The other Evangelists tell us that after the feeding of the five
thousand our Lord 'constrained' His disciples to get into the ship, and
to pass over to the other side. The language implies unwillingness, to
some extent, on their part, and the exercise of authority upon His. Our
Evangelist, who does not mention the constraint, supplies us with the
reason for it. The preceding miracle had worked up the excitement of
the mob to a very dangerous point. Crowds are always the same, and this
crowd thought, as any other crowd anywhere and in any age would have
done, that the prophet that could make bread at will was the kind of
prophet whom they wanted. So they determined to take Him by force, and
make Him a king; and Christ, seeing the danger, and not desiring that
His Kingdom should be furthered by such unclean hands and gross
motives, determined to withdraw Himself into the loneliness of the
bordering hills. It was wise to divide the little group; it would
distract attention; it might lead some of the people, as we know it did
lead them, to follow the boat when they found it was gone. It would
save the Apostles from being affected by the coarse, smoky enthusiasm
of the crowd. It would save them from revealing the place of His
retirement. It might enable Him to steal away more securely unobserved;
so they are sent across to the other side of the lake, some five or six
miles. An hour or two might have done it, but for some unknown reason
they seem to have lingered. Perhaps they had no special call for haste.
The Paschal moon, nearly full, would be shining down upon the waters;
their hearts and minds would be busy with the miracle which they had
just seen. And so they may have drifted along, not caring much when
they reached their destination. But suddenly one of the gusts of wind
which are frequently found upon mountain lakes, especially towards
nightfall, rose and soon became a gale with which they could not
battle. Our Evangelist does not tell us how long it lasted, but we get
a note of time from St. Mark, who says it was 'about the fourth watch
of the night'; that is between the hours of three and six in the
morning of the subsequent day. So that for some seven or eight hours at
least they had been tugging at the useless oars, or sitting shivering,
wet and weary, in the boat.
Is it not the history of the Church in a nutshell? Is it not the symbol
of life for us all? The solemn law under which we live demands
persistent effort, and imposes continual antagonism upon us; there is
no reason why we should regard that as evil, or think ourselves hardly
used, because we are not fair-weather sailors. The end of life is to
make men; the meaning of all events is to mould character. Anything
that makes me stronger is a blessing, anything that develops my
_morale_ is the highest good that can come to me. If therefore
antagonism mould in me
'The wrestling thews that throw the world,'
and give me good, strong muscles, and put tan and colour into my cheek,
I need not mind the cold and the wet, nor care for the whistling of the
wind in my face, nor the dash of the spray over the bows. Summer
sailing in fair weather, amidst land-locked bays, in blue seas, and
under calm skies, may be all very well for triflers, but
'Blown seas and storming showers'
are better if the purpose of the voyage be to brace us and call out our
powers.
And so be thankful if, when the boat is crossing the mouth of some glen
that opens upon the lake, a sudden gust smites the sheets and sends you
to the helm, and takes all your effort to keep you from sinking. Do not
murmur, or think that God's Providence is strange, because many and
many a time when 'it is dark, and Jesus is not yet come to us,' the
storm of wind comes down upon the lake and threatens to drive us from
our course. Let us rather recognise Him as the Lord who, in love and
kindness, sends all the different kinds of weather which, according to
the old proverb, make up the full-summed year.
And then notice how, in this first picture of our text, the symbolism
so naturally lends itself to spiritual meanings, not only in regard to
the tempest that caught the unthinking voyagers, but also in regard to
other points; such as the darkness amidst which they had to fight the
tempest, and the absence of the Master. Once before, they had been
caught in a similar storm on the lake, but it was daylight then, and
Jesus was with them, and that made all the difference. This time it was
night, and they looked up in vain to the green Eastern hills, and
wondered where in their folds He was lurking, so far from their help.
Mark gives us one sweet touch when he tells us that Christ on the
hillside there _saw_ them toiling in rowing, but they did not see Him.
No doubt they felt themselves deserted, and sent many a wistful glance
of longing towards the shore where He was. Hard thoughts of Him may
have been in some of their minds. 'Master, carest Thou not?' would be
springing to some of their lips with more apparent reason than in the
other storm on the lake. But His calm and loving gaze looked down
pitying on all their fear and toil. The darkness did not hide from Him,
nor His own security on the steadfast land make Him forget, nor his
communion with the Father so absorb Him as to exclude thoughts of them.
It is a parable and a prophecy of the perpetual relation between the
absent Lord and the toiling Church. He is on the mountain while we are
on the sea. The stable eternity of the Heavens holds Him; we are tossed
on the restless mutability of time, over which we toil at His command.
He is there interceding for us. Whilst He prays He beholds, and He
beholds that He may help us by His prayer. The solitary crew were not
so solitary as they thought. That little dancing speck on the waters,
which held so much blind love and so much fear and trouble, was in His
sight, as on the calm mountain-top He communed with God. No wonder that
weary hearts and lonely ones, groping amidst the darkness, and fighting
with the tempests and the sorrows of lift, have ever found in our story
a symbol that comes to them with a prophecy of hope and an assurance of
help, and have rejoiced to know that they on the sea are beheld of the
Christ in the sky, and that 'the darkness hideth not from' His loving
eye.
II. And now turn to the next stage of the story before us. We have the
approaching Christ.
'When they had rowed about five-and-twenty or thirty furlongs,' and so
were just about the middle of the lake, 'they see Jesus walking on the
sea and drawing nigh unto the ship.' They were about half-way across
the lake. We do not know at what hour in the fourth watch the Master
came. But probably it was towards daybreak. Toiling had endured for a
night. It would be in accordance with the symbolism that joy and help
should come with the morning.
If we look for a moment at the miraculous fact, apart from the
symbolism, we have a revelation here of Christ as the Lord of the
material universe, a kingdom wider in its range and profounder in its
authority than that which that shouting crowd had sought to force upon
Him. His will consolidated the yielding wave, or sustained His material
body on the tossing surges. Whether we suppose the miracle as wrought
on the one or the other, makes no difference to its value as a
manifestation of the glory of Christ, and of His power over the
physical order of things. In the latter case there would, perhaps, be a
hint of a power residing in His material frame, of which we possibly
have other phases, as in the Transfiguration, which may be a prophecy
of what lordship over nature is possible to a sinless manhood. However
that may be, we have here a wonderful picture which is true for all
ages of the mighty Christ, to whose gentle footfall the unquiet surges
are as a marble pavement; and who draws near in the purposes of His
love, unhindered by antagonism, and using even opposing forces as the
path for His triumphant progress. Two lessons may be drawn from this.
One is that in His marvellous providence Christ uses all the tumults
and unrest, the opposition and tempests which surround the ship that
bears His followers, as the means of achieving His purposes. We stand
before a mystery to which we have no key when we think of these two
certain facts; first, the Omnipotent redeeming will of God in Christ;
and, second, the human antagonism which is able to rear itself against
that. And we stand in the presence of another mystery, most blessed,
and yet which we cannot unthread, when we think, as we most assuredly
may, that in some mysterious fashion He works His purposes by the very
antagonism to His purposes, making even head-winds fill the sails, and
planting His foot on the white crests of the angry and changeful
billows. How often in the world's history has this scene repeated
itself, and by a divine irony the enemies have become the helpers of
Christ's cause, and what they plotted for destruction has turned out
rather to the furtherance of the Gospel! 'He maketh the wrath of man to
praise Him, and with the residue thereof He girdeth Himself.'
Another lesson for our individual lives is this, that Christ, in His
sweetness and His gentle sustaining help, comes near to us all across
the sea of sorrow and trouble. A more tender, a more gracious sense of
His nearness to us is ever granted to us in the time of our darkness
and our grief than is possible to us in the sunny hours of joy. It is
always the stormy sea that Christ comes across, to draw near to us; and
they who have never experienced the tempest have yet to learn the
inmost sweetness of His presence. When it is night, and it is dark, at
the hour which is the keystone of night's black arch, Christ comes to
us, striding across the stormy waters. Sorrow brings _Him_ near to
_us_. Do you see that sorrow does not drive _you_ away from Him!
III. Then, still further, we note in the story before us the terror and
the recognition.
St. John does not tell us why they were afraid. There is no need to
tell us. They see, possibly in the chill uncertain light of the grey
dawn breaking over the Eastern hills, a Thing coming to them across the
water there. They had fought gallantly with the storm, but this
questionable shape freezes their heart's blood, and a cry, that is
audible above even the howling of the wind and the dash of the waves,
gives sign of the superstitious terror that crept round the hearts of
those commonplace, rude men.
I do not dwell upon the fact that the average man, if he fancies that
anything from out of the Unseen is near him, shrinks in fear. I do not
ask you whether that is not a sign and indication of the deep
conviction that lies in men's souls, of a discord between themselves
and the unseen world; but I ask you if we do not often mistake the
coming Master, and tremble before Him when we ought to be glad?
We are often so absorbed with our work, so busy tugging at the oar, so
anxiously watching the set of current, so engaged in keeping the helm
right, that we have no time and no eyes to look across the ocean and
see who it is that is coming to us through all the hurly-burly. Our
tears fill our eyes, and weave a veil between us and the Master. And
when we do see that there is Something there, we are often afraid of
it, and shrink from it. And sometimes when a gentle whisper of
consolation, or some light air, as it were, of consciousness of His
presence, breathes through our souls, we think that it is only a
phantasm of our own making, and that the coming Christ is nothing more
than the play of our thoughts and imaginations.
Oh, brethren, let no absorption in cares and duties, let no unchildlike
murmurings, let no selfish abandonment to sorrow, blind you to the Lord
who always comes near troubled hearts, if they will only look and see!
Let no reluctance to entertain religious ideas, no fear of contact with
the Unseen, no shrinking from the thought of Christ as a _Kill-joy_
keep you from seeing Him as He draws near to you in your troubles. And
let no sly, mocking Mephistopheles of doubt, nor any poisonous air,
blowing off the foul and stagnant marshes of present materialism, make
you fancy that the living Reality, treading on the flood there, is a
dream or a fancy or the projection of your own imagination on to the
void of space. He is real, whatever may be phenomenal and surface. The
storm is not so real as the Christ, the waves not so substantial as He
who stands upon them. They will pass and quieten, He will abide for
ever. Lift up your hearts and be glad, because the Lord comes to you
across the waters, and hearken to His voice: 'It is I! Be not afraid.'
The encouragement not to fear follows the proclamation, 'It is I!' What
a thrill of glad confidence must have poured itself into their hearts,
when once they rose to the height of that wondrous fact!
'Well roars the storm to those who hear
A deeper voice across the storm.'
There is no fear in the consciousness of His presence. It is His old
word: 'Be not afraid!' And He breathes it whithersoever He comes; for
His coming is the banishment of danger and the exorcism of dread. So
that if only you and I, in the midst of all storm and terror, can say
'It is the Lord,' then we may catch up the grand triumphant chorus of
the old psalm, and say: 'Though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, yet I
will not fear.' The Lord is with us; the everlasting Christ is our
Helper, our Refuge, and our Strength.
IV. So, lastly, we have here in this story the end of the tempest and
of the voyage.
Our Evangelist does not record, as the others do, that the storm ceased
upon Christ's being welcomed into the little boat. The other
Evangelists do not record, as he does, the completion of the voyage.
'Immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.' The two
things are cause and effect. I do not suppose, as many do, that a
subordinate miracle is to be seen in that last clause of our text, or
that the 'immediately' is to be taken as if it meant that without one
moment's delay, or interval, the voyage was completed; but only, which
I think is all that is needful, that the falling of the tempest and the
calming of the waters which followed upon the Master's entrance into
the vessel made the remainder of the voyage comparatively brief and
swift.
It is not always true, it is very seldom true, that when Christ comes
on board opposition ends, and the haven is reached. But it is always
true that when Christ comes on board a new spirit enters into the men
who have Him for their companion, and are conscious that they have. It
makes their work easy, and makes them 'more than conquerors' over what
yet remains. With what a different spirit the weary men would bend
their backs to the oars once more when they had the Master on board,
and with what a different spirit you and I will set ourselves to our
work if we are sure of His presence. The worst of trouble is gone when
Christ shares it with us. There is a wonderful charm to stay His rough
wind in the assurance that in all our affliction He is afflicted. If we
feel that we are following in His footsteps, we feel that He stands
between us and the blast, a refuge from the storm and a covert from the
tempest. And if still, as no doubt will be the case, we have our share
of trouble and storm and sorrow and difficulty, yet the worst of the
gale will be passed, and though a long swell may still heave, the
terror and the danger will have gone with the night, and hope and
courage and gladness revive as the morning's sun breaks over the still
unquiet waves, and shows us our Master with us and the white walls of
the port glinting in the level beams.
Friends, life is a voyage, anyhow, with plenty of storm and danger and
difficulty and weariness and exposure and anxiety and dread and sorrow,
for every soul of man. But if you will take Christ on board, it will be
a very different thing from what it will be if you cross the wan waters
alone. Without Him you will make shipwreck of yourselves; with Him your
voyage may seem perilous and be tempestuous, but He will 'make the
storm a calm,' and will bring you to the haven of your desire.