Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Most Christians, nearly two-thirds of them, report at some point in their lives having “experienced a time of spiritual doubt”, at which times “they questioned what they believed about their religion or God”. So the Barna Group concluded in July from data gathered online in June. Perhaps today you and I also could say that we have experienced those kinds of doubts or perhaps even other kinds of doubts, including questioning why God permits us to suffer and whether or not He ultimately will save us from our suffering. In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus’s disciples had both their doubts about Who Jesus was and the resulting fear, but, as we heard, Jesus not only spoke to them in order to remove their doubts and fears, but, in the case of Peter, Jesus also literally reached out His hand and took hold of Peter in order to save him. As we this morning consider today’s Gospel Reading, we realize that “Jesus saves us from doubt and fear”.
We get to hear about Jesus’s walking on water in two of the three years of our series of Gospel Readings, but only this year, when we hear St. Matthew’s account, do we hear about Peter’s role. Yet, the “little faith” that doubts and fears was not limited to Peter when he was out of the boat and saw the wind, but the “little faith that doubts and fears also characterized Peter and all of the disciples in the boat who were terrified, who said that Jesus was a ghost, and who cried out in fear (confer Matthew 8:23-27). To their three-fold reaction Jesus immediately gave a three-fold response: Jesus told them all to “take heart”, which can mean, instead of doubting, to trust (or “believe”) further in something or someone (Grundmann, TDNT 3:25-26), Jesus identified Himself as Himself, and He told them not to be afraid (Gibbs, ad loc Mt 14:25-29a, 760-761).
Immediately after feeding five-thousand men, besides women and children (Matthew 14:13-21), Jesus had made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side. And, at Peter’s command, Jesus commanded Peter to come to Him on the water—as God in today’s Old Testament Reading had asked Job whether he had done (Job 38:4-18). You could say Jesus put the disciples into the circumstances where they doubted and feared. However, the problem was not with Jesus but with the disciples, just as the problem in the various circumstances of our lives wherein we doubt and fear is not with God but with us. Although we might deduce various reasons why, the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew does not tell us why Jesus wanted the disciples in the boat, surely knowing they would be beaten by the waves, with the wind against them, nor does St. Matthew tell us why Jesus commanded Peter to walk on the water, surely knowing that Peter would see the wind, doubt, fear, and begin to sink (or “drown”). Similarly we might deduce various reasons why God permits us to face the various circumstances of our lives, but sometimes deducing those reasons does not really help us in, much less does it excuse, our moments of doubt and fear.
God, in His infinite wisdom and power that rules over all things for the benefit of His Church, at least in some sense permits everything that happens on earth, from the United States’s nuclear tension with North Korea, to whatever might have happened to us in the car this morning on our way to church. Like the first man and woman in the Garden, we have God’s assuring Word, but we doubt it—in our case, at least initially because they doubted it. From them we inherit our sinful nature, and then we add all sorts of sins of our own, whether doubt and fear, or things seemingly much worse. On account of our sinful nature and all our sin, we deserve death now in time and punishment in hell for all eternity, but instead God leads us to cry out, “Lord, save me!” And, as we sang in the Introit, He answers us and delivers us from all our doubts and fears (Psalm 34:4-8; antiphon Psalm 34:1).
Of course, today’s Gospel Reading is about far more than our—or even Peter’s and the other disciples’—doubts and fears. Today’s Gospel Reading is about Jesus, true man but also true God, demonstrating His divine power over water in order to save Peter and the other disciples from their distress at sea (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 14:24, 503; confer ad loc 14:25, 504). With His death on the cross for the sins of the whole world, Jesus eventually also saves them, you, and me from the death and hell that they and we deserve on account of our sin. Jesus is no ghost (or “phantasm”) of which they or we need to be terrified or afraid, but rather Jesus truly is the Son of God in human flesh, come to save us from all our distresses, most especially our sins. Jesus later confessed His identity as the Son of God in connection with the trial that led to His crucifixion for us (Matthew 26:63-64), and today we note how His identity is central to His telling His disciples and us to take heart (that is, not to doubt) and to not be afraid. We heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 10:5-17), we do not have to go up into heaven or descend into hell in order to find Jesus, but He comes to us in His Word in all its forms. By His love, mercy, and grace, when we confess our sins and believe in Him, then we are justified and saved.
Part of the disciples’ doubt and fear may have arisen because Jesus came to them in a way that they did not expect—although, if they had believed fully, they might have expected it). Jesus also comes to and saves us in ways that are contrary to some people’s expectations, although, if they believe fully, they should expect them, too. Jesus comes to us in His read and preached Word. Jesus reaches out and takes hold of us in the water of Holy Baptism, rescuing us from death and the devil. So Baptized, we, by daily contrition and repentance, drown and put to death our sinful nature, privately confessing before our pastor, when we need to, the sins we know and feel in our hearts, for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. So absolved, we receive Holy Communion, partaking of Jesus’s true Body in bread and His true Blood in wine, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, but also to strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting.
In today’s Gospel Reading, after Jesus was in the boat, the wind ceased and those in the boat worshiped Him, no longer cowering at a distance, confessing that He was a ghost, but worshipping at His feet, confessing that He truly is the Son of God. Here, in the boat of His Church, although the literal and figurative storms may still rage, we worship at the foot of His Altar where He is truly present, confessing that He truly is the Son of God. So rescued, worshipping, and confessing, we may yet at times think Him to be less-powerful than the storms that rage against us (Franzmann, Follow Me, 142), or we may yet at times sin in other ways, but with daily repentance and faith we continuously seek His forgiveness, and we pray that He would help our doubts and fears (Mark 9:24) by increasing our faith (Luke 17:5). Jesus is there to save us and in fact does save us despite our otherwise inadequate faith (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 14:31, 509)!
Today’s Gospel Reading surely is about far more than our—or even Peter’s and the other disciples’—doubts and fears, but that Jesus demonstrated His divine power over water in order to save Peter and the other disciples from their distress at sea also means that with His death on the cross Jesus can and has saved us from our sins and so also can and does save us from our doubts and fears. As we sang in the Gradual, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers us out of them all (Psalm 34:9, 19, altered). Not surprisingly, the Barna Group’s survey reports most Christians who at one time doubt make it through those doubts stronger, especially when they are part of a church. Nineteenth-century hymn‑writer Julie von Hausmann certainly knew the Lord’s deliverance first hand. She was of ill health and gave up her own career to care for her blind father, but those afflictions did not keep her from other works of love, including her poetry (Precht, 638). In the words of her hymn with which we will close our service this morning, we confess and pray now (Lutheran Service Book 722:2):
Lord, when the tempest rages, / I need not fear,
For You the Rock of Ages, / Are always near.
Close by Your side abiding, / I fear no foe,
For when Your hand is guiding, / In peace I go.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +