Jesus makes the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him, then climbs the mountain alone to pray. By the fourth watch of the night the boat is 24"a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them." The disciples are in the storm because they did what he told them. Obedience does not promise a calm sea, and Jesus, praying on the mountain, knows exactly where the boat is.
He comes to them 25"walking on the sea." Job says of God that he alone "trampled the waves of the sea" (Job 9:8), so the disciples are watching someone do what only God does. They see a ghost and cry out in fear. Then comes 27"Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." The reassurance is his own presence, and it arrives before the wind has changed at all.
Peter answers with a request built on that voice: 28"Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He waits for a word, and the word is 29"Come." So Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water. The wind and the waves are exactly what they were a moment ago, and he is standing on them because Jesus called him.
Then he sees the wind, and the sea is unchanged. Only his attention has moved, from the face he was walking toward to the weather around him. He begins to sink and cries out in three words, "Lord, save me." Fear and faith are in the same breath, and Jesus answers the cry as it stands.
The order of what follows carries the teaching. 31"Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him." The rescue comes first and the question second: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Little faith is still faith. It is thin enough to sink, and it is strong enough to know whom to call. On an earlier stormy night Jesus called the frightened disciples by the same name and then calmed the sea himself (Matthew 8:26). Peter's failure in looking down is plain, but the center of the story is the hand already reaching.
When the two of them climb into the boat, the wind stops, and the men inside do what they did not do after the earlier storm. They worship: 33"Truly you are the Son of God." They do not yet see how far that confession reaches. But it is spoken in the middle of a night when they have watched him walk on the sea and pull a sinking man up by the hand.
What wind has your attention tonight? Name it aloud to him, and cry out the way Peter did. Isaiah's promise fits the sinking man and the frightened boat alike: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you" (Isaiah 43:2).
Prayer
Father, we have looked at the wind more often than at your face, and we know the sinking that follows. Thank you that your hand was reaching before Peter finished his cry, and that thin faith is still faith enough to be held. Turn our eyes back to you when they wander, and meet us there the way you met him. In Jesus' name, amen.