Matthew 14:22-33

   “He’s so full of himself he thinks he can walk on water.” “Hey, look, I’m really trying but don’t expect me to walk on water.”  Even someone who has never opened the New Testament or heard a sermon knows that “walking on water” is an idiomatic way of describing super-human or God-like abilities.  More often than not, we use the expression to knock someone down a notch.  We rarely hear it as a compliment, probably because we’ve never met anyone we’d agree is God-like. 

   We meet that person in this story in Matthew’s Gospel; that is what this passage is about. 

   The disciples’ fear is perfectly justified.  This isn’t a story condemning baseless fear; the storm is violent and the disciples could perish.  As Debie Thomas writes, “Nowhere in the Gospels are we called to prove our faith, or test God’s character, by taking pointless risks that threaten our lives. … Whether we’re talking about respecting the power of the sea during a vicious storm or heeding expert medical advice during a global pandemic, the same caution applies: recklessness is not faith, stupidity is not courage.”[i] 

   Why doesn’t Jesus just calm this storm?  The disciples witnessed Jesus perform that very miracle a few chapters back (Matthew 8:23-27), and their response was to marvel, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”  Here, instead, Matthew states that Jesus “went (elthen) to them, walking upon the sea (peripaton epi tes thālassa)” (14:25).  These very words appear in the Book of Job when God questions Job about the cosmos.  According to the Greek translation of Job, God asks Job if he ever “went upon (elthes… epi) the springs of the sea (thalāsses) or walked (periepātesas) in the recesses of the deep” (Job 38:16 Septuagint).  Earlier in the book, Job affirms that the Creator had traversed the oceans before the dawn of humanity, saying that God “stretched out the heavens and trampled on the waves of the sea” (Job 9:8).[ii]  The Gospel highlights Jesus’ choice to walk on the waves as a deliberate recollection of what God did at creation.[iii]

   Jesus hears the disciples cry out in fear when they see him, ghost-like, crossing the turbulent sea without aid of a boat.  He says to them, “Take heart.  I AM.  Do not be afraid.”  “I AM.”  Jesus does not say “I am the bread,” “I am the way,” or “I am the light of the world.”  He says the same words God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, “the bare, unfinished, unqualified I AM, the name that needs no completion because it contains everything.”[iv]  If walking on water weren’t enough to reveal who he is, Matthew’s Jesus repeats the very words of God.[v]   

   Curiously, when Peter hears Jesus’ assurances, he challenges him; he tests him.  “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28).  “If it is you …”  These words are eerily similar to the tempter’s during Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11).  But Jesus doesn’t need to prove anything, and Peter is not, “I AM.”  As much as Peter may want to emulate his teacher, he sinks beneath the waves.  He cries out, “Lord, save me!” and Jesus does.  Jesus does.

   Jesus accuses Peter of having little faith.  I don’t believe that this is because Peter failed at walking on water.  Rather, I believe it’s because Peter foolishly issued the challenge in the first place: “If it is you…”  But this story isn’t really about Peter and his faith or his lack of it.  It is about Jesus, and who he is.  As Debie Thomas notes, “Jesus never stops moving towards the ones he loves.  He never stops crossing the dark water to come to where we are.  Neither our fearfulness nor our faithlessness alters his steady approach, because we are the ones he’s bound for.”[vi]  Perhaps that becomes most obvious to us, most undeniably real to us, when we’re sinking, when we are surrounded by chaos, and most feel the need to cry out, “Lord, save me!”

    This time, “…those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (Matthew 14:33).    

© Joanne Whitt 2026 all rights reserved.      

---

[i]  Debie Thomas, “Out on the Water,” in Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories (Eugene Oregon: Cascade Books, 2022).

[ii]   Nicholas J. Schaser, “Commentary on Matthew 14:22-33,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-19/commentary-on-matthew-1422-33-6

[iii]  Zina Jacque, “Commentary on Matthew 14:22-33,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-19/commentary-on-matthew-1422-33-7

[iv]  Jacque, ibid.

[v]  Schaser, ibid.

[vi]  Thomas, ibid.