"A Remarkable Storm; a Remarkable Presence"

Matthew 14:22-33

     Dear Friends in Christ,   

   You’ve probably never heard of Frank Silecchia before, but I have a hunch you’ve probably seen something he discovered on the morning of September 13, 2001.  Frank was a construction worker by trade.  He made a living out of making things.  But on this particular morning he was simply trying to make sense out of the senseless tragedy that had occurred 2 days earlier on September 11.  He had volunteered to search for survivors at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center site.  He did not find any.  But you know what he did find?  He found a symbol of hope among that twisted, gnarled wreckage.  As he was working his way through the rubble, through the dusty sunrise he spotted it: a 20-ft. tall cross made of steel standing by itself.  No winch had hoisted it into place.  No cement had secured it.  The 2 crossbeams simply stood there independent of human help. 

    That was enough for Frank Silecchia and all the others who have seen that cross to find an answer to the question that was being asked by so many back then.  And that was: “Where is God in all this?”  And the answer that the cross gave us was: “Right in the middle of it all.”

   You’ve asked that same question, haven’t you?  When the ambulance takes away your friend who’s been seriously injured in a car accident; when the hearse takes away your loved one; when the economy takes away your savings; when that two-timing husband or wife takes away your heart.  “Where is God in all this,” you ask.  And in our text for today Matthew gives us the same answer that Frank Silecchia discovered on that September morning: He’s right in the middle of it all.

   Our story begins then with a remarkable storm.  If you happened to be at our Last Splash VBS Swim Party a little over a month ago, you might have seen Bonnie Bower’s brother, Charlie Casner, do one of his rather impressive cannonballs off the high dive.  I’ve seen lots of people do cannonballs before, but I’ve never seen anyone who could displace more water than Charlie could.  And if you saw him do that, you got somewhat of an idea of what a storm could do on the Sea of Galilee.  A valley on the northern end of the sea could take a storm and funnel it down onto the water, creating waves as high as 10 feet.  Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had any experience with 10-foot waves before, but I have.  When we were serving our vicarage in Bradenton, Florida, shortly after we arrived there a hurricane passed through the Gulf of Mexico and turned that water into one gigantic washing machine.  We were told the waves were 10 feet.  So I got this bright idea.  This rather naïve Midwestern boy who had only swum in pools and ponds decided he would try his hand at body-surfing, where without the aid of a surf board you try to ride a wave into shore.  Well, the first wave I caught actually caught me and treated me like an old ragamuffin doll.  It twisted me and turned me.  Then it body-slammed me to the floor of the Gulf before it spit me out onto dry ground like the big fish did with the prophet Jonah.  That was the last time I tried body surfing because trust me, 10-ft. waves are not to be taken lightly.  10-ft. waves are to be treated with respect.

   Well, that’s what the disciples were dealing with.  And do you have any idea how long they had to contend with those choppy waters?  I think you’re going to be surprised by the answer.  In vv.23-24 we read: “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.”  Now according to the Jews evening started at 6:00 p.m.  So for our purposes, let’s say the storm started at that time.  Then a little bit later we’re told that during the 4^th watch of the night Jesus came walking to them on the water.  That would have been anywhere from 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.  For our purposes, let’s say 3:00 a.m.  Now if my math is right, that means they were out there fighting that storm for at least 9 hours.  Which brings up a very important question.  If Jesus knows all and sees all and is all-caring, why didn’t he come at 6:00 p.m. when they first encountered the storm?

   Some of you have been asking that same question lately, haven’t you?  And I’m sorry, but I don’t have the answer to that question for you this morning.  I wish I did, but I don’t.  By faith, however, I know that he never comes too early and he never comes too late.  But I also know that if I’m one of his disciples in that boat, after about 15 minutes of this gut-wrenching storm, I’m going to be wondering, “Where’s Jesus?  He knows we’re out here.  After all, it was his idea that we go ahead of him.”  But at just the right time, and remember, only God knows when that time is, the answer to this remarkable storm comes in the form of a remarkable presence.

   In v.25 we read: “During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.”  And when the disciples saw him, what was their initial reaction?  Did they shout for joy?  Did they celebrate the fact that their Savior was coming to rescue them?  Not quite.  Instead, we’re told that they thought it was a ghost and they were terrified.  And who could really blame them because it’s not everyday you see someone walking on water in the midst of a storm out in the middle of a large body of water.  But I love what Jesus says to them.  Only I don’t like how most English Bibles translate it.  Most Bibles have him saying something like this: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."  But that’s not really what the original Greek says.  Rather it literally says: “Take courage!  I am!  Don’t be afraid.”  Now admittedly that translation sounds a bit awkward to our modern English ears.  But I would suggest to you this morning that it didn’t to the disciples.  Instead, it contained a powerful message that they needed to hear in the midst of that storm and that we need to hear in the midst of our storms.  And that is that Jesus is the great I AM.  Remember, that was the official name that God ascribed to himself when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush.  When God asked Moses to go back to Egypt and deliver his people from slavery there, Moses asked God: "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, `What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"  Remember God’s reply?  He said, "I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: `I AM has sent me to you.”  So when Jesus says, “Take courage!  I am!  Don’t be afraid,” that was his way of identifying himself with God and letting them know that God was right there with them in the midst of the storm. 

   You see, when Jesus knew his disciples were in trouble, what did he do?  Did he send an angel from heaven to help them?  No.  Did he still the storm so he wouldn’t get wet while walking to them on the water?  No.  What does he do when his disciples are in trouble?  He gets right in the middle of the trouble with them.  His hair gets wet.  His robe gets soaked.  His face gets stung by the pelting rain.  In other words, he allows himself to feel what we feel when we find ourselves in the midst of the storm.

   And then he says to us as he said to his disciples: “Take courage!  I am!  Don’t be afraid.”  You know what that phrase “I am” tells us about Jesus?  It tells us that he is a present-tense Savior.  Jesus never says: “I was.”  We do, don’t we?  We say things like, “I was once able to do that.  I was once that strong or that flexible or that skinny or that pretty.”  You fill in the blank.  Especially as we get older we become “I was” people.  But Jesus does not say that because he never ages.  He never weakens.  He never changes.  He is just as strong today as he ever has been.  That’s why he can say, “I am.”

   Please note also that Jesus never says “I will be.”  Again, we do, especially when we’re younger.  “I will be strong when I grow up.  I will be smart.  I will be a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a pastor.”  But Christ never says “I will be” because he will never be greater or smarter or stronger or better than what he is right now.

   So in the midst of the storm that the disciples faced, as they were no doubt asking, “Who is able to help us?” Jesus says, “I am!”  “Who is able to get us out of this mess?”  “I am!”  Can you hear him saying that to you today?  Would you hear him saying that to you today?  Because whatever storm you may find yourself in right now, he wants you to know that he’s right there in the middle of it with you.

   Even the literary construction of this story echoes this truth as was figured out by somebody who is a lot smarter than I am.  This text is really made up of 2 acts, each 6 verses long.  The first, verses 22-27, centers on what we might call the water walk of Jesus.  The second, verses 28-33, centers on the faith walk of Peter.  In the first act, Jesus comes astride the waves and declares: “Take courage!  I am!  Don’t be afraid.”  In the second act, Peter takes a step of faith and for a moment anyway does what Christ does.  He walks on the water.  But when he takes his eyes off of Jesus and focuses on the storm, he does what we so often do.  He sinks.

   Two acts, each with 6 verses.  Each set of 6 verses contains 90 Greek words.  And right in between the two acts, right in the middle of the two sets of verses, is that two-word declaration: “I am.”  That reminds me of the e-mail some of you may have seen about the middle verse in the Bible.  That middle verse is located between the shortest chapter of the Bible, Psalm 117, which is only 2 verses long, and the longest chapter of the Bible, Psalm 119, which is 176 verses long.  And that middle verse of the Bible is Ps. 118:8 which says: “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” 

   The point I’m getting at here is that everything about our story today and everything about the Bible is telling us that Christ is in the middle of whatever storm we may find ourselves in.  Believe that, my friends.  Believe that the presence of a problem never means the absence of God.  The only time in human history that God ever removed himself from a problem that one of his children was going through took place on a skull-shaped hill called Calvary where because of the enormous burden of sin that Jesus was bearing that day, God the Father turned his back on him so that he could suffer the hell, the punishment, the separation from God that we deserved.  But he did that so that you and I would never know what that feels like.

   Which takes us back to the story that we began with this morning, the story of Frank Silecchia and the cross.  When Frank was contacted by a Christian journalist a couple of years later and asked about that day, he made a most interesting comment.  He said, “Had I not found that cross, I would have been a basket case.  It is tattooed in my memory.”  Isn’t that great?  Frank found Jesus in the rubble of the World Trade Center.  Peter and the other disciples found him in the boisterous waves on the Sea of Galilee.  And you?  If you look closely enough, you’ll find him too, right in the middle of whatever storm you’re going through.

     Amen.