The Living Word of God: Mt 14,22–33
Let's first consider this event in a broader context. Jesus has just miraculously fed a large crowd of people. Following the healing that concerns individuals, there is an action that represents a kind of widespread spreading of God’s kingdom. These are no longer just happy individuals who have experienced Jesus’ power, but “everyone ate until they were satisfied.”
Under these circumstances—“immediately afterward”—the Lord “compelled the disciples to get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.” It is already strange that Jesus reserves the dismissal of the crowds for himself. He couldn’t entrust the multiplication of the loaves and fish to the disciples, but he certainly could allow them to dismiss the people! The disciples have no choice but to get into the boat and sail away, probably without clear information on when and how the Lord would rejoin them. From a human perspective, this lacks logic, at least at this moment.
But Jesus knows what he is doing. He wants the disciples to experience something of what will be their fate after he is no longer physically with them. They are sent to sail to the other side, and Jesus—naturally present—is not among them. Their only support must be his word... and faith. Later, this situation will indeed be repeated when the Lord tells them: “Go to all nations, I am with you all days until the end of this age,” and he himself will depart to the Father (cf. Mt 28,19n).
When the disciples find themselves on the sea, it is tough going, they must exert themselves, “because the wind was against them.” This experience remains vividly alive in the history of the church: effort and adversity. Jesus’ coming in the early morning “on the sea” certainly does not represent a natural way of arriving. This action is also symbolic, not practical. Jesus never utilized his divine power to make his life easier in practical ways. Let us recall his forty-day stay in the wilderness, where he fasted, “until he was hungry” (Mt 4,2), and he certainly rejected the temptation to turn stones into bread. Our current situation is similar in that even today, Jesus does not come to us in a natural way; his coming belongs to a different order.
On the boat, the Lord then found his disciples in a certain state: there is a rather understandable fear because they were certainly not used to such a way of the Lord's arrival, and they probably were not forewarned about it either. For us today, the Lord's coming—e.g., in the Eucharist—usually does not cause fear, and that is all right. We save Jesus the words: “Take courage... do not be afraid!” It is a question whether the absence of fear can testify to our lack of faith. Furthermore, Jesus finds faith on the boat! Peter “takes courage” and at Jesus’ command steps out onto the sea. This is yet again an experience repeated countless times by Jesus’ disciples throughout the ages—looking steadfastly at the Lord and in obedience to his word, they do what surpasses human abilities and possibilities.
However, Peter's subsequent experience is also quite numerous. The moment I begin to look around me more, consider the size of the waves or other dangers, and I lose sight of the Lord, I sink. Fortunately, at this moment the pericope does not end. Jesus evidently wanted to keep his candidate for the later papacy: “Immediately he reached out his hand and caught him.” After every existential cry of ours, “Lord, save me!” comes the same response from Jesus. And how many times have the Lord’s words, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” served as a conviction of our own lack of faith!
The meaning of Jesus’ actions and the entire pericope is evident from the disciples’ final reaction: “They worshiped him and said: Truly, you are the Son of God.” These words were not dictated to them by the Lord. Nor were they “revealed to them by flesh and blood,” but by the Father (cf. Mt 16,17). Through his actions, Jesus enabled the Father to draw his disciples a little deeper into his mystery. Then, in the morning, on the Sea of Gennesaret, the worship of the Son of God took place, worship of God. God was glorified in a world that largely did not know and did not accept him. The same can happen today through me.
(Norbert Žuška, O.Carm.)
