Ghost … Holy Ghost

Sunday, August 7th, 2005
Pentecost +12
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Matthew 14: 22-33

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ 28 Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’29 He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

The bumper sticker says it all: “Think you’re perfect? Try walking on water!”

It is interesting that in our culture, even today, it is an almost universally recognized reference.

Walking on water only happened once, and we have before us who it was and when: Jesus, in the passage for today, immediately after having preached the sermon on the mount and feeding thousands of people with two loaves and five fish. Parallel stories are in two of the other Gospels: Mark chapter 6, beginning in verse 45, and John, chapter 6 as well, beginning at verse 16.
Last Sunday we read about one of the most famous miracles that Jesus performed; the feeding of the five thousand. Our passage this morning picks up right where we left off, in fact, the very next verse. The people have eaten, everyone is satisfied, and the disciples have collected 12 baskets full of leftovers from the bread and fish that was what was for supper.

Jesus tells the disciples to climb into the boat and go on ahead to the other side of the lake, towards Capernaum and Bethsaida, about three or four miles by water, and HE heads back up the mountain to spend some time alone and in prayer. If you remember from last week, that was what he was intending to do before the crowds descended on him.

As the night progresses, the disciples have been rowing and working to get to the other side, but a wind has come up, and is battering their little boat and tossing it around in the waves. It is NOT helping them get to where they are heading. They exhaust themselves trying to make headway against it. It gets so bad, that the disciples begin to fear for their lives. At some point early in the morning, they look towards shore and see Jesus walking towards them.

What was their reaction?

“It’s a Ghost!”

And they were even more afraid. (I get a mental image – 7 grown men in a boat screaming like little girls …)

How did Jesus respond?

In the same way that God responded in the Old Testament any time God made God’s presence known, in the same way that the angel greeted the shepherds, in the same way that we find so many other places where people encounter the divine presence and don’t expect it: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

As Christians, we claim to be a people of faith: living by faith, believing in Christ, trusting in the Lord. An essential part of our faith believes in the ongoing presence of the Lord in our lives, individually, through the Holy Spirit and through the physical presence of the faith family with which we associate.

Let’s ask ourselves a serious question: Can we truly believe that Jesus is with us always (Emmanuel), even when all evidence suggests he is not? The impression we get from the text is that the disciples, even after having watched Jesus perform the miraculous feeding just a few hours earlier, lost sight of the fact when they were confronted with the overwhelming nature of … nature, in this case, and we have the disciples in a boat, on a lake, tossed around with very little control over where they were going.

One of the oldest symbols for the church is a ship. In fact, the part of the sanctuary in which the congregation sits and stands during worship is referred to as the ‘nave’. Nave comes from the Latin “Navis.” which means, literally, “boat” or “ship.” We are, as a group, as a congregation, as a family, all in this ‘boat’ called ‘Jerusalem’ together. Sometimes, the seas around us are calm. Sometimes, they are not so much. And there are times when the storm we are struggling through is of our own making. That is the nature of the church. Some would say that is the nature of the Baptist Church, but I am fairly certain that we wouldn’t have to look very far to find that all congregations to one degree or another suffer from self-inflicted storms now and then. It is interesting that the word used by Matthew to describe what the boat was going through was the word ‘basanizo’, which means tortured or tormented. A word that is more descriptive of what a PERSON would go through, rather than a ship or vessel of some kind.

If you remember from our studies in Mark, there’s another piece to this passage that echoes other passages found throughout Mark: the word ‘immediately’. It was the first word in verse 22, it appears here again, and once more just a couple of verses further down. That ‘immediately’ brings to mind for us what Mark seems to be conveying in his Gospel, that things were happening all the time, that Jesus and his disciples were on the move, stopping here, immediately going there, then suddenly over to this other place, a pack in motion.

In the middle of the storm, when the disciples cry out in fear, Jesus doesn’t immediately calm the storm. He immediately speaks to the disciples and tells them to take heart, I am he, do not be afraid.

There are times, and I’ve done this many times, when, in the midst of a crisis, my first prayer will be for God to wipe the cause of the crisis away completely. It’s almost an instinctual thing. Remove the danger. Take away the problem, the pain, the agony. When maybe what God wants is for me to go through the pain, through the struggle, in order to move closer to him, to be more like him.

And we have Peter’s action. Peter’s stepping out of the boat to go to Jesus. As I’m sure most of you have heard before, As long as Peter focused on where he was headed, he kept going. It was when he was distracted BY the storm – the wind, the waves, the rain, and the clouds that he began to sink.

How many times over the years have we looked back and realized how distracted we’ve become from what our most important calling has been?

Let’s back up a little in the passage. Jesus tells the disciples to get in the boat and go to the other side of the lake. He had a purpose for sending them on ahead, perhaps to meet someone, or to begin telling people of his coming. It is, if you will, a small commission. In fact, if we read on after the selected text, we find that Jesus did in fact spend some time in Gennersaret, and healed a whole slew of people. Long and short, he needed them to go on ahead of him to spread the word.

The storm blows up and they become frightened. They become distracted. They can’t seem to handle the crisis. How often have we had that happen in our own lives as individuals, as a church? We begin a project, set aside time and funds, and somewhere down the line, we get sidetracked by something else that has come up, by a conflict that makes us give up on that first goal?

Peter’s stepping out of the boat was an act of courage, and faith. In the midst of the conflict, the raging wind, and the crashing waves, he began to get his bearing again, and they led him straight to Jesus.

What happened next? We all know because we all identify more with his sinking than with his walking. He began to notice the wind and the waves and he became afraid again.

Grace steps into the story in the next word uttered by Peter: “Lord, save me!” And here we find another echo from Mark: Jesus IMMEDIATELY reached out his hand and caught him.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church?

The word from the gospel is that even in the midst of squabbles, in the midst of conflict, in the midst of tensions and storms blowing from either outside OR inside, we can STILL call on God. We can STILL call to Jesus, and our call would do well to be “Lord, save me from myself, make me more like you!” We can’t expect to always be successful. We are, as I’ve said before, still human, with human weaknesses and frailties, but we have an arm to grab hold of, a hand to hold, that is more than capable of pulling us up out of the stormy seas that our lives can so often become and bring us to stand alongside him, and alongside each other.

And that is what God has called Jerusalem to be – disciples, standing alongside each other – to strengthen and encourage, as well as to hold each other accountable – but to be on this journey TOGETHER.

All the disciples remained in the boat, and they were still heading in the same direction. May we go and do likewise.

Let’s pray.