Sunday, 8/10/14
This Gospel story about Jesus coming to his disciples in the
midst of a terrible storm is a parable telling us that the Lord will come to us in
our death struggles.
The lake here was actually a wide place in the River Jordan,
and through the Bible the crossing of the Jordan to the Promised Land was a
metaphor for passing through death. The idea was picked up in the spirituals
where death was the only way to freedom from slavery. They sang, “Show me that stream called the River Jordan,
that’s the old stream what I longs to cross.” And, “Deep river, my home is over Jordan.”
In Chapter Three of the Book of Joshua, the Israelites, after
forty years of wandering, had come
to cross over into the Promised Land. However, the Jordan was in flood, and as
a final test of their faith, God ordered them to follow the Ark of the Covenant
into the flood.
When the feet of the priests carrying the Ark stepped into
the river, the waters backed up, allowing the great column of people to follow
the Ark down into the bottom of the riverbed. There the priests halted, letting
the people pass up and out.
For our passage over to the Promised Land, it will not be
the Ark, but Our Lord himself who will take up his position halfway through the
river of death.
Back to today’s Gospel, Jesus, walking to the Apostles over
the water was his way of showing that death has no hold on him. Peter’s walking
on the water demonstrated what faith can do for us. His sinking shows what
happens when we lose faith.
When my time comes I hope I can hang on to what Paul wrote
in Chapter Fifteen of First Corinthians.
“Death is swallowed up
in victory. O Death, where is your victory. O Death, where is your sting? “
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