Saturday, April 22, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Oh, the water
When it was evening the disciples of Jesus went down to the sea.
This was quite a day, and after 5000 in the outdoor congregation ate their complementary fish and barley chips, after they dispersed because Jesus disappeared, the disciples wondered what to do next.
“Let’s go down to the sea,” one of the fishermen probably said.
They embarked in a boat and went across the sea to Capernaum.
Why not? Jesus wasn’t there to tell them what to do. There was a boat, just sitting there on the shore. Where did that boat come from, if not from God?
“Let’s go on across the sea to Capernaum,” one of the more adventurous disciples probably said.
It had already gone dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing.
The conversation turned dark as the sky turned black. “What are we doing out here anyway? Why did you make us set out? Maybe we’d better turn back. Oh, don’t get your back up. We’ll be fine. Nothing to be afraid of. We and the sea are one.” Sunset buried in clouds, serious storm brewing, they rowed harder. Conversation stopped. The waves shoved the boat up and up and then down and down.
Rembrandt, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” – Indianapolis Museum of Art
When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they began to be afraid.
What! Are we having a group hallucination? Is that a ghost walking on the waves? Are we already dead and didn’t feel a thing? We were afraid of the sea, but that we know how to handle, or at least what to do. We’re afraid! Perhaps someone wrote a poem:
We have witnessed our death.
Christ has carried our pain,
accepted our selfishness and fear,
been pierced with our wounds,
suffered our injustice.
The Beloved has borne us into our death.
But love like the holy bread
transforms that which swallows it.
Christ has broken the walls of the tomb—
our tomb.
Christ is risen,
and now we too are alive.
“Oh, wait! That looks like Jesus,” Peter might have said. “That is Jesus!” John probably replied.
Jesus shouted out to them, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Some of the harder-working disciples tried to keep rowing, but the waves began to swamp the boat. All they had to bail with was their hands. That didn’t work very well.
They wanted to take him into the boat.
Some of them did. The others were pretty sure he should stay away. He looked a lot safer out there on the waves by himself than they did with all their brothers in the nearly capsized boat.
Jesus didn’t answer when they called. He just pointed out to sea in the direction they were going. “Look there,” he probably said.
Then the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.
It doesn’t get much better than this. But with Jesus, anything can happen. A new day is a-dawning. Saved from the storm, they all better get some sleep.
Some of them just slept in the boat.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
