Let us pray: Breathe on us, O God, that we may be filled with your Spirit – and led by your living word – Jesus Christ our Lord. Bless the word of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. We ask it in his name. Amen.
You may have heard before the story about a man taking a walk in the mountains enjoying the scenery when he stepped too close to the edge of the mountain and started to fall. In desperation he reached out and grabbed a limb of an old tree hanging onto the side of the cliff.
Full of fear he assessed his situation. He was about 100 feet down a shear cliff and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If he should slip again he will be falling to his death. Full of fear, he cries out, "Help me!" But there was no answer. Again and again he cried out but to no avail. Finally he yelled, "Is anybody up there?"
A deep voice replied, "Yes, I'm up here." "Who is it?" "It's the Lord." "Can you help me?" "Yes, I can help. Have faith in me." "Help me!" "Let go." Looking around the man became full of panic. "What?!?!" "Have faith in me. Let go. I will catch you."
"Uh... Is there anybody else up there?"
Often each and everyone of us goes through hard and difficult times, and I often wonder where our faith fits in when we are going through difficult times, the times of storm, the times of trials and of testing.There are some people who will tell you that you if you have faith, life will be smooth sailing. There are some people who will tell you that if you have faith, God will take good care of you, He will cure all your ills and He will guard you from every danger in the world. That is if you have enough faith, if you stay close to God….
If we listen carefully to our Scripture reading of this morning from the Book of Matthew, we may discover that this is not necessarily the case.
Do you remember the incident in the Gospels of Jesus feeding the 5,000? Do you remember that in that particular incident the crowds had gathered to hear Jesus, and as the day went on, Jesus told the disciples to “Give the people something to eat?”
The disciples were shocked! Their immediate response to Jesus was “We do not have enough! All we have here are two little fish and five small loaves of bread. That is not enough! We cannot possibly do what you asked us to do, Jesus!” Does that reaction of the disciples sounded familiar to you?
Jesus said to his disciples, “Give the food to me.” After they given him the food, Jesus blesses it, and tells the disciples to pass it out. The disciples did as they were instructed, and everyone had their fill, and when they finished eating, there were even 12 baskets of food left over!
What do you think that the disciples were thinking throughout all this? They were after all, right there in the middle when Jesus performed that miracle. Maybe some of the members of the crowed did not realize as to what was happening at the time, but the disciples were right there. They were there all the way through the entire miracle. They took part in the miracle. What do you think that they were thinking? Did witnessing the miracle change them? Did witnessing the miracle strengthen their faith?
Well from the Scriptures the disciples seem to be slow learners.
After the feeding of the 5,000 was all over, Jesus dismisses the crowd and sends them all home. After sending the people home, he told the disciples, “Get in the boat and cross the lake. I will join you later, but right now I need to be alone for a while to pray.”
The instructions that Jesus gave to the disciples probably did not sound strange at all, for often as we can read from the Scriptures, Jesus did spend a lot of time praying. In any case, I think probably the disciples were thinking that he may be joining them by getting another boat later that night to cross the lake and so they set sail for the other side.
Unfortunately a few hours later we find the disciples caught in the middle of the lake in a wind storm. The waves were rolling, a strong wind was blowing they were getting absolutely nowhere at all. It takes them every bit of effort just to keep their boat into the wind, and they were not making any progress at all in getting across to the other side of the lake.
We must remember that the reason for their being out there in the middle of the lake in the first place was due to what Jesus told them to do. In fact, it was what Jesus ordered them, or commanded them to do – to get in the boat and cross to the other side of the lake.
They were following orders by doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do, and due to their being obedient to him, discovered that they were now caught in a big storm! A storm that was far too big for them to handle!
Do faith and obedience always mean smooth sailing in life? Apparently that is not the case. Sometimes when we follow Jesus, it may at times leads us straight into a storm!
Finally in the small hours of the morning just before first light, Jesus came walking out to them, actually walking on the water! The initial reaction of the disciples was one of fear. They were terrified! “It is a ghost!” they were saying, or more like screaming.
But then Jesus called out to them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
I do not know why, but for whatever the reason it may have been, maybe Peter needed proof or something, and Peter said, “If it is really you Lord, command me to come out on the water with you.” He probably regretted it as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Mind you, if you really think of it, he was the only one who even dared to say that, the other apostles just simply refused to even take that step out of the boat!
Anyway Jesus simply told him, “Come…come on, Peter.”
I would imagine at that particular moment in time, it would be, to Peter, very much like letting go of that root that you would have been hanging onto for dear life. At this very point, I would imagine that Peter was probably ready to call out, “uh, is there anyone else out there?”
But Peter is caught, after all, he was the only one amongst the twelve who asked Jesus to let him get into the water, and since Jesus said ‘yes’, there was no backing down. So he very cautiously puts one leg over the boat, then the other leg, still holding onto the boat. He lets go of the boat with one hand, and then the other, and there we find dear old Peter, walking on the water as well!
Is that impossible? It is no more impossible than feeding 5000 people with two fishes and five loaves of bread! As Jesus plainly said and as we all know, “With God, all things are possible!”
Quite contrary to all the laws of nature, the impossible was happening – this is because the Lord of the universe was there.
But then something happens to Peter. It was almost as if he suddenly woke up and realized where he is.
Often when we watch cartoons with our children, we see a cartoon character runs off a cliff and stays suspended in mid air until he finally realizes what a stupid thing he just did, and then down drops the cartoon character.
Well, here we have Peter, walking on the water towards Jesus. Everything seems to be going on fine, but then he took his eyes off Jesus and began to look around at his surroundings. And guess what he saw? He saw big waves and a driving wind, and there he was in the middle of it, on the water, unprotected, without even a life jacket or a floating log.
He forgot all about Jesus, he forgotten all the miracles of Jesus he seen before, and got scared, as a result he began to sink.
The name “Peter” means rock, but now instead of being a solid rock of faith, he began to sink like a rock.
In desperation, Peter cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Have you ever been in a similar situation before? Have you ever been there before? I understand and believe that it is the most elementary cry of every human being whenever we are confronted with something or event or happening which is
- beyond our strength
- beyond our ability
- beyond our control
In the midst of our human helplessness and powerlessness, we will often cry out, “Lord, save me!” I know I do, whenever I am in trouble, and often those are troubles that I got myself into by not listening to God, I will cry out, “Lord, save me!”
Jesus reached out and grabs hold of Peter, pulls him up and helped him to get back into the boat.
“Why did you doubt, Peter? Where is your faith? Did you not believe me? Did you not believe me when I told you to let go?”
Suddenly the wind dies down, the waves settle. The disciples were all filled with awe and amazement. Falling to their knees they declared, “Truly you are the Son of God!”
As I was preparing for today’s sermon, I heard God speaking to me, as He did this morning through the Scriptures to all of us. What I hear is the Lord saying to Peter, to all the disciples and to each and every one of us:
Life is simply full of adventures and encounters and accidents and all kinds of experiences that will remind us time and time again, that if our eyes are open to see it, that God alone is God and each and every one of us are totally dependent upon the Lord as our only source of life and hope and strength.
Even when we are so very certain that God is the one leading us and we are acting as according to God’s will, we should never dare think that we, as we are acting in accordance to the will of God, we can therefore go it alone, and therefore relying solely on our own strength, resources and abilities.
Peter was only doing what the Lord invited him to do. He was in actually doing the impossible if we measure it by worldly standards.
It was only when he took his eyes off Jesus and focused on the storm raging all around him that he got scared, got into trouble and began to sink.
We know that without Jesus we can do nothing, but with God, all things are possible. After all, He is the creator of this world, He is the one who created you and me, and He will never tell us to do anything without supplying the means for us to do so. But we have to place our complete faith and trust in Him to do so.
I am sure that Peter never in his lifetime forgets that moment. There were of course, many other times of doubt and testing through his life, and he was not always successful.Just like us, whenever he floundered he will always end up crying out, “Lord, save me! And the Lord will always be there to reach out to save him, just as He is always there for us. Peter always found the help and the strength he needed when he asked for it.
Life in this world is indeed always full of adventures and encounters, as well as accidents and experiences that will remind us time and time again that ultimately we are completely dependent upon God for our life, our hope, our joy, and our salvation.
At the very end, we will find that there is just nobody else up there, and the one and only choice we have is to let go, and let God work out His Will in our lives.
As a congregation of God’s people, we often are faced with situations and opportunities to let go and let God’s will be done within our midst.
Every time we bring a little baby to the waters of Holy Baptism;
Every time we gathered around the table of the Lord;
Every time we adopt a budget and decide as to how to spend the money God has entrusted to us;
Every time we are face with new challenges or new opportunities for ministry to other people;
Every time we gathered together at a funeral to mark the passing of one of God’s faithful servants from this world into everlasting life;
We will with all certainty be facing again and again the temptation to doubt and falter. The temptation to focus on the storms that are raging all around us, the human nature of feeling fear, instead of focusing on Jesus, who is the Lord of life, the Master of the winds and the waves.
We do know that Jesus has been calling us forth as His people, and God is inviting us to trust Him, to let go and let God take control of our lives.
And so, we go from here, seeking to be God’s faithful people, trusting and depending on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ all the time, always keeping our eyes focused on Jesus, who is the one and only source of life, hope, joy and salvation.
I would like to end this sermon by sharing with you a prayer: Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the endings, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us the faith to go out with good courage. Not knowing where we go. But only that your hand is leading us, and your love is supporting us; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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