Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
You
probably know this morning’s Gospel lesson as Jesus walking on the water. It’s
a demonstration of His divine power over His creation, that He is both able to
defy physics and silence the wind and waves.
This
morning, though, I want to take a different tack[1] (sic) with you. This morning, I want to use
this lesson to speak with you about prayer.
I
suspect that, in some ways, prayer is a mystery for many of us. Oh, we know
what prayer is – it is our responding to the command and promise of God to call
upon Him in trouble, to pray, praise and give thanks, all which find their
source in the pages of God’s own Holy Word, and that He will hear us in those
holy moments of conversation. We know prayer is important – so much so that
even Jesus went away by Himself to pray to His Heavenly Father – we have an
example in this morning’s reading. When the disciples asked Him to teach them
to pray, He taught them the Lord’s Prayer. His prayers, including the High
Priestly Prayer of Maundy Thursday evening, stand as perfect models for us in
praying for others, praying in faith for spiritual and material needs, praying
that God’s kingdom does come among us and that His will is done both in the
world out there and in our lives in here.
So
we learned simple prayers as children, like “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest,”
and “Now the light has gone away.” We prayed them as kids, but then we started
growing up and as we grew our prayers often shrank. Prayers are now offered
flittingly when we see a cop turn around behind us and when we submit our
annual tax return. We pray in desperation before surgery and before a math
exam. We pray haltingly at family dinners, not wanting to offend, and we shy
from praying in public, embarrassed of our words.
At
the heart of this, I suspect, is the mystery of the juxtaposition of God’s
omniscience - His perfect knowledge of everything - over and against praying
for what we want or need, and not knowing if those things are congruent or
opposed to each other. In other words, we doubt and wonder if it’s worth
praying since God already knows what He’s going to do and how He’s going to do
it so, why should I, how should I, even bother to pray? Our old adam and old
even goes so far as to make the excuse that our prayers might be sinful because
they could be going against the very will of God we implore. So, we are left
with the conundrum: if God already knows what He’s going to do, why bother?
If
you have ever wondered this, this morning’s Gospel lesson reveals this truth to
you: our prayers, imperfect though they may be, not only are heard by God but may
move God to be merciful to us, His beloved.
We
are picking up where we left off last week with the feeding of the 5012. With
the crowd satiated, it was time for the disciples to get that much-needed rest.
Jesus sent the Twelve ahead in their boat while He retreated to the mountains
for His own prayerful rest with the Father. In the hours before dawn, Jesus saw
that the disciples were still rowing so, Mark says, Jesus walked on the water
and “He meant to pass by them.”
“He
meant to pass by them.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? He was not walking out to
meet them, to intercept them, to hitch a ride the rest of the way to Bethsaida.
He was intending to pass them by. He saw them, even more fatigued from rowing
against the wind all night long then they were the day prior when He took them
away to rest. You will notice that they weren’t in danger; they weren’t afraid
of the storm. This was just an unfavorable wind for rowing. And, Jesus was
going to pass by.
Sometimes,
God passes by and His passing by is enough. Moses – now, there’s an example for
us. He was tired, too - tired of leading the people of Israel, tired of their
complaining, tired of interceding for them and about them, and so Moses pleaded
that if he could just see God’s face, that would be enough. Instead, God put
Moses’ face into the rocks, holding him there, only freeing Moses’ head once
God had passed that only see God’s back was visible. Moses got to see God’s
back; that was enough. And there was Elijah. Elijah had seen the majesty of God
on Mt. Caramel when consuming fire burned up the sacrificed bull, the wood, the
stone, even the water that pooled around it. He led the short-lived revolution against
the prophets of Baal, but afterward, when Jezebel declared him public enemy
number one, Elijah fled to the cave to die. God sent a roaring wind, a fire,
and finally an earthquake – all hallmarks of His power – but God was not in any
of those powerful events. No: the Lord was in the still, small voice that
passed by, afterward. Encouraged by that moment with God’s passing voice,
Elijah left his cave to continue in his prophetic ministry. His passing by was
enough.
But,
Jesus did not pass by. Why not? Why did He turn and change His mind, change His
direction? The answer is in the last verse: their hearts were hard because they
did not understand the loaves. Jesus walked on the water to reveal Himself to
the disciples, to open their eyes, to fill them with the awe and wonder and
faith that He is not just a miracle worker, the distributor of power, the One
who can Make Isreal Great Again™, but that He is actually the Son of God and
the Savior of the World. He was intending to reveal the majesty of His divinity
to them and begin to prepare them that they will see even greater things than
this from Him at the cross and at His resurrection. He wanted them to see His
majesty. He wanted to pass them by so they would see Him for who and what He
is: God’s Son, the Redeemer.
That’s
what Jesus wanted to do in passing by, but there was a problem: when the
disciples saw Him, they did not recognize Him – not as their teacher, not as
the miracle worker, not as the breaker of bread, and certainly not as the Son
of God. In fact, they were so afraid they thought Jesus was a ghost. To be
fair, in the ancient world, the sea was a frightening place associated with
Leviathon, death and loss. Again, to be fair, people don’t walk on water; that
is the godforsaken place of apparitions and the dead. It is no wonder they were
terrified – if we are honest with ourselves, we would have been shaking in our Gorton’s
Fisherman Hats, too.
The
disciples thought they saw a ghost. Jesus saw terrified men, not understanding
who He was and what He came to do, and that He was going, not just across the
water, but going toward the cross. That is what Jesus saw; that is what made
Him stop from passing by; that is what made Him change His mind from revealing
His majesty. He saw His disciples terrified, so He reveals His mercy to them
instead by climbing into the boat with them, these men of hard hearts, calming
the winds, and speaking His Word of mercy and grace to them. “Take heart, it is
I. Do not be afraid, it is I.” Those powerful words in line with what He spoke
to Moses, “I Am Who I Am,” a verbal clue that He isn’t just a bread maker; He’s
the provider of bread into eternity. And He doesn’t scold them for their
hardness of heart, their confusion and misunderstanding. Instead, it’s as if He
is saying, “Look! I’m not a ghost! Stop being afraid of me! I am here with
you!”
Jesus
wanted to pass by, to show His power and authority, but their cries changed Him
to show mercy, instead. You note their prayer was really more of a whimper of
fear. There was no beautifully articulated Psalm or Litany. It wasn’t even a Kyrie,
Eleison – Lord, have mercy! It was simply the cry of fear, not knowing, not
believing, not understanding, a cry of desperation at the unknown that the Lord
heard, yet that cry was enough. Jesus responded in mercy, compassion, acting to
get in the boat and calm and soothe them with His voice, with His Word, with
His presence.
He
wanted to pass by; He was moved to demonstrate mercy. This is why I say that we
can pray in confidence that regardless our circumstances, we can come to God in
prayer. Do not worry if your prayer is congruent or not with His will, because
He is always inclined to show mercy. There are moments in our life where God
intends to do one thing for us, but He sees us in our despair, our loss, our
grief and with our hard, not understanding and confused hearts, God comes to us
in His mercy.
When
things are wrong and things are hard in life, we often want, desire and expect
God to show up in His majesty and set things on the right path, to make things
whole, to fix it and make it all better. When work or school is literally
making us sick, when the marriage is struggling, when the bills are greater
than the income, when our lives seem out of control, we expect God to show up
and *snap* make it all perfect, without stress, fear, anger, and illness.
NO:
remember, sometimes Jesus wants to pass by. That’s what He was going to do, but
seeing you in your heartache and sorrow and struggle, instead of passing by to
show majesty, He changes His mind to give you mercy, instead.
You’re
there in the hospital, praying for a miracle of miracles, that God shows up in
majesty, healing the sick, broken body of the one whom you love so much but,
instead, Jesus shows up at the graveside, in mercy, with the future promise of
majesty in the resurrection and the life to come because He came to set the
world right and restore it through His own death and resurrection with the
forgiveness of sins. Or, maybe you’re making all of your plans for life – your
education goals, your career path, your life’s hopes and dreams but they don’t
work out. God sees them; God sees you. Even though He had one intention, God
shows His mercy to you and gets into the boat with you, even with whatever
mixed up ideas and ideals and He demonstrates His mercy to us in our hour of
need.
Jesus wanted to pass by. This was
true for the disciples and, sometimes, it is true for you. But He is always
inclined to show mercy because that is what He wants to do even more. So you
pray and implore God, that in that moment, He might relent and change His mind
and show you His mercy in Christ Jesus.
And that is where you see Jesus.
Sometimes in the words and actions of a friend who sits with you in your
struggle. Sometimes its in the Absolution spoken on a Sunday morning, or in
benediction where peace is proclaimed. Sometimes its in a piece of bread and a sip
of wine with His body and blood. And, sometimes, it is in a still small voice
that echoes off the pages of the Bible when you read, “Take heart; it is I. Be
not afraid.” And in those moments, Jesus is with you in the boat.
[1]
I have to admit, this is nerd word-play that only you, reader, will get because
it will be heard as “tact,” not “tack.” In sailing, “tack” is a sailing term,
either for a small sail, additional to the mainsail, or the windward side of
the ship.
