EU•AN•GE•LION (YOO-AN-GEL-EE-ON) · εὐαγγέλιον — Good News
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EU•AN•GE•LION (YOO-AN-GEL-EE-ON) · εὐαγγέλιον — Good News
Jesus climbs into the boat, the wind dies, and the men who were rowing bow down. Day 5 follows the night to its end, and then listens to what Peter wrote long afterward about where to keep looking.
Matthew 14:32-33; Mark 6:51-52; John 6:21; Proverbs 30:4; Nahum 1:3, 7; Ecclesiastes 7:13-14; 2 Peter 1:13-19
Opening
And when they had climbed back into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God!”
Matthew 14:32-33 (BSB)
Jesus has taken hold of Peter. The two of them come back to the boat together.
The storm does not end when Peter is rescued. He is hauled up out of the water with the wind still blowing, and he comes back to the boat in it. The storm ends one verse later. When they had climbed back into the boat, Matthew writes, the wind died down.
Jesus gets into the boat, and the wind that has fought them all night grows tired.
Then Matthew tells us what the men did. Those who were in the boat worshiped Him.
They ask nothing about how He walked on the water, or why He sent them out, or why He waited until the last watch. All the questions a person might have after a night like that are left hanging, and what comes out of them is a single sentence. Truly You are the Son of God!
So the night ends in a way we might not have chosen. In place of an explanation they are given Him, in the boat, with the wind gone quiet around them.
REFLECT
Do this today: before you ask God to explain anything about this week, tell Him one true thing about who He is. Say it out loud. You may borrow theirs: Truly You are the Son of God.
A Two-Minute Prayer
Lord Jesus, I have a list of questions about this week, and I will bring them to You. First I want to say what the men in the boat said. Truly You are the Son of God. Be in my boat today. Amen.
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Then He climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. And the disciples were utterly astounded, for they had not understood about the loaves, but their hearts had been hardened.
Mark 6:51-52 (BSB)
Mark tells the same ending and is harder on the disciples. Where Matthew records their worship, Mark records how little they had understood.
Go back to where the week began. Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. Then He went up a mountain by Himself. All night the story has had two places in it: He was up there, and they were out here.
Now there is one place. Mark puts it in seven plain words: He climbed into the boat with them.
The night turns there. The wind outlasts the disciples' rowing and Peter's rescue. It drops only when Jesus is in the boat.
John remembers a detail about that moment that the others leave out. They were willing to take Him into the boat, he says, and at once the boat reached the shore where they were heading. Hours of rowing had taken them three or four miles. The rest of the crossing is over in a clause.
John Newton put this picture into one line of a hymn, printed in the same hymn book as William Cowper's hymn from the second day.
"With CHRIST in the vessel, I smile at the storm."
Newton claims only that Christ is in the boat. About the storm being gone he says nothing. Matthew's question since the first evening has been the same: where Jesus was, and whether they knew it.
In place of an explanation they are given Him, in the boat.
This is the second storm these men have been through with Jesus. It helps to set the two side by side.
In the first one, Jesus was asleep in the boat. They woke Him, He rebuked the wind, and the sea went calm. That storm ended with a question. They were amazed, Matthew says, and asked what kind of man this was, that even the winds and the sea obeyed Him.
This night ends with an answer. Truly You are the Son of God. Between the two storms they have stopped asking who He is and begun telling Him.
Matthew's word for what they did is prosekynesan (προσεκύνησαν), which means that they bowed down. On its own the word can describe the respect a person pays to a king or a master, so it is their sentence that tells us what kind of bowing this was. They call Him the Son of God. The first word of their sentence is truly.
Matthew will use almost the same sentence once more. At the cross a Roman centurion and the men guarding Jesus with him see the earthquake and all that has happened, and they say, Truly this was the Son of God. So the Gospel has these words spoken in two places: in a boat at dawn, and at the foot of a cross.
Now hear Mark's ending, because Mark will not let us make the disciples into heroes. He says they were utterly astounded, and he says why: they had not understood about the loaves, but their hearts had been hardened.
His word for hardened is a physical one. It comes from the word for a callus, the thick skin that forms on a hand that works an oar. Their hearts had grown a callus.
What they had missed was the bread. That same evening they had carried loaves to thousands of people with their own hands, and if they had understood who was able to do that, the sight of Him on the water would not have stunned them.
Both accounts are true of the same men in the same boat. They bowed down and they still did not understand. Matthew had a word for this yesterday, the word for being of two minds, and Scripture is not embarrassed by it. Real worship can come from people who have a long way to go.
Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in His hands? Who has bound up the waters in His cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of His Son— surely you know!
Proverbs 30:4 (BSB)
The words of Agur son of Jakeh, a wise man who begins by confessing how little he knows. He asks a string of questions and answers none of them.
Agur asks his riddle near the end of the book of Proverbs, just after admitting that he is worn out and does not know much. Every one of his first four questions has the same answer, as he well knows. No human being has gone up to heaven and come down, or gathered the wind, or bound up the waters. Only God has.
Then he asks something that must have sounded very strange when it was first written. What is His name, and what is the name of His Son?
In its own setting the riddle may simply be pressing the point that these works belong to God and to no one else. Christians have long heard more in it. It is hard to read it beside this week's passage and not hear more.
Take his second question, who has gathered the wind in His hands? All week the wind has been the one thing nobody could hold. The Teacher of Ecclesiastes said so plainly: no man has power over the wind to contain it. On the lake Someone gets into a boat, and the wind is contained.
Take the third, who has bound up the waters? Peter has just walked on them, and been pulled out of them.
And then the last question, what is the name of His Son? In the grey light on the Sea of Galilee, the men in the boat give the answer aloud. Truly You are the Son of God.
The prophet Nahum adds one more line. He is describing the LORD coming in judgment, and he says, His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.
The word for path is derekh, the road we met in Psalm 77 on the first day. There, God's road ran through the sea. Here it runs through the storm. Nahum pictures the whole dark sky as dust kicked up by someone walking.
On the second day we heard that on Horeb the LORD was not in the wind, and Nahum says His path is in the storm. Scripture keeps both. The storm is under His feet, and He is known by His voice.
A few lines later the same prophet says something that seems to belong to a different God altogether. The LORD is good, he writes, a stronghold in the day of distress; He cares for those who trust in Him.
Nahum sees no contradiction, because the one whose road is the storm is the one you run to in the storm. In the same breath he calls the LORD slow to anger, the very phrase God spoke about Himself on Sinai when He passed by Moses.
Now put the week together. Scripture says that God alone treads on the sea. It says that His road is in the storm and that no one else can hold the wind. And it says that He is a stronghold for people in distress.
On the lake all of that gets into a fishing boat. It can, because of what Christians call the incarnation: the Son of God became man. Matthew shows it here without a word of explanation. In His Son, the God whose footprints could not be found has taken on feet. The one who walked the sea has stopped and climbed in.
Consider the work of God: Who can straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made one of these along with the other, so that a man cannot discover anything that will come after him.
Ecclesiastes 7:13-14 (BSB)
The Teacher of Ecclesiastes, near the middle of his book, on good days and bad ones.
We have heard from the Teacher of Ecclesiastes all week. He has told us that nobody can hold the wind, and that the man who watches it will never sow. The lines we have just heard may be the most useful thing he says.
The word translated consider is very plain in Hebrew. It is re'eh (רְאֵה), which means see, or look, and the Teacher says it twice: see the work of God, and in the day of adversity, see.
Set that beside his proverb from the third day. There, the man who looks at the clouds never reaps. The verb for his looking is the same one. So the Teacher has nothing against looking. He minds what we look at. The man in the field looks at the clouds. The wise person, on a bad day, looks at what God is doing.
The disciples were given both kinds of day within a few hours. At evening there was bread for five thousand, with the twelve at the centre of it. In the night there was a headwind, and no sign of Jesus. The Teacher would say that God made the one along with the other.
Mark tells us they read neither day well. They did not understand the loaves, which left them unready for the storm. The good day was meant to teach them who was with them, and they took the bread and missed the lesson.
A practice with two halves is hidden in the Teacher's sentence.
On a good day, be joyful. Do not brace yourself for it to end, and do not treat gladness as tempting fate. Receive it and notice who gave it, because you will need what you noticed.
On a hard day, see. Ask what God is doing in the same hours as the wind, even if all you can make out is that He has not let go of you.
The Teacher is honest about the limit of this. God arranges our days, he says, so that a man cannot discover anything that will come after him. We are not going to be shown tomorrow. The disciples never did find out why He waited until the fourth watch. They were shown who was in the boat, and they bowed down.
The Voice of the Thunder
Jonathan Edwards was a pastor in colonial New England. He wrote a short account of his own soul, known as his Personal Narrative. In it he admits something about himself as a young man.
“Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder-storm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me.”
He explains what came between the before and the now. He was reading one verse from Paul’s first letter to Timothy, about the King eternal, immortal, invisible, and as he read, a new sense of the glory of God came into his soul. He kept saying the words over to himself, as it were singing them.
After that, he says, everything looked different. He saw the glory of God in the sun and the moon, in clouds and grass and water. And thunder, which had once been the most terrible thing he knew, became sweet to him.
When a storm came up he no longer shrank from it. He put himself where he could watch the clouds and the lightning, and he listened to what he called the majestic and awful voice of God’s thunder. And he sang. It seemed natural to him, he wrote, to chant his thoughts aloud with a singing voice.
Edwards never says that the storms grew smaller. What changed was whom he saw in them, and the change began with a verse of praise. That is the end of Matthew’s night as well: the same lake, the same men, and worship where we might have expected an explanation.
Where This Sits in the Story
ANCIENT TRUTH
Israel’s wise men and prophets kept returning to one claim: the wind, the sea and the storm answer to God alone. Agur asked who holds the wind, Nahum said the storm is God’s road, and Job said only God treads the sea.
Ecclesiastes tells us to see the work of God on the bad day as well as the good one (Ecclesiastes 7:13-14). The Teacher wants our eyes moved, not closed.
MODERN APPLICATION
We tend to think a hard season is finished when we understand it. This passage ends a hard night with worship, and leaves the understanding for later, or for never.
NEW TESTAMENT ECHO
At the cross the words spoken in the boat are spoken again: Truly this was the Son of God (Matthew 27:54). The confession made after a rescue is made again at a death, in the PASSION, by soldiers who had no rescue to thank Him for.
REFLECT
What have you been waiting to understand before you will worship?
An Art Response
Words are not the only way to worship. This takes ten minutes and a pencil. You do not need to be able to draw.
Draw one line
Across the middle of a page, draw one flat line. That is the lake after the wind stopped.
Add the boat
Draw a small boat on the line, as simply as a child would.
Count who is in it
Mark thirteen small strokes in the boat: twelve who rowed, and one who walked out to them.
Write the sentence
Under the boat write their words: Truly You are the Son of God.
Add your name
Write your own name in the boat. Put the page where you will see it this week.
For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2 Peter 1:16-19 (BSB)
A letter that comes to us under Peter’s name, written as his last word to the churches. A few lines earlier he says that he will soon lay aside the tent of his body.
We began this week with Peter at the oars. We end it with Peter near the end of his life, writing so that the churches will remember after he is gone.
He tells them what he saw with his own eyes: we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. He is thinking of another mountain, where he heard the Father's voice say, This is My beloved Son. The men in the boat had said nearly the same thing on the lake.
He writes this knowing that he will not be pulled out next time. I know that this tent will soon be laid aside, he says, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. The man who was caught on the lake expects to die, and what he is waiting for is the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he tells them where to look when he is gone. We have the word of the prophets, he says, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
Peter knows what a dark place is. He has rowed through a night with no shore in sight. He has been in the water at the end of it. So his last advice is about attention: fix it on the word God has given, and keep it there until morning.
Peter's word is until, and he does not say how long. The lamp is for the hours before the day. It is enough for those hours.
For today it is enough to stand where Matthew leaves us. The wind has grown tired, the lake is quiet, and He is in the boat.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, truly You are the Son of God. I say it before I understand this week, because it is true whether I understand or not. You sent them out and You saw them. You came across the water in the last watch and they did not know You. You spoke, and You gave Peter a word to stand on, and when he began to sink You took hold of him at once. Take hold of me. Be in my boat. Let the wind grow tired when You are ready. Until it does, keep my eyes on Your word like a lamp in a dark place. And teach my heart, which is slow and has a callus on it, to bow down. Amen.
BREATH PRAYER
Inhale: Truly You are — Exhale: the Son of God
IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Today's Commitment
I will worship before I understand. Each morning this week I will say one true thing about who Jesus is, aloud, before I look at the day’s weather.
LEAVING AT THE CROSS
RECEIVING FROM THE CROSS
Check Yourself
According to Matthew 14:32, at what moment did the wind die down?
The Man Who Got Out of the Boat
a fisherman of Galilee, one of the twelve, in the first century
Peter was the only disciple who got out of the boat, and the only one who had to be pulled out of the lake. He would later confess Jesus as the Christ, deny knowing Him, and be restored. The second letter that bears his name is written as his farewell.
We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
LESSON FOR US
The man who looked at the wind on the water used his last letter to tell the church where to keep its attention.
Sources & Further Study
RELATED SCRIPTURES
Matthew 14:22-36
The whole night, and the landing at Gennesaret.
Mark 6:45-52
The same night, ending with hardened hearts.
John 6:16-21
At once the boat reached the shore.
Matthew 8:23-27
The earlier storm, which ended with a question.
Proverbs 30:1-4
Who has gathered the wind in His hands?
Nahum 1:2-7
His path is in the storm; a stronghold in the day of distress.
Ecclesiastes 7:13-14
In the day of adversity, see.
2 Peter 1:12-19
The tent soon to be laid aside, the eyewitnesses, and a lamp in a dark place.
FOR DEEPER STUDY
Greek: Matthew 14:32 died down is ekopasen, from kopazo, Strong’s G2869, related to kopos, toil or weariness. It occurs three times in the New Testament (Matthew 14:32; Mark 4:39; 6:51), always of the wind; the Greek Old Testament has it at Genesis 8:1 and Jonah 1:11-12. Matthew says only that the wind died down; the quiet lake in these pages is a picture drawn from that. Worshiped is prosekynesan, from proskyneo, G4352. The verb can describe homage to a human superior, so the confession that follows defines the act. Truly, alethos, opens the confession here and at Matthew 27:54, where the centurion and those with him speak. Mark 6:52 hardened is from poroo, G4456, which Thayer connects with a word for hard skin or a callus. On the authorship of Second Peter: the letter presents itself as Peter’s farewell; its authorship has been discussed since early times, and the church received it as apostolic witness. Hebrew: Ecclesiastes 7:13 and 7:14 both have the imperative re’eh, see, from ra’ah, H7200; the same verb, as a participle, describes the man who looks at the clouds in 11:4. Nahum 1:3 reads be-sufah u-vi-se’arah darko, His way is in whirlwind and storm, with derekh, H1870; slow to anger is erekh appayim, literally long of nostrils, the phrase of Exodus 34:6, from aph, H639, which means both nostril and anger. On Proverbs 30:4: the reading that hears the Son of God in Agur’s last question is an old Christian one; in its original setting the verse may simply stress that these works are God’s alone. Notes on the story and the hymn. Edwards’s storms were on land, and his narrative gives no date for the change. Edwards also held enslaved people in his household, which was a grave wrong; he is quoted here for one thing he saw in a storm and is not held up as a pattern for a life. Newton’s hymn is a general hymn of trust, headed with Isaiah 12:2; the vessel is one line of it. Sources 1. John Newton, “I will trust and not be afraid,” Olney Hymns (London, 1779), Book 3, Hymn 37. 2. Jonathan Edwards, “Personal Narrative,” in S. E. Dwight, The Life of President Edwards (Works, vol. 1, 1830), pages 60 to 62. 3. Yale and Slavery Research Project, “Jonathan Edwards,” ysrp.yale.edu/jonathan-edwards, on the people Edwards enslaved. Further: BibleProject, “Mark,” on the Gospel’s portrait of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, and of disciples who keep misunderstanding.
Finished reading? Mark this day read.
BEFORE YOU GO
Anything you want to keep from today?
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