one out too!

~Brentagious