A MIDNIGHT STORM
Walking on Water, by Ivan Aivazovsky (1888)
By: Frank Tunstall, D. Min.
“By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing, and the waters grew rough. When [the disciples] had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I; don’t be afraid (John 6:17-20).
The Sea of Galilee is eight miles wide. John records the disciples had rowed only about three miles when a fierce flash-storm caught them and was greatly slowing their progress. Yes, they had seen the Lord’s marvelous provision for the hungry multitude a few hours earlier when He fed the 5.000, but let it be underscored: it was night, and dark, and they were in a strong windstorm. They had yet to absorb that the Lord who provided bread and fish for the multitude was the Creator of the laws of nature and could take care of them in a storm, in the dark of night, in the late hours of the night.
Think About It: We all need to learn this lesson: each of the Lord’s followers sooner or later will be caught in a storm and needs to know Jesus is Lord over every kind of storm. In this story, He proved Himself Lord over nature.
Surely Jesus knew the storm was ahead, so why did He “constrain them” to get into the boat and “go to the other side” of the lake (Mark 6:45)? Jesus did not give these instructions only to see them drown. Instead, the stage was set for a huge miracle, the second in less than twenty-four hours.
The Psalter does not name the author of Psalm 107, but he surely was a prophet. Messiah “stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm” (Psalm 107:29–30 TLB; 89:9; Isaiah 51:10; Jeremiah 31:35).
It was clearly a divine act.
We can wonder if Jesus walked on the water in the storm the full three miles to join them. Another surprise is that He found them that violent evening, a needle in a haystack. At the height of the turbulence in the dark of night there would be almost no light, except occasional flashes of lightning. To see a small boat out on the Sea of Galilee by the flares of lightning from three miles away is a miracle all its own.
THINK ABOUT IT: Jesus not only knew the location of His disciples; He knows the position of each of His children to this day, no matter how remote the locality. The Lord is radar personified. There is no such thing as a storm so perfect or a night so wild and dark in your family that the Holy Spirit cannot come to you!
In those stormy circumstances, for the disciples to see the very dim outline of a man coming toward them seemed to them like the figure of an approaching ghost. One can easily imagine how their stomachs were churning and their blood pressure went sky high.
As for Jesus, obviously the law of gravity should have pulled Him under the 200 feet of water. But gravity was powerless before the might of the Creator of gravity. Instead, Jesus kept walking on the water in the storm.
Additional evidence the mammoth miracle of feeding the 5,000 had not yet soaked into the disciples’ faith was the fact they were so frightened. Every nerve in their bodies was yelling at them; they were scared out of their wits. They cried out because they all were terrified (Mark 6:52). The Greek word for “cried out” anakrazo, can also translate as yelling and screaming.
Before Jesus turned the storm into a soft sigh, He calmed the turbulence in His disciples hearts. Peter was the first of the disciples to calm down enough to step out of the boat and start walking to Jesus. His fears got the best of him, however, and he began to sink when he took his eyes off the Lord. But Jesus pulled him up into the boat with Him.
Regarding this miracle of walking on water while “a strong wind was blowing”—is this what Job meant when he penned, “He alone…treads on the waves of the sea?” (Job 9:8). Did Job express a prophecy? Is it possible Jesus was stepping on the crest of the waves? Keeping balance while walking on calm and placid water is a miracle great enough to prove Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God. But to keep balance and walk on the moving waves and do it for three miles in a fierce storm in the dark of night and be able to pull Peter up and into the boat when they had as much as two hundred feet of water under their feet was a quantum greater miracle. Little wonder the disciples worshiped Jesus saying, “Truly you are the Son of God” (Matthew 14:34). It is also reasonable on future trips the disciples feared the Son of Man in the boat more than the worst storms on the Sea of Galilee!
Mark Twain’s Explanation Why Jesus Walked on Water
Mark Twain (1835–1910) was accompanied by his wife on one of his visits to the Holy Land. They were staying in Tiberius on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was a moonlit night, and the weather was perfect. Twain had the romantic idea of taking his wife for a boat ride on the lake.
They walked down to the pier. Twain inquired of a man sitting in a rowboat how much he would charge to row them on the water. Twain was dressed in his usual white suit, white shoes, and white Texas hat. The oarsman, presuming him to be a wealthy rancher from the USA, said, “Well, I guess about twenty-five dollars.
Mark Twain thanked him. As he turned away with his wife on his arm, he said to her, “Now I know why Jesus walked!”
[SermonNotes.com. The value of $25 at the turn of the century due to inflation would be at least $600 today. Little wonder Mark Twain walked away!]
THINK ABOUT IT: When pastors and church leaders publicly walk through their storms with their faith in God intact, they show their followers how to handle life’s tornadoes. The result is they are inspired to deal with their own crises.
The Lord who was capable of walking on the waves will one day come back. This time the clouds will be His sidewalk. Then our moment will have come to join Him.
“Stepping on the clouds, we will see him.
Rise to meet him in the air.
Stepping on the clouds He will greet us,
Oh! The joys together we will share.
I’m gonna leave this world behind me,
Going where the devil cannot find me,
I’m going higher, higher, higher,
Stepping on the clouds.”
Linda Stalls, author. Copyright 1974, Word Music, LLC.
February 2, 2022 6:02 pm|
Thank YOU sweet Jesus for the WONDERFUL GIFT YOU gave us in the person of Frank Tunstall! Bless him in every way!!!