Matthew 14:28 -31 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
I did not learn to swim until I was in eighth grade. It is not that I did not want to, or that I was afraid of the water, or that I never had swimming lessons. The problem was I can’t float on my back! My feet sink. (Yes, they stink too).
The lessons given every summer at the public swimming pool began with the bubble blowing class and kick board. I was great at those two things, but in order to graduate to the next level, which I think was the dog paddle, you had to demonstrate that you could float on your back. My feet sink.
The next year they would put me back into the bubble blowers because I could not pass the back floating test. My feet sink. By the time I got into fourth grade I stopped going to lessons because it was embarrassing to be stuck with the kindergarteners and blowing bubbles. People – my feet sink.
Since I had not graduated from bubble blowers I could never go beyond the shallow end of the pool during free time. I could not go off the slide; I could not jump off the diving board, I could not do any of those things that all my friends were doing. However, whenever we went on vacation to the lake I was in the lake either with a life vest on or using a paddle board but nobody ever taught me how to swim.
One summer we were at the lake and there was shallow section roped off for swimming and in a deeper part a floating raft that people were jumping off of. The friends I had made for the day all took off for the raft and I wanted to go along. I stopped to ask the life guard if I could cross over the rope into the deeper side. He asked me if I could swim. “Yes,” I lied. I must have looked guilty because he told me if I could swim across to the other side of the little lagoon I could cross over to be with my friends. I was caught in a lie, so I started off across the lagoon.
I didn’t get very far before I started floundering. In a panic I look back at the life guard who was nowhere in sight. I went down under the water, fortunately I had learned how to kick and so I started kicking furiously and I surfaced. I really thought I was going to drown, and was frantically praying for God to help me. Obviously I made it across, but I have never forgotten that panic.
I can only imagine what Peter was feeling as he started to sink. He was a seasoned man of the water yet because of the violent storm he knew he would drown and so he cried out for Jesus to save him. Jesus reached out and rescued Him and chided him for his lack of faith.
This incident has always been a story with question marks over it for me, especially about why Peter got out of the boat. Peter had the faith to walk on water to Jesus, but when he “took his eyes off of Jesus” and started looking at his circumstances he began to sink. There are two or three good lessons right there. The faith that starts out so well can lose focus. This story always calls to mind the stanza from the old hymn; “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”
Some time ago I heard a preacher point out something kind of interesting. When Peter saw Jesus he didn’t ask for permission to walk out to him. Instead, in his frightened doubt that it was Jesus on the water and not a ghost he said, “Lord, if it is you command me to walk out to you.” That kind of put Jesus in a tough spot; was Jesus going to say, “No, it’s not me?” It was Jesus, so the only alternative was to tell Peter to get out of the boat.
I’ve often wondered why Peter put it that way. Was he a thrill seeker? Was he just curious and wanted to know what walking on water would feel like? Did he think it was safer with Jesus than in the boat? Lots of questions. And why did Jesus go ahead and play along with Peter’s unreasonable request?
I wonder how many times we ask Jesus to answer a prayer that really is just a way to prove himself to us that really has no point. I also wonder how many times Jesus goes along with it, like he did with Peter, just to teach us a lesson about faith, himself as a Saviour, and that he truly is the Son of God worthy of worship.
Good lessons to learn, but almost drowning is a tough way to learn them.
P.S. One summer my brother was home from college and I asked him to teach me how to swim. In about 15 minutes he taught me how to do the basic crawl stroke. I still can’t float on my back – my feet sink.
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