I’m not sure which is more amazing: that Jesus walked on the water to reach the disciples in a storm-tossed boat, or that Peter was able to take a few steps on the water himself.
As impressed as I am that Peter managed a few steps across the water before losing his nerve, I’m intrigued by that particular moment when the gospel tells us that Peter began to sink. He didn’t plummet like a rock, nor did he quite get the hang of walking on water either. It’s as if there was some kind of tension holding him near the surface, rather than above or below it.
The story of walking on water is a story about a miracle, but it’s also a story about fear. The disciples were in a boat tossed around by a sudden and terrifying storm, so they feared for their lives. Jesus walked through the storm on the surface of the water toward them and, thinking he was a ghost, they were even more afraid. Peter, of course, becomes frightened as he walks on the water, when a strong wind brings him back to the supposed reality where he was doing something he shouldn’t be able to do.
Too much of our lives is spent in fear. God calls us instead to live faithfully, which perhaps doesn’t mean “belief” so much as forgetting our fears long enough to trust that God will provide for us. Peter doesn’t walk across the water because he’s suddenly brave or even convinced in the divinity of Jesus: he seems to have forgotten his fears long enough to do something that he didn’t think was possible.
Our lives are often a balance between faith and fear, a tension that holds us at or near the waterline of our lives. Yet Jesus is always calling us to imagine what is possible when we overcome the fears that would hold us back.
Better yet, we must imagine what is possible when we forget our fears altogether.
Faithfully,
