3/23/25 - Matthew 14: Atop the Storm
Matthew’s narrative has depicted Jesus in a near-constant state of activity from the moment He finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount. The breakneck speed does not let up in Matthew 14. In fact, things escalate to what would be a breaking point for most people, and yet Jesus seems to take it in stride. What is His secret? The Sunday school answer of, ”Well, He’s God,” might explain things if Christ had not laid aside His Divinity to take on humanity. So, what was it that kept Jesus going?
At the end of chapter 13, we see Jesus going to Nazareth. Last week, I mentioned that there are some questions about the chronological accuracy of Matthew’s narration. For the sake of Matthew’s narrative and to avoid making this sermon confusing, I will treat the narrative order as chronological.
Jesus had just confronted the Pharisees, then retreated to the shore of Galilee and had a crowd surrounding Him almost immediately. He spends time healing their sick, and then He gets on a boat and teaches them about the Kingdom of Heaven in parables. Once He has finished, He goes to Nazareth only to be rejected. As if this weren’t enough, He then gets the news that John has been put to death. Not only put to death but his body and memory were shamed and desecrated for the whims of Herodias. So Jesus does the most natural thing in the world: He gets away from it all to take a break, process, and mourn.
Imagine what you might do in this scenario: you’ve been overworked, with little rest, people constantly wanting your attention day and night for months, and then you get news that your cousin died horrifically. You take a flight with a few close friends to go somewhere to grieve in private, and instead, your plane lands, and there are thousands of people waiting for you, wanting something from you. Perhaps they don’t know what you’re going through, but you and your cousin lived very public lives so likely they know exactly what you’re going through but have decided that their needs are more important. How would you react?
My reaction would likely be less than godly. If I were overly tired and grieving a sudden loss, I would have a hard time not losing my mind at that moment. But Jesus does something absolutely astounding. Instead of taking out his frustration on the people in closest proximity to Him, He does something else. And notice that there is no mention of frustration or anger on Jesus' part. That feeling doesn’t even come into the equation. Instead, He feels compassion for everyone. He is completely selfless in His reaction to the crowd’s selfishness. Remember, while Jesus might be God, He is also fully man. He experienced the full range of emotions and temptations that everyone does. How is it that He could face that situation with grace? But it gets better.
Jesus spends all day healing the sick. The evening comes, and everyone starts to get hungry. We don’t know how many people packed food for themselves. We know that at least one kid planned ahead and had dinner with him. The disciples certainly didn’t bring food with them. So when the disciples come to Jesus and ask Him to send the crowds away for them to get food, I imagine what Jesus does next having a double purpose. This might be me reading my own amusement into the text, but I see Jesus’ sense of humor in telling the disciples to give the crowds food. Even if they had brought food, which they didn’t, there’s no way it would be enough. But Jesus is also providing an opportunity for them to exercise faith. Instead of stepping out in faith, they rationalize the situation and tell Jesus the facts. How often does Jesus bring us to the intersection where faith and opportunity meet, and our reaction is to tell Jesus why it’s not going to work out?
Notice again how Jesus doesn’t flip out on His disciples. How long have they been with Him, seeing the miracles He’s done? How often has He told them, “Ask anything in my name, and it will be done for you?” Again, imagine if you were tired, grieving, and accosted by a large crowd who are completely tone deaf to what’s going on in your life, and then the people closest to you make it clear that they have completely misunderstood you. How would you react to that? Again, Jesus acts patiently.
To show His graciousness even further, Jesus doesn’t even ask His disciples to deal with dispersing the crowds. I would have. If my cousin just died, I was tired, and this huge crowd interrupted my getaway, I would absolutely ask if someone else could take the burden off me. By this point, I’ve completely had it. I would be on the verge of a meltdown if not actively in the fallout of one. But Jesus keeps giving of Himself.
Finally, Jesus gets His moment. No crowds, no disciples. He goes up a mountain completely alone and prays. We’re about to see Jesus give of Himself even more before the night is through, but this is the key moment that ties everything together. This is the moment that you and I take for granted. This is the moment that you and I often fail to prioritize. This is the moment that usually gets erased off the calendar first once the day starts getting busy: Jesus spends a significant amount of time in prayer.
I don’t want to discount hurried and rushed prayers of the moment. They have value and are better than no prayer at all. But Jesus is overworked, overly needed, grieving the loss of His cousin, dealing with the slow understanding of His students, and taking more on Himself than He needs to. And He does all of this graciously, patiently, and kindly. His ability to weather the storms with such grace hinges on this one fact: Jesus spent significant time in prayer.
When life got hard, Jesus left the ambition for His goal behind and sought prayer. When life got hard, Jesus abandoned His previous plans and sought prayer. When Jesus was interrupted from prayer, He allowed the interruption with patience, and then He sought prayer. When we pay attention to Jesus' life, His ministry is soaked in prayer. Jesus spends 40 days in prayer, fasting, and spiritual warfare before starting His ministry. Jesus spent all night in prayer before selecting the 12 disciples. His ministry is consistently dotted with prayer, especially before significant miracles, and again, Jesus spends the night in prayer before He’s arrested and crucified. His final breath was a prayer. And the scriptures say that Jesus is in Heaven, interceding for us before the Father. Further, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to live within us, and He takes our weak prayers and intercedes on our behalf, effectively translating our imperfect prayers into perfect ones before God. Jesus is all about prayer. And so should we be.
Jesus models healthy emotional and mental self-care. It begins and ends with prayer. He models healthy ministry, it begins and ends with prayer. He shows us what we should do when life gets overwhelming and one-sided, and it begins and ends with prayer. Prayer is so often an afterthought. It ought to be our first step. When life gets busy, we push prayer by the wayside, and we needlessly suffer for it.
When we look throughout the history of the church, prayer has been the first line of defense and the first strategy of attack. Anytime things have gone wrong, and the Church steers off, it is because prayer has been under-prioritized. The Christian life is a life of prayer. We have to stop underestimating its power and overestimating our own ability. Too often we try everything we can and then, if nothing else works, we pray. We need to reverse that.
If you see something you want changed in our town or nation, your first action should not be writing to city hall or your state representative. It should not be voicing your complaint on Facebook or organizing petitions. Your first action should be prayer.
If you are in need, financially or medically, your first action should not be to run to the doctor’s or take on a second job. Your first action should be prayer.
If you see something wrong happening in your church, your first action should not be to leave and never come back or pull your tithe and membership, your first action must be prayer.
If you’re facing temptation or are under spiritual attack, your first action should not be to resist; it ought to be prayer. Get the idea? To live the upward call God calls us to, we need to retrain ourselves so that our first breath upon waking is prayer, our last breath laying down to sleep is prayer, and every moment is brought to the Lord in prayer. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul writes, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” At the center of God’s will for you is prayer.
And so Jesus prays. And we get to see a miraculous physical metaphor of how prayer affects our lives. The disciples are in the boat, and a storm comes along. Jesus sees them in trouble and starts walking toward them. It’s not every day that you see someone walking on top of stormy water. So it’s perfectly natural that the disciples are terrified, thinking they’re seeing an apparition. Jesus assures them that it’s Him and not a ghost.
Peter, not quite convinced, calls out, “If it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus tells him to come, and remarkably, Peter takes a step of faith and starts walking towards Jesus.
Remember what I said about faith and opportunity? Peter doesn’t miss the opportunity this time. He steps out in faith, fully trusting that the call of Christ is enough to keep him above water. Why the trust? Because Peter spent significant time with Jesus.
But Peter’s faith is small and untested. He walks a few steps and then feels the wind and the spray of the waves. Perhaps he notices a large wave forming behind Jesus, and it’s just enough to get his eyes off Jesus and focus on the raging storm around him. Fear replaces faith, and he sinks. Notice what Peter does? He prays. “Lord, save me!” He prays, and Jesus responds.
What do we do when our faith is enough to get us started but not enough to get us through? How often do we give up, close shop, and go home? Peter exemplifies what we ought to do. We pray.
Jesus got through being overworked, over-needed, and grieving HIs cousin by walking on top of it all in prayer, just like He walks on water after spending all night in prayer. Peter walks out in faith by prayer, and when the strength of His faith isn’t enough to sustain him, He prays.
When Jesus and Peter return to the boat, you know what the other disciples started doing? They prayed. They worshipped Jesus and adored Him as the Son of God.
Jesus and the disciples finish crossing over and land in Gennesaret. Crowds gather around Him very quickly, and Jesus heals their sick. But Matthew includes a detail that he never had before. The sick merely touch Jesus’ cloak and are healed. Jesus had healed people the day before but after a night spent in prayer, there was a noticeable difference.
May we all learn to pray. May we all come to see the necessity of putting prayer first. And may our Lord increase our faith and help us in our unbelief.