Just Taking A Walk

During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them walking on the lake.  Matthew 14:25

Family stories are so much fun. There are certain ones that we so love to remember that we tell them over and over again. The first one that came to my mind for my family is a time when my son Jeffrey was very young. He made what every adult involved heard as a sassy remark but truly he was just trying to identify his boundaries. He was so little and so darned adorable with his tiny eyeglasses and his slight lisp. On the face of it maybe it isn’t a great story but we love it, in part because there is so much more to it than immediately meets the eye.

This story from Matthew of Jesus walking on the water is the same thing to me. There is so much more to the story than the bare bones. Jesus walks out, calls to Peter, Peter takes a step or two and oops, sinks. We tend to focus on Peter. Why did he sink? How did he walk on water even for a step or two? Peter becomes the focus.

My son Joseph used to tell me long stories of his exploits and sometimes a detail would slip out that he didn’t want me to hear. He’d then say, “Ma, you’re focusing on the wrong part of the story.” Certainly in looking at Peter we aren’t focusing on the wrong part but we do get stuck. Peter isn’t the only story and that is what I love about it.

I’ve given much thought to the other apostles part in this but today I was really taken by Jesus.  Jesus is, read it slowly, walking on the water. Walking. On. The. Water.  And look closely there’s no fanfare. There’s no drum roll or trumpet blast. He isn’t shouting, “Hey guys, check me out.” It’s not a big deal to him. He looks up sees that the boat is “a considerable distance from land” (Matthew 14:24) and further that it is “buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it” (Matthew 14:24) and still he just steps out.

Can you picture it? Jesus finishes his solitary prayer time and decides to rejoin the group. Hm, they’re out a little farther than he might have thought they’d be. There’s no panic. There’s not even an “oh darn” moment. No, he just walks out to them. Then because Peter attempts it too and fails, thus giving us so very many great sermons and lessons, the idea of Jesus walking on the water becomes somewhat secondary.

Well yeah, he’s Jesus. Fair enough, he is Jesus, fully God but also fully human. Can you walk on water? I can’t. I can’t even swim! It is an amazing truth that Jesus Christ walked across a lake and I know that most of us are aware of that. I just wonder how aware.

Does it just become one detail of the whole really great story? Back to my precious Jeffrey story. All four of my children were at the table that night with their grandparents and me. All four of my children were healthy at the time. Jeffrey had and still has glasses but otherwise there were no illnesses or injuries. We were sitting in our comfortable home at a table filled with food.  We don’t focus on those details when we tell the story because the focus is on Jeffrey, precious, quirky, adorable Jeffrey. Yet there were so many gifts in the moment and later still as the layers of the story emerged.

The Bible is filled with great stories. The Holy Spirit stands ready and waiting to shift our focus to a detail that has been right in front of us but that we may never have taken time to really see.

Jesus walked on the water.  How amazing is that?