45Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. 47Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. 48He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 51Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. — Mark 6: 45-52
After a long and busy day of ministry, Jesus dismissed the crowds and decided to have some quiet moment alone in prayer.
These moments of solitude were very precious to the Lord, especially as he continued to stay focused, and truly conduct his ministry in the way that God had called for him to do so.
He instructed his disciples to take the boat to go ahead of him to the next town Bethsaida in the middle of the night. Unexpectedly, the winds blew stronger. Shortly, the disciples struggled to navigate. Panic-stricken, the disciples tried to manage the situation the best way they could, but things got out of hand.
Seeing what was happening from afar, Jesus came to his disciples’ rescue. We read that they suddenly saw Jesus walking on water, obviously to come to their rescue. But in the version of Matthew of the same account, we learn that the disciples did not immediately recognize the Lord. They thought they had seen a ghost, and became even more terrified. They only realized it was Jesus when he finally said, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
What gives this account an interesting twist is the fact that according to the gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and John, this particular incident happened just a few hours after Jesus performed the feeding of the 5,000.
In the version of Mark, he wrote of the disciples, “They were completely amazed for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.” (Mark 6: 52).
Of the same verse, the TEV Bible reads, “The disciples were completely amazed because they had not understood the real meaning of the feeding of the 5,000; their minds could not grasp it.”
It must have been very frustrating for Jesus to discover that after being witnesses to one of the greatest miracles ever performed by the Lord, his disciples still failed to grasp the real meaning of the Lord’s power.
How telling this is of the frailty of our faith and understanding of the Lord’s ways. One moment we are in awe of God’s power, and in another, we shrink back in the face of fear.
This theological tension of faith and fear; and fear and faith will always be part of our human frailty. This is the glaring reality that we see from our scripture reading.
What did Jesus really mean when he said, “It is I?”
In spiritual language, stillness is not the absence of action. On the contrary, stillness is putting our faith to work.
In the Old Testament (1 Kings 19: 1-12), we read a famous account where prophet Elijah, while in Mount Horeb, waited for the Lord to pass by. If you remember, three things happened: the great wind came, a mighty earthquake came, and finally, there came fire; but in all three, we are told, the Lord was not there.
Where was the Lord? Well, according to the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the Lord was in the sound of sheer silence.
In an article titled Silence is to dwell in, stillness is a kind of silence that is large enough, long enough, and intentional enough to open a sacred space for the Holy One to enter.
In other words, stillness, in the truest sense of it, is our ability to accept both what God chooses to do or not to do in our situations.
You see, the disciples were coming from a very self-serving and dictating concept of faith. After the feeding of the 5,000 when the people saw the power of Jesus, they were even willing to make him King.
They only wanted Jesus for as long as he served their purposes, but the moment they got what they wanted, they leave Jesus behind.
This kind of faith is dangerous and very unsafe. Unfortunately though, this is the kind of faith that the world promotes these days.
It is a kind of faith that is making a mockery of God, and his sovereignty upon our lives.
But you see, this kind of faith is powerless and ineffective. This kind of faith can never hold us together when the real storms of life come.
Brothers and sisters, being still can be the hardest thing to do when we are in the thick of crisis, or when things are falling apart.
But when all is said and done, there is greater wisdom when we give God the space that he wants to move in our lives. When God declared his favor upon the Israelites, Moses uttered the Lord’s awesome promise to his people EX 14:13 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you …14The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
When Jesus said the words, “It is I”, he was drawing the attention of his disciples away from the rising water and the strong winds. It’s not that Jesus was drawing their attention away from reality of the situation.
On the contrary, Jesus was bringing them to a right perspective of the problem.
We have all tasted panic, someway, somehow: when we receive a sudden and unexpected news of disease, when we are faced with very large financial obligations, when we are confronted with discipline problems with our children, when we are betrayed by friends and loved ones.
The panic-stricken disciples were not able to recognize the presence of Jesus walking towards them. They were so overwhelmed by the situation, they almost missed out on their very redemption.
Panic often leads us to miscalculate our situations. We end up making impulsive decisions that are arbitrary and counterproductive.
Being sure is not mere wishful thinking. It is about perspective. It is the ability to see every situation in our lives from the perspective of God’s sovereignty and eternal purposes for us, regardless of what happens.
For sure, we will all have our share of strong winds and rough waters in this life. We will all find ourselves in situations that will overwhelm us, and intimidate us to our very core.
My prayer is that we may all find the strength to be still, and to be sure, remembering the words of the Only One who comes and rescues us each and every time, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
