Today's Gospel

Don't Look Down

Welcome back to Radical & Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the Gospels. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Matthew 14:22-36. "Then Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat, by this time, was many furlongs distant from the land. Beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, 'It is a ghost.' And they cried out for fear. But immediately he spoke to them, saying, 'Take heart. It is I. Have no fear.' And Peter answered him, 'Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.' He said, 'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, 'Lord, save me.' Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, 'Oh, man of little faith, why did you doubt?' When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, 'Truly, you are the Son of God.' And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent round to all the region and brought to him all that were sick and besought him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it, were made well."

It's a great reading. There's just so much in all of these readings, but perhaps there's a word or a phrase or an idea that God drew your attention to today. I was sort of distracted by a number of things as I was reading this today, things I hadn't thought about before. The first one is Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him, and he's going to dismiss the crowd. Now, what I was originally fixated on was this idea that the disciples are gone. Jesus is on his own. He's going to dismiss the crowd. But in any crowd, there's always some people who don't want to be dismissed, right? And how did Jesus manage this scenario? How did he get away to be on his own? And obviously, he's all man and all God and that sort of thing. But I just had this human, very human thought of like, that's a nightmare scenario. Jesus trying to get away from the crowd without the disciples to run interference for him, but he does. He gets away. He gets away to this quiet place to pray in the hills. Evening comes. They're out in the boat. Now I'm thinking about the Sea of Galilee. It isn't actually that big. And I'm wondering, they're out there all night. I'm not sure I would have gone out there in the night, but anyway. So as you can see, my mind was all over the place today. And then Peter's just being Peter. But it must have gotten tiresome, right? From a very human perspective, right? Some of the disciples must have just been sick of Peter being Peter. And he's like, "Hey, Jesus, if it's really you, then bid me to come on the water." So Jesus is like, "All right, come on, Peter." So he goes out there. And what really fascinated me today was this: Peter's out there, he's walking to Jesus, and then it says, "But when he saw the wind, he was afraid."

So best of my knowledge, you can't see wind. You can feel wind. You can hear wind, but you can't see wind. That's my knowledge. I think that's interesting because it points to like an illusion, right? Peter's walking on the water. What are we really being told here? We take our eyes off Jesus, you start to sink. That's basically what happened. Peter's out of the boat. He's walking on the water. He's walking towards Jesus. Everything's fine, takes his eye off Jesus. By what? Something that isn't. When he saw the wind, he took his eyes off Jesus for something that isn't, became afraid because of something that isn't, and he began to sink.

He cried out to the Lord, "Lord, save me." And Jesus says, "Oh, man of little faith." But here's the thing that I really want to talk about for a minute. He cried out to the Lord. There's lots of people sinking in their lives that don't cry out to the Lord. There's lots of people sinking that don't cry out, "Lord, save me." There's been times in my life when I was sinking, when I didn't cry out, "Lord, save me." There's probably been times in your life when you were sinking, but you didn't cry out, "Lord, save me." And Jesus did. And he does, and he wants to. So let's call out to him, let's cry out to him, let's beg him to, let's allow him to save us. Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself, be the-very-best-version-of-yourself, all that God created you to be.