What does it mean to be a Water-walker?

DAILY BYTE

Yet it is in the stepping out of our boats, that we begin to wrestle with the biggest question of this story, which is:

What does it actually mean (for us) to be a water-walker? What exactly is the story trying to teach us here?

People have often wondered about the laws of nature that Jesus seemingly broke with impunity as he strolled across a couple of metric tons of heaving H2O. How did he do it we wonder?

Yet, perhaps the deepest part of the story is not so much how Jesus walked on water, but rather why? To be spectacular and gain attention? Well, we know from how Jesus actively avoided the attention his miracles brought, that this was just not his style.

No, the point is this: Only God can walk on the waves! That’s what the Bible teaches. In Job. In Isaiah. In Habakkuk. In the Psalms.

In Bible-speak, it is God who walks the sea, calms the sea, tames the sea, parts the sea. Again, why?

Well, because in ancient Near Eastern thought, the sea was a place of evil. Leviathan lived there – the enemy of everything right and good dwelled in the water. In the Bible, deep water represented a place of sheer chaos. And in this story, God, in the person of Jesus, walks ON the sea, putting everything that is oppositional to God literally under his feet.

To be a water-walker means that we follow God in this journey of walking over evil.

Jesus broke all natural laws of science (as we understand them), by walking on water, but we are called to break many other ‘natural’ laws of humanity by how and why we live.

It seems totally unnatural to forgive great hurts, but that’s what Jesus calls us to do. That’s walking on water. It seems bizarre to love not only our friends and family, but also our enemies and those we fear. That’s walking on water.

It seems fundamentally crazy to turn away from a survival of the fittest and wealthiest and instead seek to live lives of service to widows, orphans, and the poor and the weak. Well, that is walking on water. That is walking over this world’s chaos, hurt and pain.

To walk on water is to follow Jesus in walking over evil, and work to overturn many of our ‘natural’ laws of injustice.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Almighty God, Lord of earth, sea and sky, you call me to follow you in overturning ‘natural’ human laws of un-forgiveness, greed and selfishness. Help me to walk on water as I obediently seek to do your will and work against the chaos in this world. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Matthew 14 : 28-33

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. "He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You 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."