The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they were glad to take him into the boat (John 6:18-21 ESV)
It was a dark and stormy night. The disciples were rowing across the storm-tossed waves of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had not yet calmed a storm for them, so perhaps they already would have been a little afraid from the weather. They were fishermen and knew how dangerous traveling across the Sea in a rowboat could be.
But then something REALLY scary happened. Walking on the Sea, as if it were a landscape of rolling hills instead of rolling waves, was apparently a human. I’ve always imagined Him glowing mysteriously, but there is no Biblical evidence of this.
The laws of physics were being broken right before the disciples’ eyes!
This was weird. This was crazy. They were frightened.
Jesus reaches the boat and says the most scary frightening thing. He hints that He is God. He says, “I am,” making a reference to God’s answer to Moses about who God is (Exodus 3:14.)
Jesus makes that claim quite a few times. Eventually the Jewish leaders take His hints and attempt to stone Jesus for the blasphemy of it.
I think Jesus’ disciples knew what He meant and are glad to hear it. Not only is the apparition strolling on the stormy Galilean Sea not a ghost, or a demon, or an alien, or something too strange to comprehend… but Jesus tells them that it is God Himself. The God they know and love. The God they know and trust. The God they know and believe.
What could possibly be scary when you’re hanging around in a boat with God? With Abba? With the Redeemer? With the One who had been gracious to Adam and Eve? With the One who had loved Jacob? With the One who had made little David a King? With the One who had forgiven and forgiven and forgiven?
And we can ask ourselves the same question. Only for us it is even more obvious. God Himself became man himself so that we can know that while He is holy, He is not so distant. So that we can see that He understands us. So that we can grasp that He is much more like us than the pillars of fire and smoke seems to indicate. We are hanging around in our boat with Jesus.
It is a dark and stormy night. But look! Jesus is here.
Fear not, because it is Jesus.