'And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou,
bid me come unto Thee on the water.'--MATT. xiv. 28.
We owe this account of an episode in the miracle of Christ's walking
on the waters to Matthew alone. Singularly enough there is no
reference to Peter's venturesomeness and failure in the Gospel which
is generally believed to have been written under his special
inspection and suggestion. Mark passes by that part of the narrative
without a word. That may be because Peter was somewhat ashamed of
it, or it may be from a natural disinclination to make himself
prominent in the story at all. But, whatever the reason, we may be
thankful that in this first Gospel we have the story, for it is not
only interesting as illustrating the characteristics of the apostle
in a very picturesque fashion, but also as carrying in it very
plainly large lessons that are of use for us all.
I. Note, first, Peter's venturesomeness, half faith, and half
presumption.
There is a singular mixture of good and bad in it. Looked at one
way, it seems all right; like a bit of shot silk, in one light it is
bright, and in another it is black enough. What was good in it?
Well, there was the man's out-and-out confidence in his Master; and
there was, further, the unconsidered, instinctive shoot of love in
his heart to the mysterious figure standing there upon the water, so
that his desire was to be beside Him. It was far more 'Bid me come
_to Thee_!' than 'Bid me come to Thee _on the water_.' The
incident was a kind of rehearsal, with a noticeable difference, and
yet with nearly parallel circumstances, of the other incident when,
after the Resurrection, he discovered the Lord standing on the
shore, and floundered through the water anyhow; whether on it or in
it did not matter to him, so long as he could get near his Master.
But though the apostle's action was blended with a great deal that
was childish and sensuous, and was perhaps quite as much the result
of mere temperament as of conscious affection, still there was good
in that eager longing to be beside his Lord, which it would be well
for us if we in some measure shared, and in that indifference to the
perils of the strange path so long as it led to Christ's side,
which, if it were ours, would ennoble our lives, and in that perfect
confidence that Christ could enable him to tread the unquiet sea,
which would make us lords of all storms, if it wrought in us.
What was bad in it? First, the characteristic pushing of himself to
the front, and wish to be singled out from his brethren by some
special token. 'Bid _me_ come.' Why should he be bidden any more
than John, who sits quietly and gazes, or the others, who are tugging
at the oars? Then the impetuous rashness and signal over-estimate of
his own capacity and courage were bad. Perhaps, too, there was a
little dash of a boyish kind of wish to do a strange thing, and now
that he sees his Master there, walking on the waters, he thinks he
would like to try it too. So the request is a rash, self-confident
pushing of himself before his brethren into circumstances of wholly
unnecessary peril and trial, of which he had not estimated the
severity till he felt the water beginning to yield under his feet
and the wind smiting him on the face. So that the incident is a
rehearsal and anticipation of the precisely similar thing that he did
when, on the morning of Christ's trial, he shouldered himself
unnecessarily into the high priest's palace, and got himself close
up against the fire there, without a moment's reflection on the
possible danger he was running of having his loyalty melted by a
fiercer flame, and little dreaming that he was going to fall, and all
his courage to ooze out at his finger-ends, before the sharp tongue
of a maid-servant. In like manner as he says here, 'Bid me come to
Thee,' without the smallest doubt that when he was bade to come he
would be able to do it, so he said that night: 'Though all should
forsake Thee, yet will not I,'--and yet he denied Him.
Let us take the warning from this venturesomeness of a generous,
impulsive, enthusiastic religious nature, and remember that the most
genuine faith and religious emotion need to be sobered and steadied
by reflection, and by searching into our own motives, before we
venture upon the water, howsoever much we may wish to go there. Make
very sure that your zeal for the Lord has an element of sober
permanence in it, and that it is the result, not of a mere
transitory feeling, but of a steady, settled purpose. And do not
push yourself voluntarily into places of peril or of difficulty,
where the fighting is hard and the fire heavy, unless you have
reasonable grounds for believing that you can stand the strain.
Bring quiet, sober reason into the loftiest and loveliest enthusiasm
of your faith, and then there will be something in it that will live
through storm, and walk the water with unwetted and unsinking foot.
An impure alloy of selfish itching for pre-eminence and distinction
does not seldom mingle with the fine gold of religious enthusiasm
and desire to serve and be near our Lord. Therefore we have to test
our motives and seek to refine our purest emotions, and the more
scrupulously the purer they seem, lest we be yielding to the
impulses of self while we fancy that we are being drawn by the
magnetism of Christ.
II. We have here the momentary triumph and swift collapse of an
impure faith.
One can fancy with what hushed expectation the other apostles looked at
Peter as he let himself down over the side of the ship, and his feet
touched the surges and did not sink. Christ's grave, single-worded
answer 'Come' barely sanctions the apostle's request. It is at most a
permission, but scarcely a command, and it is permission to try, in
order that Peter may learn his own weakness. He did walk on the water
to go to Jesus. What kept him up? Not Christ's hand, nor any power
bestowed on the apostle, but simply the exercise of Christ's will. But
if he was held up by the operation of that will, why did he begin to
sink? The vivid narrative tells us: 'When he saw the wind boisterous,
he was afraid.' That was why. It had been blowing every bit as hard
before he stepped out of the ship. The waves were not running any
higher after than when he said, 'Bid me come to Thee.' But he was
down amongst them, and that makes a wonderful difference. For a
moment he stood, and then the peril into which he had so heedlessly
thrust himself began to tell on him. Presumption subsided swiftly
into fright, as it usually does, and fear began to fulfil itself,
as it usually does. 'He became afraid,' and that made him heavy and
he began to sink. Not because the gale was any more violent, not
because the uneven pavement was any more yielding, but because he was
frightened, and his faith began to falter at the close sight of the
danger.
And why did the ebbing away of faith mean the withdrawal of Christ's
will to keep him up? Why? Because it could not but be so. There is
only one door through which Christ's upholding power gets into a
man, and that is the door of the man's trust in the power; and if he
shuts the door, the power stops outside. So Peter went down. The
text does not tell us how far down he went. Depend upon it, it was
further than over the shoes! But he went down because he began to
lose his trust that Christ could hold him up; and when he lost his
trust, Christ lost His power over him.
All this is a parable, carrying very plain and important lessons. We
are upborne by Christ's power, and that power, working on and in our
weakness, invests us with prerogatives in some measure like His own.
If He can stand quiet on the heaving wave, so can His servant. 'The
works that I do shall ye do also'--and 'the depths of the sea
"become" a way for the ransomed to pass over.' That power is
exercised on condition of our faith. As soon as faith ceases the
influx of His grace is stayed. Peter, though probably he was not
thinking of this incident, has put the whole philosophy of it into
plain words in his own letter, when he says, 'You who are kept
_by_ the power of God _through_ faith unto salvation.' He was held up
as long as he believed. His belief was a hand, and that which it
grasped was what held him up, and that was Christ's will and power.
So we shall be held up everywhere, and in any storm, as long as, and
no longer than, we set our confidence upon Him.
Our faith is sure to fail when we turn away our eyes from Christ to
look at the tempest and the dangers. If we keep our gaze fixed upon
Him, the consciousness and the confidence of His all-sustaining
power will hold us up. If once we turn aside to look at the waves as
they heave, and prick our ears to listen to the wind as it whistles,
then we shall begin to doubt whether He is able to keep us up.
'Looking off' from all these dangers 'unto Jesus' is needful if we
are to run the race set before us.
A man walking along a narrow ledge of some Alpine height has only
one chance of safety, and that is, not to look at his feet or at the
icy rocks beside him, or at the gulf beneath, into which he will be
dashed if he gazes down. He must look up and onwards, and then he
will walk along a knife-edge, and he shall not fall. So, Peter,
never mind the water, never mind the wind; look at Jesus and you
will get to Him dry shod. If you turn away your eyes from Him, and
take counsel of the difficulties and trials and antagonisms, down
you will be sure to go. 'They sank to the bottom like a stone, the
depths covered them.' Christ holds us up. He cannot hold us up
unless we trust Him. Faith and fear contend for supremacy in our
hearts. If we rightly trust, we shall not be afraid. If we are
afraid, terror will slay trust. To look away from Christ, and occupy
our thoughts with dangers and obstacles, is sure to lead to the
collapse of faith and the strengthening of terror. To look past and
above the billows to Him that stands on them is sure to cast out
fear and to hearten faith. Peter ignored the danger at the wrong
time, before he dropped over the side of the boat, and he was aware
of it at the wrong time, while he was actually being held up and
delivered from it. Rashness ignores peril in the wrong way, and
thereby ensures its falling on the presumptuous head. Faith ignores
it in the right way, by letting the eye travel past it, to Christ
who shields from it, and thereby faith brings about the security it
expects, and annihilates the peril from which it looks away to
Jesus.
III. We have here the cry of desperate faith and its immediate
answer.
The very thing which had broken Peter's faith mended it again. Fear
sunk him by making him falter in his confidence; and, as he was
sinking, the very desperation of his terror drove him back to his
faith, and he 'cried' with a shrill, loud voice, heard above the
roar of the boisterous wind, 'Lord, save me.' So difficulties and
dangers, when they begin to tell upon us, often send us back to the
trust which the anticipation of them had broken; and out of the very
extremity of fear we sometimes can draw its own antidote. Just as
with flint and steel you may strike a spark, so danger, striking
against our heart, brings out the flash that kindles the tinder.
This brief cry for help singularly blends faith and fear. There is
faith in it, else Peter would not have appealed to Christ to save
him. There is mortal terror in it, else he would not have felt that
he needed to cry. But faith is uppermost now, and the very terror
feeds it. So, by swift transition, our fears may pass into their own
opposite and become courageous trust. Just as in a coal fire the
thick black smoke sometimes gets alight and passes into ruddy flame,
so our fears may catch fire and flash up as confidence and prayer.
Note the merciful swiftness of Christ's answer. 'Immediately He
caught him,' because another moment would have been too late. There
will be time to teach him the lessons of his presumption, but when
the water is all but up to the lips that shrieked for help, there is
but one thing to do. He must be saved first and talked to afterwards.
Our cries for deliverance in temporal matters are not always answered
so quickly, for it is often better for us to be left to struggle with
the waves and winds. But our appeals for Christ's helping hand in
soul-peril are always answered without delay. No appreciable time is
consumed in the passage of the telegram or in flashing back the
answer. The apostle was not caught by Christ's hand before he knew
his danger, for it was good for him that he should go down some way,
but he was caught as soon as he called on the Master, and before he
had come to any harm. The trial lasted long enough to wash the
stiffening of self-confidence out of him, and then it had done its
work--and Christ's strong hand held him up.
The manner of the answer is noteworthy. It is determined by, and
adapted to, his weak faith. He could not be upheld now as he had
been a moment ago, before his fear had weighted him, by the exercise
of Christ's will only. Then Christ could hold him up without
touching him, but now the palpable grasp of the hand was needed to
assure the tremulous, doubting heart. So we, too, sometimes need and
get material and outward signs which make it easier to feel the
reality of sustaining grace. But whether we do or no, Christ's swift
help always takes the form best suited to our faith, and He has
regard to the capacity of our clasping hands in the measure and
manner of His gifts.
The time and tone of Christ's gentle remonstrance are remarkable.
Deliverance comes first, and rebuke afterwards. Having first shown
him, by the fact of safety, that his doubts were irrational, Christ
then, and not till then, puts His gentle question. Perhaps there was
a smile on His face, as surely there was love in His voice, that
softened the rebuke and went to Peter's heart.
What does Christ rebuke him for? Getting out of the boat? No. He
does not blame him for venturing too much, but for trusting too
little. He does not blame him for attempting something beyond his
strength, but for not holding fast the beginning of his confidence
firm unto the end. And so the lesson for us is, that we cannot
expect too much if we expect it perseveringly. We cannot set our
conceptions of Christ's possible help to us too high if only we keep
at the height to which we once have set them, and are assured that
He will hold us up when we are down amongst the weltering waves, as
we fancied ourselves to be when we were sitting in the boat wishing
to be with Him. That is the question that He will meet us with when
we get up on the shore yonder; and we shall not have any more to say
for ourselves, in vindication of our tremulous trust, than Peter,
silenced for once, had to say on this occasion.
It will be good for us all if, like this apostle, our trials
consolidate our characters, and out of the shifting, fluctuating,
impetuous nature that was blown about like sand by every gust of
emotion there be made, by the pressure of responsibility and trial,
and experience of our own unreliableness, the 'Rock' of a stable
character, steadfast and unmovable, with calm resolution and fixed
faith, on which the Great Architect can build some portion of His
great temple.