Photo by Nick Moore on Unsplash
You may have come across a song in the last few days that has been downloaded an exceptionally high number of times. I was listening to it myself when I happened to click over to the lections for today, at which point I sighed heavily in my spirit, for then, almost immediately, another song popped into my head. The words of this song that you probably have not been listening to all weekend go like this:
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown
Where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will standAnd I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours
You are mineYour grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed
And You won’t start nowSo I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours
And You are mine, oh(And you are mine, oh)
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviourSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviourSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviourSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviourSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviorSpirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my SaviourYeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
Oh, Jesus, You’re my God
I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours
And You are mineSongwriters: Salomon Ligthelm, Joel Timothy Houston, Matthew Philip Crocker.
This, my dear friends, is called “Oceans.” It’s from the Hillsong empire, and I must confess that, over the years, I have listened to it a lot, trying to figure out what it’s talking about. Several of the lines have always amused and charmed me. “My trust is without borders,” for example, and “Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.” What is it about, I always asked myself. Is someone drowning? Is the ocean good or bad? Why is it this way? Of course, reading over the gospel lesson, I finally see the obvious connection. How dumb of me not to see it before. The songwriter is clearly talking about that time when Jesus walked on the water and then Peter went out to him and then started to sink. Yeah yeah yeah.
The song makes it sound like maybe it was a fun time, like feeling the call to go on a mission trip, or to participate in some kind of fulfilling ministry opportunity (can’t think of any right now, but they must exist). Whereas the time that the disciples found themselves out “upon the water” was actually extremely stressful for all of them, you might remember if you have read the passage before. In the first place, they were utterly exhausted from ministering to a massive crowd for a long day. Jesus had taught and then decided everyone needed dinner. It would have been easier, they thought, to send the crowds away, but instead, they stayed, eating as much as they wanted.
Before that, the disciples, and Jesus himself, were heartbroken and discouraged upon hearing of the ignominious and wicked murder of John the Baptist by Herod. This was so unexpected. How could the herald of God’s own salvation be killed as a party trick? To try to go into the wilderness to grieve and rest, was the obvious thing. Having most of Galilee arrive straight on their heels needing physical food and spiritual nourishment, and then to have their Teacher and Friend not send the crowd away, but keep going all day, meant that they kept going all day. And, at the very end of it all, they were plonked in a boat and sent straight out into what turned out to be a torrential storm. This is not anyone’s idea of a good time. I wouldn’t like it. Peter didn’t like it. The other disciples didn’t like it. You wouldn’t like it. But Jesus decided that was how he was doing it.
This must be why, listening to “Oceans: over and over again, I didn’t know it was about this passage. Contextually—that is, considering the story in the context of all the stories just around it—Peter walking on the water is not an ecstatic personal Jesus moment. Not in the way we would think of it anyway.
It was, rather, a terrifying display of God’s power over nature, and over Peter himself. It was the action of God to rule over the desires and wills not just of the wind and the waves, but the unruly people whom he had called to himself to accomplish his own purposes in the world. The disciples thought one thing was going on, but God had another thought. They imagined one way of doing things, he decided to do it differently.
In other words, the text reveals something essential about what kind of God we worship, rather than functioning as a sentimental ecstatic worship experience. At the very least, I wonder if the songwriters have ever been close to drowning. Because the lyrical soupiness of the instrumentation, combined with the words, make it seem like bobbing around in a storm could be a pretty great time. I mean, who wants to have “borders” on their trust? Of course not, from the safety of your own padded seat during breaks in the worship time. Of course you want to give Jesus your all, until you find out what sort of things he’s going to ask you to do, and be, and think, and feel.
A better song to sing has been helpfully provided by Jonah. He wasn’t spiritually drowning. He was actually, literally, in his body, drowning. If you don’t believe that sometimes the Bible should be taken literally, you might miss how emotionally unnerving it would be to a person like Jonah. Not to say that you can’t also take the example of that stubborn prophet as a type. Jesus himself does. At the very least you can peer at his recalcitrance and discover that none of us really want to do what God commands, and yet God has to have mercy, bringing us each, one by one, into the depths and then drawing us each, one by one, out of the darkness to set us on the sure foundation of his perfect love. The problem is that that kind of salvation is not metaphorical enough. Too often it is alarmingly and painfully literal.
Observe how Matthew tells the story so that the visceral and painful details drag you out in “deeper waters.”
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
The first thing we must observe is that Jesus sends them off alone. I always hate this part. Sure, he’s tired. He needs to pray, but he could have sent them over the hill or something. Instead, he sends them directly into danger—on purpose:
When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.
I like that—“beaten by the waves.” That’s a horrible expression. It’s one thing when you’ve gone to the beach on purpose to stand in the surf and calmly do your yoga poses as the sun comes up. It’s quite another to be in a boat, at night, a boat that is definitely going to sink soon. Then, just when you think it’s really bad, some ephemeral and creepy ghost starts walking out to you:
And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea .But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.
The fourth watch of the night is a far cry away from the first one. It means they’ve been out there a while, trying not to perish, completely stressed and freaked out. Sometimes I like to google “stress” and read about all the bad things that happen to you when you go through sustained periods of “stress.” Apparently, it’s not very good for you. A little bit is fine, but prolonged amounts aren’t desirable. This must be why
immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
This is where someone like Jonah, so maybe Peter, shouts out across the wind and rain that it is Jesus who got him into this mess. The reason we’re afraid, O Lord God, is that you made us come here. We were quietly minding our business back on dry land, going to the Temple at regular intervals to offer our sacrifices for sin, going home again and carrying on with life as best we could, when you decided to come yourself, in the flesh, and complicate everything. You made us follow you. You made us go into the wilderness. You put us in the boat. Why shouldn’t we be afraid? This is exactly the kind of circumstance that fear was created for.
Of course, Peter doesn’t say that. He’s a better person than I:
And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
The Psalmist explains that “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood” which is a lovely way of pointing out that God is in control even of the water. Nothing about nature can go on without his direct sovereign will and power making it go. It’s not happenstance. It’s not just natural forces carrying on without any supervision. Nothing is accidental. No, God is the King and everything, even the wind and the waves, obey him.
And that’s what’s really terrifying. When God calls you to himself and makes you his own—or in the words of Hillsong, “I am yours and you are mine”—its unlikely that he will want you to spend a long time in a dark room swaying back and forth and feeling a lot of deep feelings about how much he loves you. Maybe he will. For a bit. But then he’s going to make you get in a boat, or wake up in the morning, and begin careening through the day, occasionally terrified, because of the work he is giving you to do, some of which doesn’t make sense because you can’t see the whole picture.
Following the Lord Jesus into whatever boat he happens to shove you—an ark, the Church, whichever—is both the safest and the unsafest thing you can ever do. It’s safe ultimately, of course, because you won’t perish forever. But you very well might perish in the meantime. You could be beheaded, like John. You could feel deep alienation, shame, and the horror of God being right in his mercy and you being wrong in your wrath like Jonah. You might often find yourself having to call on Jesus, literally, out loud, for help because you are in danger, physically, spiritually, and many other kinds of “llys.”
If it helps you to listen to Oceans, by all means, do so–though that brand is turning out to be a torrent of bad judgment and theology. If you think you can do it without peril, don’t let it lull you into a gentle complacency, a thought that maybe how you feel about Jesus is sufficient for the day ahead. No, it’s actually what Jesus feels about you that really matters, the complicated realization that “you”–that is the Lord–“cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me, all your waves and your billows passed over me.” You can sing “oooo oooo” or “yeah yeah yeah” here, but to me it feels incongruous. Better, like Jonah, to cry, “I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.” For indeed, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” He is the ruler and the king over it. He has the power to bring you up out of the darkest and most terrible pit. In fact, he went there himself, all the way down, not sparing his own comfort, his own dignity, his own throne, but going away from it all to grab you and bring you up.
And now I must go to church. Hope to see you there!
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