The Gospel today is about faith and focus. It teaches that though storms and struggles inevitably arise, we have a choice as to whether we focus on them or on Jesus. The admonition of this Gospel is clear: keep your eyes on the prize … hold on!
Let’s look at this Gospel in four stages: Perceived Distance, Produced Distress, Point of Decision, and Process of Development.
I. PERCEIVED DISTANCE – The text tells us that Jesus drew back from the disciples and sent them to make the crossing of the lake on their own, intending to join them again later. During their crossing they encountered a storm. After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone.
In this brief text we encounter the mystery of God apparently hiding His face. Jesus, in drawing back from his disciples, exhibits the mysterious truth that God sometimes seems to hide His face. Scripture speaks elsewhere, elegantly, of this human experience:
And thus Scripture attests to the human experience that God hides His face from us.
But does He actually do so? Certainly to us it seems that He hides His face. But does He actually do so in such a way that He forgets about us?
Note that Jesus is not away on vacation. Neither is He out on the golf course. Rather, He is praying. As such, He is in communion with His Father, but surely also with His disciples. And while the storm grows, He makes His way toward them in stages.
At first they cannot see Him. Be He surely sees and knows them. Later, even when they do see Him, they cannot understand at first that it is He. They even mistake Him for a ghost, for someone or something that means them harm.
And so it is with us. For it often happens that we, too, conclude that God has hidden His face, that He is not mindful of the troubles we face. It seems to us that He is distant, perhaps unconcerned, and surely not visible to us.
But it is not always that God has simply hidden His face. It is often that we simply cannot see Him for any number of reasons. Sometimes it is simply that our minds are too weak and easily distracted. Sometimes it is our flesh, which demands to see everything in a physical manner and refuses to accept the reality of spiritual sight. Sometimes it is our prejudice, which demands to see and understand only in ways acceptable and pleasing to us, as if God could not possibly speak through our enemy, or through a child, or through a painful circumstance. God is there; He is not likely hiding but we struggle to see Him for these and other reasons.
So if God is hiding it is usually in plain sight. For in the end how can we possibly run away from God? Where could we go that He is not already there? Scripture says,
God permits us to experience His apparent distance and our experience of the hiding of His face is clearly attested to in Scripture. But this hiddenness is mysterious, for though God seems hidden, He is in fact more present to us than we are to our very selves.
What God offers us in this Gospel is a faith that grows to understand this and to see God always, a faith that permits us to be in living, conscious contact with God at every moment of the day. This is the normal Christian life that Christ died to give us. If we will be open to receive it, our faith will grow. And as our faith grows, so does our ability to experience this presence beyond what our senses can perceive. Yes as our faith grows, even in the midst of storms, we can still know He is near and draw strength and courage.
And this leads us to the next stage.
III. POINT OF DECISION - The text begins at the crucial point of the drama: During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Now the Lord presents them with a choice: focus on the storm or focus on Him. He does not just say to them, “Do not be afraid.” He says, “It is I; do not be afraid.” In other words, if they focus on Him they will not be afraid. If they come to experience His abiding presence many of their fears will dissipate.
It is the same for us. If we will accept the normal Christian life and come to more deeply and constantly experience the Lord’s presence, our fears will dissipate. It is NOT that there will be no storms. Rather, it is that they will not overwhelm us with fear.
So we also have a choice to make: either focus on the storms in our life or focus on the Lord. And the result will be that we will either live in growing fear by focusing on the storms, or we will grow in confidence and trust by focusing on the Lord.
There is an old saying, “What you feed, grows.” If we feed our fears and negativity they will grow. But if we feed our faith and trust they will grow.
So, what’s it going to be? What will we focus on? What will we feed?
Pray for the gift to focus increasingly on the Lord. Pray for the gift to feed your faith and starve your negativity and your storm-focused fears.
IV. PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT – The decision before the apostles is now clear. One of them, Peter, accepts the Lord’s offer to focus on Him rather than the storm. But as we see in the text, the decision to do this is, like most things in life, is more of an ongoing process than a one-time decision. It is something we must grow into by making many small decisions that develop into greater capacities by a process of growth in the grace the Lord is offering. Let’s look at Peter’s process:
So we have a decision to make: will we focus on the storm or on Jesus? We have to keep our eyes on the prize. The Book of Hebrews says, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:2). That’s right, keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on!
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reading I: 1Kings 19:9,11-13 II: Romans 11:33-36
22 Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
24 but the boat by this time was many furlongs distant from the land, beaten by the waves; for the wind was against them.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking 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 for fear.
27 But immediately he spoke to them, saying, "Take heart, it is I; have no fear."
28 And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water."
29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus;
30 but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."
31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "O man of little faith, why did you doubt?"
32 And 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."
Jesus is the Son of God.
"It is I" (v.27) denotes divinity (Is 41:4 and 43:10). Walking on the water is also associated with God's action: "Who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea (Job 9:8; see also Ex 14:13-31, Ps 77:20, Is 43:16, Hab 3:15). People, after seeing Jesus' actions and power, also proclaim his divinity (v.33).