Jesus, Our Rescuer

Blog post from the Anglican Rescued Kingdom Network. Written by Gail Walter, an American physician who resides outside of Jinja, Uganda, and posted with permission.

Christ Rescuing Peter from Drowning, Lorenzo Veneziano, 1370. Staatliche Museen, Berlin

There was that one night when Jesus walked miles and miles on a windblown Galilean sea (Matthew 14:22-33).

He had a purpose in setting His disciples off alone in their fishing boat. The sun would go down, the night would pass, and through the storm tossed waves the disciples see the unfathomable. Jesus was walking on water. 

He did this in the dark. He did it in a storm. He did one of His most fantastical miracles in near obscurity. Jesus never performed for the masses. He never became the cheap circus act so many had longed for. Walking on water was only for those He would grow to call friends. He did this for His beloved disciples. 

I have no illusions as to where I would have been in that boat. It is not a heroic picture. I grew up landlocked and a true seafaring novice. But Peter had lived on this Galilean sea. This wasn’t his first storm at night when everyone needed to put their backs into it, man the oars, and pray for land.  In the middle of what the disciples think is a ghostly apparition, Peter does something entirely unimaginable. He wants to walk on the waves with Jesus.  As a fisherman he had lived in a boat and experienced real danger. But this was pure nautical insanity. 

To date, Peter is the only mortal who would ever feel his feet walk on on those Galilean waves. Everyone knows about his epic failure, but failure led to something else no one else experienced that night. Peter is the only disciple who felt the Son of God pull him out of the deep. 

There is always risk in following Jesus. Many of us never experience the Jesus Peter would know that night. Those who follow and fail are different than those who don’t follow, don’t risk, and stay safe on shore.

But imagine, though Peter failed to maintain his gaze on Jesus, Jesus was completely locked in on him. As far as we know, Peter was the only one in the midst of complete failure who would experience the  strong arm of God take hold of him and save him.

I have read the stories of martyrs and missionaries and those who stepped into the deep for Jesus. For so many it cost them everything, but I suspect someday we will sit together and talk about the strong arms of Jesus that reached down, pulling the overwhelmed to their ultimate heavenly shore. 

When we follow, God follows more closely. When we risk, He has already risked all. 

“O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.
Be our strong arm every morning,
our salvation in the time of trouble.”

— Isaiah 33:2