Matthew 14:34-36 - "And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret."

Matthew 14:34-36

More people, more healings, more clamoring after Jesus. This short passage appears to be a bridge that leads into Jesus' next confrontation with the Pharisees in chapter 15. But before we move quickly on, let's take note of a couple of things. The disciples have only been able to get so far from the madding crowd, and their precious break has already come to an end. The only rest they have gotten was when they were in the middle of the sea, and even then with Jesus pulling stunts like walking on water, they were never able to be fully at ease.

But Jesus himself has gotten even less of a break. He had already spent most of the night praying on the mountain, then he hiked all the way down to the seashore and walked two additional miles on the water to reach the disciples' boat. By the time he reached them it was close to sunrise ("the fourth watch," 14:25), meaning he might have gotten a couple hours' sleep on the boat before he had to rise again to start his day with the multitudes of Gennesaret clamoring for him when they docked. Surely, we can add sleeplessness to the list of Jesus' sufferings during his life on earth. If you've ever taken care of an infant around the clock, feeding and changing and rocking him all day long and throughout the night, running on only a few hours' sleep at a time, take comfort that Jesus knows all about your suffering. He keeps watch with you during those long and lonely nights.

The people of Gennesaret are begging to touch even the fringe of Jesus' cloak. News must have reached them about the hemorrhaging woman who had received healing simply by touching the hem of his garment (9:20-22). You feel tempted to despise these people who treat Jesus so superstitiously, but apparently Jesus does not despise them. Somehow there is enough faith mixed in with their superstition for him to honor with genuine healing. "As many as touched [his cloak] were cured" (v. 36). Jesus had told the hemorrhaging woman "your faith has made you well" and no doubt the same applies to these Gennesarites. It is always faith that Jesus honors--and perhaps because it is the desperate faith of the sick and needy, such desperation has made their faith true enough to overcome even the superstition that would otherwise taint it.

Matthew 14:27-33 - "But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid.'"

Matthew 14:27-33

I've noticed that people like to rag on Peter. He's such an easy target. He's bold and enthusiastic. He puts his foot in his mouth and falls on his face. This is another one of those passages in which Peter becomes an object of disdain to every preacher who preaches on it. "Once more we see Peter eating humble pie." "Peter's pride gets him in trouble again." "What a dumb, impulsive thing Peter did." Etc. Peter tries to walk on water and seems to be doing well, but when his faith totters and he starts to sink, Jesus grabs hold of him and rebukes him with "Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

But before you use this passage as an excuse to jump all over Peter for his folly, you have to also acknowledge what a remarkable person he is, how dogged and loyal and eager and naive he is in his love for Jesus. He's like a puppy dog that comes barking and rolling and tumbling at you, then in his eagerness he overshoots his mark so that he has to turn around, scramble and come right back at you again. There's something lovable about that clumsiness, that haplessness. I can't imagine that Jesus despised Peter as much as some of us do. Maybe the reason we enjoy seeing Peter's boldness get him in trouble is that we are hoping that lends some merit to our own cowardice and cold love.

Peter hops out of the boat because he wants to go to Jesus. The disciples are just recovering from the shock of thinking they are seeing a ghost, and when Peter hears Jesus' reassuring voice, "Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid," his impulse is to run to him. "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." I used to think Peter just wanted a chance to take part in the cute little magic trick he saw Jesus performing, but looking at this passage again I don't think it was such a trivial request. Peter says, "if it is you," which means he is still uncertain about whether this is Jesus. Yet if the Lord commanded him to come, Peter knows Jesus would surely give him the ability to meet him safely on the water, then Peter would know that this really was his teacher and friend. Peter is simply hungering for that assurance. He's the "jump out and run to Jesus with open arms" type, not the "wait around for Jesus to make it all the way into the boat before seeing if it's really him" type.

When Peter is focused on Jesus and on his eagerness to be with him, he walks miraculously on the water. But as soon as he takes his eyes off Jesus, noticing the wind, growing anxious about his surroundings, his faith leaks out and he begins to sink. The moment he stops trusting and starts calculating, he's done for. But not quite. Even when his faith fails, Jesus reaches out with his hand and saves him. There are a lot of Christians today who think their faith is what saves them, and when things go wrong they blame weak faith as the cause. But faith is always weak; it totters and shakes the moment we take our eyes off Jesus. It is Jesus who saves you, not the degree of your faith. He saves you in spite of your little faith; he saves you from your little faith. If you feel yourself losing a grip on him, you can cry to him to save you from yourself, from all your doubts and folly, and he will reach out a hand to prevent you from sinking.

Matthew 14:24-27 - "But the boat was already many stadia away from the land..."

Matthew 14:24-27

After an emotionally and physically exhausting day, the disciples finally escape on a boat away from the crowds, even away from Jesus who has decided to spend the night praying up in a mountain. At last they have their rest. But some hours later the wind picks up and waves begin to batter the boat. Then in the dead of night they see someone walking toward them over the surface of the water. They are terrified. They think it is a ghost.

Skeptics have tried to explain away the miracle of Jesus walking on water. I heard one explanation that Jesus was actually walking along a sand bar that extended out to sea, and the disciples were fooled into thinking Jesus was doing something miraculous. But the disciples' boat would have had to be relatively close to the shoreline for that to be possible, and the text says that they were already "many stadia away from the land" and had been sailing for half the night. This suggests they were probably about a mile or two from shore. As far as I know, no sandbar stretches out that far.

What's more the fact that the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost adds a note of credibility to this account, it seems to me. If this story were made up, you would write it so that the disciples gaze out into the sea and immediately recognize that Jesus is walking on water. "Wow, look, it's a miracle! Jesus, you truly are the Son of God!" Worship, worship, worship. Right? But instead the disciples behave much more realistically than that. In order to understand this, imagine for a moment how it would be if you were to see someone walking on the sea with only the faint light of the moon and stars to help you discern what you were looking at. Seriously, put your imagination to work and try to be there with the disciples. You know that water cannot hold the weight of a flesh and blood human body, so when you see that thing coming toward you your mind would leap to the immediate assumption that this being must not be flesh and blood, but a weightless spirit. That's why the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost. It wasn't because he looked particularly white or transparent or made spooky noises; it was a primal reaction to the freakiness of the whole scene, because the human mind is programmed to interpret everything it perceives through the natural laws of physics. If you see someone walking on water in very dim light, of course you're going to react with "ghost!" and not "hmm, maybe someone is miraculously walking on water." But this is not the sort of detail you would know to put in a story that is fabricated. Because the only way you could know that you'd react this way is if it actually happened.

Matthew 14:22-23 - "And immediately he made the disciples get into the boat..."

Matthew 14:22-23

Just a brief comment about this very brief passage before we move on to the story of Jesus walking on water. Back in verse 13 Jesus seeks to have some alone time because he hears the news of John the Baptist's gruesome execution. Yet he can't catch a break because the multitudes come clamoring after him, so he gets to work healing them and tending to their needs. It is the disciples' complaints that draw attention to how weary they all are. "Send the multitudes away," they plead. They're tired too, not just physically but emotionally they are reeling from John's death. Yet instead of turning the crowds away, Jesus pushes his already exhausted disciples to dig deep and find the faith to do the impossible: feed these five thousand men, plus the women and children.

After the multitudes are fed, all the leftovers are picked up, and the multitudes are finally sent home, Jesus puts his disciples in a boat and sends them off to the solitude they so desperately desire. Then he himself withdraws to a mountain top to pray by himself. Jesus and the disciples have long craved this down time, but it came to them only after they had reached the end of their strength. They were called upon to muster still more, so they mustered, running on fumes, and at last they are rewarded with rest.

I've had many days similar to this. The day was a rough one and I thought I was done. I'm ready to turn in but then in the eleventh hour I'm called upon to tend to some need, some emergency. One of the kids just shattered a glass full of milk on the floor. My daughter suddenly remembers a homework assignment she hasn't finished, and of course she needs my help on it. I understand that I have to be a servant, but aren't there limits to one's strength and sanity? Why is God dumping this stuff on me? He knows how tired I am, and now I'm off to serve him all cranky and resentful and irritable. Interestingly, I usually discover that I do have a second wind hidden somewhere in my reserves that comes mysteriously out of nowhere.

Why does God call you to serve him right when you feel the last of your strength ebbing away at the close of the day? I don't know, really, but I know he does that sort of thing. And I find it comforting to see that he also called upon Jesus and his disciples to serve when they were spent. Maybe it is because too often we serve him in our own strength and secretly give ourselves the credit for it. Calling upon us when we feel we have nothing to give is the only way to show us that the strength flowing through us isn't our own, and never was.

Matthew 14:17-21 - "And they said to him, 'We have here only five loaves and two fish.'"

Matthew 14:17-21

Continuing the story from last time, the disciples tell Jesus to send the multitudes away so they could buy food for themselves. Their request may not have been entirely selfish. They may have seen how tired Jesus was, especially after hearing the troubling news of John the Baptist's execution. But Jesus would not hear of it and instead orders the disciples to feed them.

The disciples protest with, "But we only have five loaves and two fish." Yet because they bother to scrounge around, come up with a small amount of food, and bring it to Jesus, they display enough faith for Jesus to work his miracle. It is a faltering faith mixed with a great deal of doubt, and it's hard to tell whether the disciples present the five loaves and two fish to Jesus in anticipation of what miracle he might do, or to show him that his request is ridiculous. Probably it is a little bit of both. Yet Jesus knows how to take the slightest flicker of faith, even a smoldering wick of it, and fan it into an opportunity to perform wonders.

Jesus' miracle of multiplying the food for the crowd echoes a little-known miracle performed by the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44. The passage is short enough to quote in full:

Now a man came from Baal-shalishah and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And [Elisha] said, "Give them to the people that they may eat." And his attendant said, "What, shall I set this before a hundred men?" But he said, "Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and have some left over.'" So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over according to the word of the LORD.

Isn't it interesting that even the remark about having "some left over" parallels the way Jesus' miracle is told? Jesus is being presented as a greater Elijah/Elisha-like prophet, multiplying food for five thousand instead of one hundred. There are parallels between Jesus' situation and that of these prophets. Remember that Israel was becoming apostate during the time of Elijah and Elisha. In Elijah's time God cursed the land with a drought and in Elisha's day he brought famine upon the land, as if to symbolize the spiritual drought and famine that plagued Israel. Jesus ministered in a similar time of Israel's faithlessness. But just as Elisha was able to provide food for the one hundred who followed him during a time of mass starvation, Jesus provides both physical food and spiritual food for those who believe in him in spite of the waywardness of the Jewish nation. Even during times of spiritual leanness, Jesus is able to call forth a remnant and multiply out of their faith an abundance of spiritual blessing.

Matthew 14:13-16 - "Now when Jesus heard it, he withdrew from there in a boat, to a lonely place by himself..."

Matthew 14:13-16

I believe there are some portions of Scripture that you have to read with an Asian sensibility to pick up on the subtext of what is going on. By "Asian sensibility" I mean that instead of describing someone's feelings in graphic detail, like clashing bold colors splashed onto a canvas, there is a spareness of description that speaks more eloquently than a thousand words. Saying less is saying more, especially when the feeling runs so deep you don't wish to cheapen it with empty talk.

In the previous passage we learn of the horrifying circumstances of John the Baptist's death. John was Jesus' cousin, his own blood and the forerunner of the Messiah. He was a holy man, the last in a line of great Old Testament prophets, a bold preacher and a humble servant of the gospel. He fell into the hands of Herod and was slaughtered like an animal, his head paraded around on a platter at a drunken dinner party.

When the news reaches Jesus, he gets in a boat and withdraws to a lonely place. Nothing more is said about his response to John's death, yet you can imagine what he must be feeling. It is one of those classic Eastern moments when words are considered abhorrent, because there are no words to say when someone receives news like this. Jesus' silence proclaims his grief, and his desire to be alone tells how overwhelming the pain in his heart must have been.

And yet the multitudes follow him, robbing him of the luxury of momentary solitude. He does not rebuke them or lash out, instead he humbly tends to their needs. Matthew notes that Jesus "felt compassion for them and healed their sick," apparently feeling the need to explain what motivated Jesus to go out there and minister to them. Jesus wanted space, but his compassion for the people is what strengthened him for the task.

The disciples aren't delicate in expressing how they feel. "It's late and we're in the middle of nowhere. Get rid of these people and let them find their own dinner." They're depressed about the news of John too, and now they're exhausted and frustrated from having to deal with a horde of needy people. But Jesus responds with, "These people aren't going anywhere. You give them something to eat."

We'll talk about what happened next in another post, but for now it's apparent that Jesus is asking his disciples to follow in his example. This goes against the grain of what we're often told, namely, that you should give out of a full reservoir, not an empty one, otherwise you will suffer spiritual burnout. I still think that's true, but this story presents a different angle, which is that quite often you think you have nothing to give, but in fact you do. The disciples had been serving all day; they think they cannot do it for another minute. But Jesus pushes them further, and when they step out in faith they find God's miraculous provision waiting for them.

I'm sure you can relate to the disciples, feeling like you're done for the day but then God lands a brand new overwhelming task on your plate. You feel you cannot give another ounce of strength in service, but somehow either faith or compassion helps to move your sluggish heart forward, and in the end it is really God's miraculous provision that bears your weary body through to the end of the task.

Matthew 14:1-12 - "At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the news about Jesus..."

Matthew 14:1-12

This passage is about the death of John the Baptist, but it is worked into the narrative as back-story to explain why Herod is freaked out when he hears about Jesus' miracles. Herod harbors a guilty conscience for murdering John, and now he thinks God is judging him by bringing John back from the dead in the person of Jesus. We learn from this back-story that Herod feels guilty and paranoid because he executed John against his own conscience, and we also find out how he got cornered into doing it.

Herod had John arrested because John was saying that Herod's marriage to Herodias, the wife of his brother, was unlawful. Herod comes off as a spineless man, hesitant to do this, afraid to do that, wondering what people would think if he went ahead with this. He didn't put John to death because he feared the opinion of the people who regarded John as a prophet. It's a wonder he had the guts to arrest John in the first place, which makes you wonder if Herodias was really the one behind it. She knew that her husband was a weak man, and probably it was she who insisted upon John's arrest. Then when Herod hesitated to execute John, she looked for an opportunity to force his hand.

It was Herod's birthday. The wine was flowing, the dinner guests were laughing, the entertainment abounded. Herodias's daughter came and danced before the guests, probably not very modestly dressed, and Herod, feeling drunk and lustful and big-hearted, promised upon oath to give her whatever she wanted. He could afford to be generous; the girl would probably ask for some pretty or extravagant thing. But she asked for the head of John the Baptist and he was taken off guard. This was Herodias's demand, the girl herself would never think to make such a request. Yet he had promised his step-daughter before all these guests; he was caught. So he gave the order, impulsively, to maintain the good cheer of the dinner party, but inside he was grieved, knowing he would regret this once he was fully sober in the morning.

In the movies heroes die heroic deaths. They die in furious battles. They are assassinated by dangerous foes. They stay behind in collapsing buildings or exploding spaceships while the people they saved escape. But John the Baptist died a degrading, humiliating death. Sure, he was arrested for taking a stand of righteousness against Herod's unlawful marriage, but in the end he was done in by Herod's cowardice and the treachery of a teenage girl and her mother. Herod killed John almost on a whim: he made a rash oath, then he gave John's order of execution to save face. Doesn't a holy man, a prophet of God, deserve a better fate than that? At least have him die at the edge of a sword, at the hand of a formidable enemy in the midst of some valiant struggle. How could John die because a half-drunk king was tricked by his wife and enticed by his own step-daughter, so that John's head would end up being paraded around on a platter at a birthday party before laughing guests?

Welcome to the kingdom of God. Glory is for heaven, but on earth nothing is guaranteed. You might imagine that at the end of your life you will meet death in a dignified manner, lying in your bed at home surrounded by family and friends; but then again you might not. You might die alone and forgotten in a nursing home. You might die in the mud underneath an overturned car. I once read of a Christian missionary who not only met his death in prison, but it was from accidental electrocution while he was seated on a metal toilet seat. How would you like that story included in your missionary biography? Jesus himself died a humiliating death, stripped naked and pinned to a cross on public display, like some insect in a lepidopterist's collection. All of us who follow Jesus follow in that path. There is no guarantee that our ideas about dignity or pleasant storybook endings for ourselves will come to fruition, as the story of John the Baptist well illustrates.