Wave-Walker

Walking on Water, by Christian Fandom Geek

Lections: The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 19), AD 2026 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

An old folktale tells of a monk, who one day discovers, much to his own delight, that he has developed the miraculous ability to walk on water. He rushes to demonstrate this newfound capability to his master by running across a river. But rather than praise him for his preternatural spiritual powers, his master simply points downstream to a bridge. Miracles must have meaning, you see. Otherwise they’re just parlor-tricks.

The Sea of Galilee, as any half-baked Study Bible will tell you, is in fact a lake, roughly 13 miles long by eight miles wide, making it relatively modest by Minnesota standards. Along its shores one could find Jesus’ home base of Capernaum, the Roman pleasure-resort of Tiberias, and the Hellenistic cities of the Decapolis. Many are the legends of Jewish spiritual masters who developed otherworldly abilities in the hinterlands of the Galilee.

Our Gospel reading this morning follows the death of John the Baptist at the hands of the horrid House of Herod, and Jesus’ subsequent feeding of the 5,000—more than enough to raise an army, had He so chosen. Immediately following this, He dismisses the crowds and ascends a mountain in order to pray. Jesus comes across as something of an introvert in our Gospels, ever seeking isolation for prayerful meditation, in the wilderness, on the mountaintop, or across the waters.

He sends the disciples ahead of Him to this latter location, having them set sail for the far shore, the land of Gennesaret. Alas, when evening falls, the boat is battered by the winds. Indeed, the Sea of Galilee remains notorious to this day for sudden, nasty squalls that seem to whip up out of nowhere. Moreover, ancient boats were designed to cling closer to land. Crossing deep and open waters made even seasoned fishermen uneasy.

All night long, Jesus’ disciples battle the storm, until early in the morning, dim in the dawn, they see what appears to be a human figure walking toward them on the water. Rather understandably, terror seizes them. “It’s a ghost!” they cry. But then they hear the voice of Jesus assuring them: “Take heart; it is I; do not be afraid.” Personally, I’m not sure that that would calm me down. A ghost in a storm might at least make some sense. But a rabbi who can balance on the waves? In his sandals?

There is of course a deeper meaning here—which is why John, for instance, refers to Jesus’ wonders not as miracles but as signs. Any good Jewish boy familiar with his Hebrew Bible would remember the words of Job, that God alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. He would recall the Psalmist singing that God’s way was through the sea, His path through the mighty waters, where His footsteps do not show. He would think on the Prophet Habakkuk, who spoke of God trampling the sea with His horses.

The sea, in the Bible, stands as a symbol of chaos, the mother of monsters. “Impious was he,” wrote the Roman Emperor Augustus, “who first spread sail and braved the terrors of the frantic deep.” Only God can walk upon the waters. Only God can calm the chaos. And here we have Jesus, walking on the waters. The symbolism isn’t subtle.

But our tale’s only halfway told, for now the boldest and brashest of Jesus’ disciples, good old Simon Peter, calls out: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water!” Once again, Peter gets points for chutzpah. Jesus simply says to him, “Come,” and to his credit (I think) Simon Peter gets out of the boat. He walks upon the waves. Yet through that surge of adrenaline, he notices how dark the churning waters look, and the howling of the winds. And so he hesitates. He doubts. And thus begins to sink.

Who can blame him, really? He got farther than I would’ve. “Lord, save me!” he yelps. And immediately—immediately!—Jesus reaches out to seize him by the arm, pulling him up. “O ye of little faith,” Jesus gently chides him, “why did you doubt?” As soon as they step back into the boat, the winds cease, and the disciples worship Him, proclaiming, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Now, Son of God, granted, is a royal title, one often given to kings or to angels. Confusingly, Son of Man would indicate divinity; thank the Prophet Daniel for that bit of inversion. But to tread upon the sea, to command the winds, these are clearly attributes of God alone. This is a theophany, a revelation, a sign pointing to who and what Christ is. Still more scandalously, Christ empowers Peter to do the same, to walk with God, like God, out upon the waves. “You will do even greater things than these,” Jesus promises.

See, the point of this story is that Jesus is God, God in the flesh, God come to earth. I hope I’ve made that clear. Such an assertion would astonish a first-century Jewish audience. But it further implies that Christ has come to make us all like Him: to make us gods in God. Theosis, we call it, or deification. The math is very simple: Christ and the Father are One. By Jesus’ Holy Spirit—working through His Sacraments, His Word, and His Body the Church—we are made one in Jesus. He makes us into Him.

For when we are one in Christ, then we are one with God. And no, we cannot do this on our own. But we’ve never had to. When we stumble, when we fall, Christ pulls us up: up from the waters, up from the grave, up to everlasting life. Alleluia.

There are many parallels between Jesus and the Buddha: parallel biographies, parallel moralities, parallel miracle stories. For scholars this is evidence of syncretism, or at least of Eurasian cultures from opposite ends of the continent drawing on shared archetypes. Given the interaction of Christians and Buddhists along the Silk Road, and the earlier missionary efforts from Buddhist India into the Hellenized Near East, it’s hard to say which tradition influenced the other more. I do think that we’re both the better for it.

But nowhere do the similarities shine more clearly than in tales of walking on water. See, the Buddhists have a story too. In it, the Buddha sat beneath a tree on one side of a river in order to preach his Four Noble Truths to a skeptical village. Meanwhile, his chief disciple Śāriputra—whose name even sounds a bit like Simon Peter—found himself on the opposite bank.

Despite the strength of the current and breadth of the river, he determined to hear his master preach, and so stepped out onto the water only to find it as firm beneath his feet as granite. He made it to the middle dryshod, where the waves rose, and his heart began to sink. So too then did his feet. This should all sound familiar. But with renewed mental effort, he focused on the Buddha’s teaching and proceeded as before to reach the far bank. The villagers, astonished, asked him how he had accomplished this, and he replied: purely by faith, and his desire for the bliss of his master’s presence.

Thus the Buddha praised Śāriputra, saying that such faith alone could save the world from the cycle of reincarnation, to cross the river of worldliness and obtain deliverance from death.

The resemblance proves uncanny, wouldn’t you say? A person of faith might be edified to find similar wonders, similar lessons, in separate traditions. Multiple attestation is evidence of veracity, after all. And thanks be to God when prophets and mythologies agree. Yet while both laud the disciples’ faith, I find Peter’s story far more human. I cannot, by my own effort, walk upon the stormy sea, or the raging river. My mental fortitude will not grant me the abilities of a god. I will falter; I will fall; I will sink. I do it all the time.

But in my fear, my despair, my outright terror, Christ pulls me up. He takes me by the hand. The grace of God, the love of the Lord, the balm of the Holy Spirit, these will save my soul. These will raise me from the waters, from the loamy earth of the grave. It must be mercy all the way. For I am not worthy to walk on the sea beside my Savior. But He can make me so. Only He can make me so. Only He can make me into Him. For Christ will save us all.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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